Enter Sandman...
If I've learned anything throughout these past couple of weeks it's that the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance and depression) aren't linear. I thought I would go through each stage one at a time and then see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, what I've been experiencing is a circular patter of the stages over and over and over again with no end in site. Depression has been consistent, and I find that anger and numbness are not far behind on a rotating schedule minute by minute.
I've tried a ton of self help techniques since losing my daughter, but lately, I've wanted to smash everything in sight, punch through walls and take my anger out on new moms due to jealousy. When my doula mentioned the idea of going to a rage room, I was intrigued. I needed to rage. There was a point where I looked at my Jonathan Adler vase full of sunflowers and wanted to throw it against a wall, but then I quickly thought about how much I love the vase, that sunflowers are my favorite and I wouldn't want to clean up the mess. Enter the rage room...
Of course I can take up boxing classes, which I plan on doing, but I needed to go big. Bigger than punching a bag. I wanted to smash things. I found the Wrecking Club in NYC and one of my BFFs booked us an appointment right away. They offer 15 and 30 minute sessions and a bunch of packages (even memberships). We opted to start with 15 minutes, which was plenty (there's no AC in there). In that time, the two of us were given one big electronic, in our case it was a printer, and a bucket of plates along with kegs, a dummy and other items to smash in the room. We ended up adding two more buckets of plates onto our package.
Waiver we signed...
After signing an intense waiver (see photo to left), we put our gear on, which included a hard hat with a face shield, rubber and cloth gloves, long pants, long sleeves and sneakers. Upon entering, we found a sledge hammer (my favorite), bats and crow bars leaning against the wall and a "clean" room ready to be wrecked. We had 15 minutes and I wasted not a second. With Metallica blasting, we smashed the sh*t out of everything in site and even occasionally laughed. It felt good to laugh. My main project was slamming the printer with the sledgehammer until it couldn't break any further. Smashing plates on the ground and throwing them at the wall was also incredibly rewarding. Just the sound of the smash was a victory that lead to satisfaction.
I haven't felt that alive since our tragedy happened. On days that I feel "OK," I go about my days as if in a robotic way with no feeling at all - pretty much numb. I actually felt alive in the Wrecking Club and afterwards, I felt a mental clearing – a release like no other – as if I just woke up from the dead. It may be short lived, but I know for me, it worked and would definitely go back when I need to. Talk about self help... this yogi is taking things to extremes. If you're experiencing a high level of stress, anger or just want to beat the crap out of something, I highly recommend checking out a smash room. Just make sure to leave yourself free time after to decompress from the experience.
Before and After Pics
