The dark has a name...

It has been a while since I put any words in this space. Time ran down hill, silencing my voice and making each new day a trembling, fearful clinging onto smiles and common place conversations. As always happens, I have found some firm ground to stand on once more, and as always I have to believe that this time I have found a continent of dry land, not another small island.

This place is neither safe nor comfortable. The earth heaves and spits out fire unexpectedly. So far I have managed to keep my balance. Just. My need to control the elements persists and I wear myself out building walls. Walls that I am beginning to understand keep the dark in, rather than shutting it out.

J. is a good counsellor although there are times when I wish I was never to see her again. And times when Friday morning cannot come quickly enough. Some times I am barely able to heal the fractures in my defences before they begin to crumble once again.

It was during one of these assaults that I learned the name. The dark has a name.

Anger.

Rage.

Fear.

All of those things melted together like the wax from candles. At last, after all these years I know its name. More than that, I know what it looks like.

This dark monster that has haunted, poisened, crippled my life for so long is a child. A frightened, angry child who lashes out. Lashes out at herself. The dark is not behind me, nor beside me. It is inside me.

The child is me.