Restriction, curfew, closed schools, teleworking …. All of this can eventually cause you to plunge into a depressed state. Or on the contrary, makes you want to explode, to destroy everything, to destroy, to shout to release your frustrations! In the United States, there are places for it: the “race rooms,” or “races”, the rooms of anger. Authorized and legal framework for violent behavior.
This California therapist offers a way to release pandemic stress in her “rage.” Customers vent their frustrations by smashing old furniture, technical devices and more pic.twitter.com/iN2L3QbFSy
- Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) February 12, 2021
In California, the concept has been around for ten years - as elsewhere in the world - but for several months, in this state which is one of the most dramatically affected by the epidemic (53,000 deaths in one year), the number of reservations has skyrocketed.
Here’s the principle: you get a disposable suit to wear your clothes, gloves, a helmet with a protective visor, and you choose your tool: hammer, sledgehammer, baseball bat or crowbar. In the room you enter there are computer screens, furniture, glasses, plates, you can set the music that makes you feel good. And you go there. Thorough!
In general, we pay according to the number of items that can be broken. In a gym in downtown Los Angeles, the starter pack is 20 minutes, to ruin some glasses, a large object and 15 of medium size. All for $ 80. With accessories, computer towers or boxes of crockery. Even a pinata for the festive side if it’s your birthday. The highlight is the “car crash”: for $ 750 you can get together and go for a car for an hour. Nothing prevents you from noticing the word “coronavirus” or “telework” on the windows as you prepare to explode, if you ever need extra motivation. You can even go with a souvenir T-shirt.
Is it purely anecdotal? To listen to the leaders of these rooms, who exploit the surrounding climate of sinistrose, this framed destructive rage has therapeutic virtues.
After the coronavirus is done and we can get out of the house again, I take the girls on a family trip to a rage. We need to break shit. pic.twitter.com/M4VffADQIj
- Whatever Puto (@whateverputo) April 20, 2020
Surely when you break down, you feel lighter … But this release is just a temporary emotional explosion, which will not solve much - and will not stop you from undergoing restrictions again if the epidemic returns to your home country. Some psychologists even find the method counterproductive for people with aggressive tendencies.
Regardless, the concept is attracting more and more followers, including in France (from Drôme to Hauts-de-France via Paris!)
#Little : Le Défouloir, the first “fury room” in Hauts-de-France, opens its doors ► https://t.co/btRzH8nqtC @ LeDfouloir2 #FuryRoom pic.twitter.com/mKc0goPsUD
- France 3 Nord (@ F3nord) July 4, 2018