Therapy today. Poured out my recent thoughts about not being able to access the support network I had. Talked about being afraid to really talk about what I feel inside because I am convinced that my darkness will devour people and that there is nobody who could survive it.
But that got me thinking about how true that really is. It certainly feels true, and that’s valid and significant. And it’s certainly healthy for me to express such emotional truths.
And it’s not entirely based on my own emotion. I have seen people’s look of animal panic and dismay, as if the ground below them had turned to quicksand, when I crack open my cabinet of shadows and let one out to play
Unsurprisingly. they then want to get the fuck away from this sweet guy who suddenly turned into an evil wizard. And even those that don’t flee, like my therapist, get that hunted look in their eyes.
He rallied after that and has now told me over and over again that I can share whatever I need to share and that he can handle it.
But I know what I saw.
So this feeling that noboby can withstand exposure to my actual darkness is not entirely delusional. I have seen the effect I can have on people.
Why is this? It probably has a lot to do with having a very intense personality that can project emotion very strongly while also using my verbal skills to mold and shape those emotions into words that evoke emotion all the harder and make that emotion penetrate deeply into people’s minds.
That’s delightful when I am being funny and charming but when I am expressing my depressing negative thoughts, it can be downright toxic.
Hey, I never promised every trip would be a good one.
But given how very limiting this fear of hurting others with my real emotions can be, it’s worth examining it in detail to see if it’s really as bad as I think.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. If it isn’t, then great, I am then cleared to let loose in some appropriate forum without worrying about destroying someone’s soul.
And if it really is as bad as I think, maybe there is some way I can express all this dark crap in a way that makes it someone’s choice whether or not to risk annihilation.
Poetry comes to mind. Or horror stories.
To start with, I have never seen, read, heard, or otherwise experienced any media that has come even close to expressing my level of darkness. As far as I know. anything I make from these sticky shadows of mine will be uniquely potent.
So the question is, can I live with myself if I unleash something like that on the world?
I could be glib and say “Hey, it’s just words!’, but that would be disgustingly disengenuous. As a writer, I am all too aware of how much words can hurt, so I can’t very well pretend that I had no idea mine could do such damage.
And I return. With aching joints. Feels like I am having some kind of full body inflammatory response to something or other – who knows what.
I will take my second Aleve of the day, and soldier on for you good people who show me the ultimate kindness by actually reading the silly words that I write.
Now where was I. Oh right, the moral implications of putting the full force of my dank and desperate darkness into my writing and thus unleashing fresh havoc on an unsuspecting and largely undeserving public.
As long as it’s in a written form and in a place where one might expect to encounter such materials, I don’t see a moral problem with it. Not a real one anyhow.
I mean, part of me insists that my words are especially deadly and destructive and therefore I bear a special moral burden to do no harm with them, but that is probably just the depression talking.
It wears a lot of different masks,. but in the end, it’s always the same old game.
It does make me wonder, however, if the likes of Clive Barker or Stephen King ever wondered about what responsibility they bore for the effecrt their words had on people.
Probably not. They probably do not have my overdeveloped sense of responsibility and figured that people can look after their own sanity and that nothing they could write could do lasting harm to the average sane adult human.
Plus, I think at this point I need to remind myself that there’s a big difference between the damage my darkness wants to do and the damage it can do.
Sure, there is a raving beast-man inside me that wants to scream KKND{{1]} and tear into all human targets in order to externalize its howling pain.
But for all I know, when it actually gets out into the world, it will be brushed aside like a rambunctious kitten and all my sound and fury will signify nothing.
What if it’s the worse case scenario, though : that unleashing my demons really will hurt the fuck out of a lot of people.
Would I still do it?
The sad truth is : yes. Yes I would. My only worry would be getting away with it. If I could transfer my demons to someone else against their will, I think I would.
I am tired of being the cage for these demons. I am sick of putting the safety of others ahead of my own well being. I no longer wish to babysit monsters and play nursemaid to horror beyond understanding.
I want to be clean, damn it, and if that means dumping my toxins into someone else’s back yard under the cover of night, so be it.
One way or another, I am going to be healthy.
If if I have a make other sick to do it.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.
[[1]] Kill Krush And Destroy [[1]]