Cabin Pressure

It started with a flicker - 

a flutter in the chest,

like a bird startled mid-flight

by something unseen.

A quiet line, a casual hum,

a conversation that meant nothing - 

and everything.

The way smoke means fire

when you’ve been burned before.

I sat down,

heart wrapped in thorns,

lungs forgetting how to be generous.

The air turned traitor,

my mind unspooled,

and still - 

no one noticed the emergency

behind my eyes.

Is this what we do now?

Whisper our beliefs like confessions,

check the room for safety

before daring to exist?

I’ve been here before - 

where truth made people twitch,

where pain was a faux pas,

and silence

was sold as grace.

I learned then

to shrink in the name of peace,

to fold my voice

like laundry no one wants to wear.

But lately,

the world feels full of red pens -

editing out the inconvenient,

correcting tone

instead of listening to the story.

And here I am,

in the aisle of a place,

in the margins of a culture,

in the echo of every time

I was told to hush.

PTSD doesn’t knock politely.

It crashes through like a clumsy god,

toppling shelves I thought were sturdy.

It isn’t always logical - 

just loud.

Unapologetically loud.

But I am louder now.

Not in volume - 

in truth.

In refusing to disappear.

In reclaiming a space

that was never a privilege, 

but a right.

So no, 

I won’t dilute myself

to fit your comfort.

I won’t redact my heart

for polite conversation.

I will sit in my truth,

no matter how cramped the seat.

Because silencing people isn’t debate

It’s the fast lane to fear, and division, and hate.

And me? I’ve survived too much to play small - 

I’ll keep speaking up, for myself - and for all.

______________________________ _____________ __________________________________

Return To Discomfort

I’ve been here before.

Not in this exact moment, not with this exact trigger - but I recognize the terrain. It’s familiar in the worst way. The air here is heavy. It’s laced with the same ache and unease that I thought I had finally outgrown, finally walked away from. It’s the uneasy, disorienting fog of PTSD. And this time, it’s not a person or a past event dragging me back. It’s the world around me - the noise, the rhetoric, the judgment, and the suffocating silence that follows when I dare to speak.

The current political climate feels like a pressure cooker of emotion. Rage, fear, blame, and accusation boil over daily. I understand that people are scared. I’m scared too. But what I didn’t expect was the way this fear would turn inward - how it would begin to erode the fragile sense of safety I‘ve spent years rebuilding. And how, once again, I’d find myself muted - not with literal tape, but with rejection, dismissal, and the persistent, gnawing sense that my voice is not welcome.

I feel erased.

When I speak about things that matter to me - values, convictions, personal truths - I don’t expect everyone to agree. I never have. But I did hope to be heard. I hoped to be met with curiosity, or at least respect. I believed, perhaps naively, that civil discourse still had a seat at the table. That differences of opinion weren’t grounds for dehumanization.

I’m learning, painfully, that this is not always the case.

What I experience now is not healthy debate. It’s not respectful disagreement. It’s exile. The moment I voice a thought that doesn’t align with the prevailing narrative of the people around me, I’m labeled, shunned, shut down. I don’t just become someone with a different point of view - I become the problem. An inconvenience. A threat. And sometimes worse.

That feeling - of shrinking in a room, of wanting to claw your words back, of wondering if you’ve just cost yourself a friend, or a safe space, or a place you once belonged - that’s a familiar kind of wound. And it’s one I’ve fought so long to close. 

Because this isn’t the first time my truth has made others uncomfortable.

As a survivor of sexual assault, I lived this pattern before. I learned very young that my pain was too loud for others to hear. That the mention of what I’d gone through made people wince, turn away, change the subject. Not because they were cruel, necessarily. But because they didn’t know what to do with it. My trauma didn’t fit into their worldview. It didn’t make them feel good, or safe, or in control. So they distanced themselves from it - and from me.

What I learned from that silence was devastating. I learned that some truths - especially inconvenient, unsettling ones - are treated like contaminants. That if you speak them aloud, you risk becoming untouchable. And for years, I internalized that. I stayed quiet. I kept the peace. I bit my tongue. I swallowed the pain. And it nearly destroyed me.

Eventually, I fought my way back. I found my voice again, slowly and painfully. I gave myself permission to speak, to exist, to take up space without apology. I started healing - not just from what happened to me, but from what came after: the rejection, the minimization, the cruel quiet that followed every attempt to be heard.

And now, it feels like that cycle is reawakening.

Only this time, the subject isn’t assault. It’s not even something deeply personal. It’s politics. It’s ideology. It’s worldviews. It’s the increasingly volatile nature of public discourse, where people seem to listen less and attack more. And yet, the emotional impact feels eerily similar.

Because once again, I find myself measuring my words.

Pausing before I speak.

Wondering if this opinion - this thought, this question, this feeling - is safe to say out loud.

Once again, I am shrinking.

A few weeks ago, I had a panic attack. It came on suddenly without warning as I boarded a flight home from visiting my daughter. I got to my seat, and a very visceral and sharp panic took over my body. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My eyes welled with tears, and I was on the cusp of breaking apart, right there in row 12. But I couldn’t figure out why. Was I afraid the plane would crash? Was I feeling sad about leaving my daughter? I grasped at every possible reason, but nothing landed.

So, I focused on my breath. I worked had to stay calm. I counted. I distracted myself. I did the things that years of therapy have taught me to do when my nervous system betrays me. Eventually, the wave passed, and I chalked it up to post-travel exhaustion, a tender goodbye, or maybe just the stress of the world lately.

It wasn’t until my therapy session the next day that the reason became clear.

I had forgotten, until I sat across from my therapist, about the overheard conversation I’d stood near while waiting to board. Two people, casual in tone, were discussing Canadian politics (this was shortly before the election). One of them said - very simply - that he felt the only way to help Canada move forward in a safe and reasonable capacity was for the Conservatives to get back into leadership for a while. The person beside him audibly gasped. Their jaw literally dropped.

That was it. That was the moment. My body registered what my mind didn’t: that it’s not safe to hold or express certain views. That to suggest something outside of the dominant narrative is met not just with disagreement, but with visible, visceral shock. As if it’s unfathomable. As if it’s offensive to even consider.

And somehow, even though I wasn’t the one who said it, my body responded. 

The fear showed up.

The shame.

The panic.

The memory of being “too much” for people, or saying something that makes the room go cold.

That was the trigger. Not the words themselves, but the reaction.

The reaction that said: How could you even think like that?

And just like that, I was back in a familiar place - one I’ve spent years trying to escape. 

The place where voices are dangerous.

The place where truth, even tentative and personal, must be kept quiet.

And I’m not okay with it.

I’m not okay with how easily people now write each other off.

I’m not okay with the smug certainty that shuts down conversation before it begins.

I’m not okay with the social penalties attached to honest, thoughtful disagreement.

And most of all, I’m not okay with being made to feel like my lived experiences, my values, and my hopes for this country are shameful. That I should say nothing. That I should stay small.

Canada, to me, has always been more than just a flag or border. It’s been a place where people can coexist in difference. Where we say sorry even when we’re not sure why, because kindness matters more than ego. Where diverse ideas - political, religious, cultural, can sit at the same dinner table.

But lately, that Canada feels like it’s slipping through my fingers. And I mourn it. 

I mourn the loss of nuance.

I mourn the loss of respect.

I mourn the way fear has been weaponized and used to shut people down instead of pulling people in.

Because I’ve been shut down before.

And it nearly destroyed me.

I will not go quietly again.

I am not looking for pity, or applause, or consensus. I’m looking for humanity. I’m looking for people who are willing to admit they might not know everything. I’m looking for a return to discomfort - not as a threat, but as a doorway. A place where we can walk together and still disagree, and still care, and still trust that we all want a better world, even if we differ on how to get there.

What I know for certain is this:

I may be scared, but I will still speak.

I may be judged, but I will not vanish.

I may be told my voice is unwelcome, but I will not surrender it.

Because silence - forced silence - isn’t peace. It’s a prison.

And I didn’t survive everything I’ve survived just to build myself another cage.

If you’re reading this and nodding - thank you. You’ve reminded me I’m not alone. If you’re reading this and bristling - thank you, too. You’ve proven I’m still brave enough to be honest.

And if you’re reading this and unsure how to respond, I invite you to sit with that feeling. Not everything needs to be resolved in a comment section. Sometimes, all that’s needed is presence.

Real healing starts when someone says, I see you, and I’m not turning away.

That’s what I hope for more of.

Not agreement. 

Just presence.

Just willingness.

Just humanity.

Ⓒ May 2025. Beki Lantos. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author.