Twenty months after it began, Landon's screaming stopped. Sure, he still did it occasionally (and he mimics it to this day when he wants to piss me off) but the day-in, day-out stuff stopped and I didn't scream back at him anymore, didn't want to blow my head off anymore, didn't find insanity attractive anymore. 

Chicken or egg? Did my anxiety end when the screaming stopped, or did the screaming stop because I––who no doubt provoked a good proportion of Landon's vocal outbursts with my unbelievably unhealthy response to it––worked through some shit and finally let him be?

It was a confluence of many factors, like all things. Landon outgrew it. I prayed a lot––I know you atheists won't like this––for a better relationship with my baby boy, and it happened. I got used to managing the noise, in part by renting an office outside the house where I could work in relative quiet. 

But to say it merely stopped is a huge oversimplification that glosses over two facts:

1) The skeletons that partied day and night in the vestibule of my soul are real, and I had to get to know them;

2) I still struggle every day with all the problems that the battle of my life exposed, though with some confidence now that I don't have to fall victim to them. 

Two facts I twist myself around, and twist around myself, every day.