A bed of roses

 On Friday 31 January 2003 I had a face-to-face encounter with my deamon.  I had a horrible situation at work and, looking back, I think I had some sort of breakdown.  I didn't seek outside help - that would have meant naming things I couldn't name for myself, let alone in front of anyone else.  I did feel very exposed at work, naked almost.

But I came through it.  Instead of the fragile, brittle caddis-fly lava shell that I had been wearing, I pulled on a personal armour that more closely resembles an Amorphous Gel from Macalania Forest.  I am stronger, more resilient.  I am the me I am today because of that experience.  And because I made friends with my deamon.  With Sophie.

Sophie's origins go back to my early childhood.  My father killed himself via autoerotic asphyxiation just before my second birthday and I have no memory of him.  My mother kept going - God only knows how! - and raised me on her own.  But she never talked about him and whenever I asked about him gave me the kind of answers that made it clear she didn't want to talk about him.  In some ways, my emotional intelligence is seriously lacking, but in others it is tuned in to the point of being painful.  I pick up other people's moods very easily; I just don't know what to do with them or what I can do to change them.

So, I learned not to ask about my father.  And I learned not to show my anger, or any other emotions.  I'm sure that wasn't what my mother wanted me to do, to bottle everything up, but that was the effect.  And the more I bottled up my anger and other 'negative' emotions, the more scared I became of what would happen if I ever let them show.  And so Sophie was born.

I wasn't just afraid of her.  I was terrified.  Of her - of what she would make me do if she ever got loose.  So, I kept her chained up in the dark, alone, cut off, the part of me I denied even existed.  Even to myself.  Especially to myself.

But on that Friday, she didn't just rattle her chains, she began to tear them apart.  And if I had not begun the process of making peace with her, I have no idea what I might have become.  Not that I think I could have been violent or 'bad' - but I would have been miserable and made those around me miserable.  But that's what 'might have been'.  The important thing is to know that I faced my deamon, bathed her, brought her into the light.

During that transition, Linkin Park's 'Crawling' became very important to me.  It exactly described the way I had felt about Sophie for all those years.  Even now, I get a feeling almost of comfort from listening to it and singing along, even though it's hardly a comfortable song!  But the lyrics still resonate.  And they remind me of how far I've come.

And it seems that Chester Bennington wasn't able to shake off his own deamon.  Who knows why he took his own life?  That's between him and God.  But I am fucking grateful for him, his life, and his gift to me and Sophie.