I’ve decided that night time often is the worst time of day for me. How cliché – the worst comes with the darkness. I don’t like the dark. I’m sat in it now, with the dim light of my laptop illuminating my typing fingers and not much else. I try to familiarise myself with it, to know that I’m safe in my room when it’s dark just as much as when there is light.
I don’t know why this fear came back. Honestly, I do not understand, I got over my fear of the dark when I was a kid… but this past year or so, it’s just come back, with a vengeance. I don’t know… it’s like there are things in the dark, that are just waiting for me, and I don’t know what they are, or what they want. Like.. the monsters in my head spill out and come to life when it’s dark – they are exactly like thoughts, I can never see them but I feel their presence. I know they are there but if I try to touch them they will disappear. Always lingering. Never seeing. It’s so human to be afraid of the unknown, isn’t it? I’ve always hated not knowing.
I guess I could blame it on horror movies and games? I have an odd sort of fascination with the horror genre – I hate watching and playing, but I am oddly intrigued by the dark and often twisted backstories – urban legend, creepypasta’s, top ten lists. Really just gruesome fuel for the imagination, I really should stop. But I like to know what is real, and what isn’t. But sometimes I can’t decide if what I’m reading is true or not.
The fear though, I know that’s real. It’s a crippling fear… god, it’s so cold. It paralyses me. Locks me down in my own body so I can’t move, I can’t speak, I struggle to breathe. It doesn’t happen often, thank goodness. But when it does my body isn’t my own, I’m trapped in a lifeless, icy rock and I can’t move for the fear. The warmth from my body will just.. leave, suddenly, it’s what I remember most of all. The cold.
My mind will whisper all the things that could happen to me, of all the things out to get me, that I deserve what’s lurking in the dark… that I should embrace it and let it take me away. I am irrational in these times, and it’s only when I fall to sleep in a terrified, fitful exhaustion that I get peace once more. In the wake of the morning light I laugh at myself for being so silly.Things aren’t out to me in the dark, because I have woken up in my room safe every morning. I’ve been in all sorts of darkness and I’ve always come out safe, I am alive. But then there is always that thought. Do I want to be alive?
It’s been a day of up’s and downs today, for me. I met up with my ex-boyfriend for a friendly chat, and it was… nice and awful at the same time. He told me about his girlfriend, and how her family are so open, and how he’s been invited on holiday abroad with them next year – even though they’ve only been together for a couple of months. He was never comfortable with my family, not really – and I wasn’t with his. They were friendly enough on the surface and I believed them to be good people but.. I felt like I was being judged… I didn’t quite fit in their posher than thou lives.
My ex’s girlfriend isn’t very well right now, and I feel bad for her because she’s actually my friend – she’s going into hospital and my ex is going to look after her when she’s bedridden. He cares about her. I’m happy for him yet… I feel this sickness inside when he talks about her. I don’t feel that way for him anymore, I believe that with all my heart. I love him in a way I want him to be happy, maybe like a brother? I just… I don’t know – he found someone else so quickly and I’m left alone. Maybe I’m petty and jealous? I don’t want to be this way but I am.
I am this way about the dark, about being alone, about twisted backstories and about him. I just.. am this way. This is me. It’s not all I am, but it’s parts of me that… I wish I could change. It’s not the darkest part of me, because that lies in my brain, never in slumber but never fully awake – it’s just one little collection of thoughts that feeds off my mind like a parasite, that takes my fear and my hate for myself and my sadness and twists it around into a want. Sometimes it feels like a need. Like I need to get off this earth. I need to disappear. But that’s just that way I am.
TheStranger17
2 comments
Just like you, my worst times come mainly during the night. We are alone, we feel distance from others. It’s a horrible reality to live in, but it’s one we made for ourselves. I have a fixation on all things horror genre as well. It’s not healthy, but there it is. I hate it, but it’s something I could never truly let go of. That paralyzed feeling you get, you feel cold, you can’t breathe, you get frozen to the spot, it’s not common but not completely uncommon as well. If that makes any sense at all. The darkness, it holds all of our demons. Our worst fears, our realizations, our hopes, our light. It captures the good and lets out the evil, and it consumes us. As for how you feel since you’ve seen your ex, maybe it’s not so much as jealous as that you see how happy he is and you know that it’s because of someone else. I’m sorry to say that, it sounds harsh yes, but don’t think of it as being petty. Jealousy, maybe. We all get jealous now and then, it’s human nature. We feel this way because we still care about certain people, or at least that’s what our hearts tell us, and we want them to be happy. Or the closest to happy that one person can get. This probably doesn’t help you at all, but trust me, I’ve been there. I’ve known what it’s like to have that crippling fear come out and take control of your life. Or having seen an ex and see how happy they are without you. It’s a horrible feeling. People say the only thing that helps us is to talk, maybe that is true, maybe it’s not. If you ever want to reach out, I’m here.
It’s true, as others have said, you do write well. You’re yet another person on this site whose post I found interesting and well-written enough to inspire me to read their other posts as well. No, you don’t get a medal for that though, unfortunately. If only I had the power to give out recognized medals to random people at will, huh? Maybe I could send a box of cookies instead, that would do just as well, I think. If a gift of cookies from a stranger from who-knows-where was a viable thing to accept, that is. Seeing as you seem rather meticulous about your health that probably would not be a good idea anyways, regardless of who the sender is.
I don’t know why I felt the need to go on that little rant there, but anyway. Your posts have been pretty relatable for me for the most part. Particularly with the love of writing, and the difficulties fitting into a set and defined group and sticking with it, the feeling of being alone in who you are, that there seems to be no one like you. So far in my life I have met only a single person that I would consider to be “like me”. My “best friend”, and as lucky as I feel for at least having him to relate to, it has still always bothered me that the people who are “like me” are seemingly so rare, so far and in-between. It’s a lonely feeling. I realize that makes me sound like a pretentious bastard with a superiority complex, but it’s not really a matter of being superior, just…. different.
As for the fear of darkness…. well, night and the early hours of the morning have always been my favorite times of the day, but, then again, usually all the lights are on, haha. If I was in an older time, with only candlelight to illuminate the dark, I’m sure I would have dreaded each night and welcomed the dawn. It’s no wonder so many “creatures of the night” were come up with in those times. We can’t help but be fascinated and frightened by the unknown.
Anyways, I’ll wrap this up here, since this comment is getting to be way too long. When I start writing, sometimes I have trouble not just rambling on endlessly. But I don’t think you’ll blame me for that.