You might be projecting the putative "crippling anxiety" into her words. I think she was trying to write something worth reading, and so naturally dramatized her story a bit. I thought it was well-written, displaying a healthy level of self-observation and satisfying developmental progress for the length of the piece.
"But let me assure you, this conceptual poet was digging his nails into my heart—he knew it, and, five minutes later, I suddenly felt it too—which led to a week and a half of fuming in bed, unable to sleep, my declaring this man my enemy, the reconceiving of a magazine article I was writing in such a way as to include a subtextual layer that would annihilate conceptual poetics, a week and a half of going out every night and talking through the insult with each of my friends—what am I even saying? It took leaving the continent for the insult to finally recede into the background of my days, and for me to regain my equilibrium."
---
"And then . . . I destroyed it. I met someone and then another person and before I knew it, all the chaos of life came back, along with all my self-doubt and anxiety and fear."
I dunno, I read it as her just being dramatic for effect, but you could be right. I am skeptical that someone truly this anxious would willingly share such intimate thoughts with us.
You can say that about any piece though: "I dont think the author meant what he said". At some point we have to stop second guessing and discuss what was said, not what we think the author wanted to say. At the very least discussing the actual content is certainly not off-topic. :)
