It's hard to fight off something that lives inside your head. It's kind of like a shadow that crops up when it feels like, preying on silence and the calm hours of the night. Sometimes it appears in a shape, with a name to be called by. Other times it's just a dark entity that weighs on your emotions and your thoughts. These times are the most maddening, because there is no way to fix something that can't even be named. But that doesn't mean it isn't there. It sits on top of everything in your mind, making you doubt everything – thoughts, feelings, people, and yourself. Sometimes the monster can be soothed or quieted by a friend, but it won't go away merely by the presence of a companion. It is far more cunning than that. Sometimes the monster is satisfied by pain, or the warm drip of blood, coerced into escape by the cool end of a silver blade. But even that is not enough on the nights when the shadow is particularly hungry. It sits on your thoughts constantly, making you fear even simplicities such as quiet nights, loneliness, or the idea of sleep.
Sometimes it presents itself in other ways; sudden anger or fear; sleeplessness or hatred. It makes it hard to be around most people and excruciating to be away from others – eliciting equally tears, yelling, or a certain reluctance to speak. It has ruined my relationships, and strengthened others. Sometimes it chooses to hurt me in other ways – creating a hammer in my head that cannot be dampened. But this is not as bad as the other type of pain. Not many people understand such a concept; of having a monster that exists solely in the mind. One could think of it as crazy, or not, but the truth in the matter is that it is simply there; waiting to be chased away by a protector that I have not yet met.
It is sometimes easy to forget which part of me is real; the part dominated by the shadow or those glorious instances when it has decided to go away. Sometimes I want to be alone but others I just wish that someone would grab on to me and never let go again. It changes by the month, the week, the day, the hour. The shadow blocks any sort of light in the future. No hope means no future; I can't explain how difficult that makes it to hold on on the nights when no one is there to catch me.
My protector still remains hidden. There are days when I feel like they've come out of the darkness and shown themselves to me – days when I feel safe. But those moments are blocked by the shadow, the dark mass reminding me that one day my protector will go away as well. But its efforts are becoming more and more futile with each moment of contentment that I am given. Perhaps someday soon I can fight off the creature that lives inside my mind. Or perhaps one day I will control it; live with it. I'd like to think that it is something I can do on my own, but lately I've been wondering if it would be easier with help. All I really know is that the shadow scares me.
I wake up each morning with a question in my mind: will today be good, or bad? The latter answer makes it easy to remain in bed for the day. I don't often feel like dealing with the people around me. Of course that doesn't mean that I don't have a good days; days when everything feels okay. I'll even take an hour or two of good, in trade for the darkness. I'm beginning to learn what chases the creature away – if only momentarily. In while or so, I might be able to make it go away completely.
I don't know anything for now, but I'm keeping my eye out for my protector, and I hope they're coming soon…
…because part of me thinks they just might have done so already.