Ask Baba Yaga: I Know I’m Lashing Out and I Can’t Stop, It Feels Too Good

Transcript after the jump.

Dear Baba Yaga,

Lately I have been poisonous. The smallest thing can provoke me to cruelty. I have been like this in the past and have worked on gradually learning to calm myself and choose kindness, but in the past few weeks I’ve been lashing out at my partner and my friends alike. I know I’m doing it and can’t stop; it feels too good. How do I stop attacking those I love?
BABA YAGA:

What you are — fiending; is to give out kindness & dole out cruelty, & these hills & valleys you so make are what keep you, exalted in yrself in yr nastiness & in yr niceness. But neither nastiness nor niceness lives in love, and you) are not seeing the landscape of yrself. ;Who you hurt mostly is yrself: what you do to others is slight compared to the strange doings within yrself. Leave them far alone & look to all yr lands & forests, for there are so many of them, & you know them so hardly, & every of their shapes has its glory, & when you see them you will love them, for you will have no; other choice.

Previously: “I Am a Practical Adult Who Can No Longer Feel Wonder”

Taisia Kitaiskaia is a poet, writer, and Michener Center for Writers fellow. She’s taking questions on behalf of Baba Yaga at [email protected].