With a gut-wrenching wail that rippled from her body, Amber Walcker joined about a dozen screaming people in Seattle, in the US state of Washington, who let their frustrations float away over the water.
It was just the start. The two group screams that followed, each one longer and more intense, released the pain from Walcker’s recent job loss. Her added stress from raising two young children dissolved, and a deep sense of calm descended upon her.
“I had such a sense of
feeling grounded. In that same moment, all your senses are heightened,” Walcker says. “From then on out, I was hooked.”
That day in September was the first meeting of Seattle’s chapter of Scream Club, one of 17 chapters that have popped up in less than a year around the United States, including in Texas, Tennessee, Georgia and Michigan.
The first chapter, in Chicago, began as a result of a couple’s rough patch.