The Flame That Freed Me & Haunted Me | Geeta Beshra

I was overwhelmed. Too many emotions at once, tangled, refusing to settle.

“Letting go of the attention I never got.
Letting go of the attention I never wanted.
Letting go of the attention I craved for.”

The words spun in my head like an echo chamber. Heavy. Unbearable. My chest ached with weight I couldn’t release.

Unusual for me — tears didn’t come. Me, who cries at the slightest shift, whether joy or grief. But that day, nothing. Only dizziness, a lump lodged in my throat, nausea pressing at my stomach. I even tried to throw up, just to get rid of… something. Anything. But nothing came out.

The heaviness only grew. Breathless. Restless.
I sat at my desk, laptop open, staring blankly. My legs kept shaking under the desk, desperate to spill out what my body refused to let go of. I tried to yawn — an old trick to ease the suffocation — but even that betrayed me.

And then I noticed it.

The lighter.

I don’t know whose it was. I don’t know why it sat there, waiting. But I reached for it without a single thought. A flick, a flame, and suddenly — my right hand was pressing, burning into the center of my left palm.

Relief.

The kind I had never known. Swift. Consuming. All the heaviness dissolved as if the fire had swallowed it whole. I felt light. Free. Almost… happy.

It was addictive.

Soon, I placed two candles on my desk, their flames glowing beside my laptop. My private ritual. Each time the weight returned, I pressed my palms into the fire until relief washed over me again. For three days, I lived like this. Until my next therapy session.

I told her everything. Excitedly, even. How my father’s death didn’t stir me. How a stranger’s presence pierced me more than I wanted to admit. How a man’s indifference left me unseen, unwanted. And how, in the midst of it all, the flame had become my only cure.

She went silent.

Then, softly: “I don’t know what to say. I just want to travel to your place and give you a hug. Can you please promise me one thing — don’t harm yourself. Do anything, absolutely anything that makes you happy instead.”

That word “HARM” stung.

Because to me, it wasn’t harm. It was freedom. A release. The one thing that finally worked when nothing else did. I hadn’t realized until she said it: my relief was also destruction. And then I felt coming to my normal self, where I broke down.

She kept me talking. “How’s your sleep? How’s your appetite? Are you getting any nightmares?” Her voice anchored me, though I could barely process her words. The session stretched beyond its time, but she didn’t leave.

At one point, I pulled the headband from my hair and exhaled deeply. She said, “Thank you for removing that burden from your head.”

And then she insisted, “Call someone. Right now. Sit beside someone you trust.”

I resisted. I never share. I never call. But eventually, I dialed my best friend. Still crying, I handed the conversation to my therapist. Their voices intertwined.

“I’ve heard so much about you. All good things,” she told him. “But for now, I need you to check on her. Twice a day. Every day.”

He agreed. Politely. Firmly. And she finally breathed easier.

I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours. I was tired. I wanted to sleep. But my work was slipping. My manager had already noticed: “What used to take you an hour now takes three days — and still comes out sloppy.” I broke down during that call. I had never been this unproductive, this unravelled.

My therapist pointed out the obvious — I was breaking under the weight of it all. And she told me to step back. To pause.

So I did.

For two days, I cleared everything that could tempt me. The lighter, the candles, gone. I scrubbed my room clean as if I were scrubbing my soul.

And for a moment, it felt lighter. Almost safe. Almost.

But here’s the thing about relief — once you’ve tasted it, your body remembers.

Even now, when the heaviness returns, I sometimes wonder: what’s easier — waiting for tears that may never come, or reaching for the flame I swore I’d abandoned?