Not getting better is not always problematic

There's something I have to admit, even though I'd rather not. It's not something someone can understand who hasn't been through it, although I've heard it a few times from others.

I don't really want to get better. Not at this point in my life, at least.

I think of the aesthetic that's surrounded me for a few years now since my CPTSD symptoms finally came out. It's been a chronic experience of darkness, shadow man hallucinations, obsessions with liminal spaces, trauma memories, and nightmares, although the nightmares aren't anything new. I've had a nightmare disorder since I was an infant having night terrors in my crib.

Dark things paint my life in many ways, and it's familiar. The depression is familiar. The fear is familiar. The creeping eeriness of something lurking in the shadows is familiar. Isolation and shutting out the world is familiar. It's all like home.

When I think about having better days and a future without this darkness, I become anxious. That's not where my soul is, and it feels foreign. For an entire life so far — 33 years — I've not known the light. I've had small moments of peace, but I can't recall them very well. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't been born with a lack of oxygen, leading to a near-death experience where I rested on the edge of life in the NICU for almost a month. I've mulled over what kind of life I might have had if I hadn't lived through repeated traumas at the hands of others.

I'm not sure I'd have been a creative person without my shadows. The darkness makes me think and philosophize on life and its meaning, and my dark spirituality keeps me enveloped in a cool, comforting blanket reminiscent of the cold cosmos we all come from. I shaped the trauma into something that's bearable in the only way I knew how, and I've attracted beings who help.

My nightmares and hallucinations intrigue me and I write to explore them in ways I wouldn't have known otherwise. There's a whole other side of reality I explore in altered mental states from dissociation and mental illness I would have never known. They're all so deeply fascinating once the initial terror has receded enough.

I'm intrigued by all of it. The thought of losing it or leaving it behind for the light is scarier than the things that lurk in the dark that I'm still frightened of.

Maybe it's the presence of my alter Vexis, who was suspected to have been integrated with me since infancy, only later to split with me in 2021. Their story is a disturbing one, and they are born from the stygian darkness itself. They help me understand and accept the darker parts of myself that concern the others — Zagan Lestan, Byleth, and Darokin who are spirit guides of mine. Vexis would never let me come to irreparable harm, though. They (Vexis) need me around to be here, after all.

Admitting I like this darkness will disappoint others in my life. The goal is to get better, after all, not continue to live with this shroud over my life. With it comes many risks; self-harm, suicidal thoughts that visit often and in the background — since I was a kid. I isolate and rarely leave my house, more so nowadays than ever. I am stuck here in this mental illness that has become home, and I'm not exactly eager to leave anymore. The fight is too exhausting.

It's not that I want to give up on life. I also realize it's difficult for those around me to deal with the darkest days, and the few in my life who have grown close to me are saddened by how dark my mind can get. I don't want them to be.

This is just life at this point. It was a slow destiny that crept up over the years, and I tried to ignore it and stuff it down because I wanted to live a life others expected. You're expected to work towards being mentally healthy, and you're supposed to leave behind the darkness.

That's like asking me to give up oxygen. It's the comfort food of my mind that I'm addicted to. Without it, I feel incomplete. Empty. I did not get to form a sense of self without it. My entire being is created from it, and if you remove the trauma and the darkness, I'm not me anymore but someone else I have to create from scratch, and I don't want to be someone else.

I have self-awareness and understand my symptoms and what they can do. I know what's right and what's wrong, and when to question what needs to be questioned. I know what's harmful and what isn't, and I can recognize problematic behavior toward others and correct it. I have a great understanding of my mental illnesses and what I need. Not getting better does not always mean problematic. It means I'm disabled by my illnesses and this is just how my mind works.

I want to be me. I want to be here with my head family — my alters and spirit guides — and I want to explore deeper into my nightmares and everything that literally makes me tick.

I want to roll back over and pull up this black void-like blanket, and I want to continue to ponder the meaning of everything. It's more real to me than fitting into an acceptable mold.

©2022 Shane Blackheart