“My heart and my trust were in the process of collapsing. And that collapse created a vacuum in my chest.”

“I pretended not to notice him. Not because I had anything against him, but because my heart and my trust were in the process of collapsing. And that collapse created a vacuum in my chest. Like every nerve in my body was withering in, pulling away from my fingers and toes. Pulling back and disappearing.”

“I sat. And I thought. And the more I thought, connecting the events in my life, the more my heart collapsed.”

“GOODY. MY SPLEEN IS COLLAPSING. HURRY UP.”

“So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.”

“The holding up against collapse often appears in the shoulders and upper back (Lowen, 1975). Some tensions develops there to resist the tendency to collapse. The collapse in the chest is compensated for with considerable hardness in the chest area, which is one of the structure's telltale signs. A subtle expression of low energy in the eyes and mouth is often seen. Frequently, the jaw is retracted, giving the appearance of being "weak”