Earlier this month, I was tagged in this video by Nick Carlson, author of Hell's Gulf. The publisher he released this novel under, Temple Dark Books, has started a campaign called "Channel The Dark"; an initiative benefitting SOSAD Ireland, a mental health awareness organization operating in its titular country. As you can read on the page, it is an event built around encouraging writers to speak about how writing benefits mental health culminating with releasing an anthology contributed to by a variety of Speculative Fiction authors, with all proceeds going to SOSAD Ireland. It is a great cause and one dear to me. No one deserves to be left to fend for themselves in the darkness.
I feel like writing helps me to get my mind in order. When my mouth fails to form the words I desperately need to get out, maybe even scream out, writing them down is a way of expressing them thoroughly without the social awkwardness of blowing out my voice box at a soccer mom couponing through her 10-person household's groceries in the U-Scan line. When I go through days where I don't even want to leave my room, I thank God that I have a little journal to jot down what I'm feeling, what I'm going through, or even just to record the name of a new song I like. It is a way of organizing the millions of little thoughts buzzing around in my head, a way of expelling the ones that hurt to have, a way of confronting how life plays out as I wade my way through it. Even this blog, with its one article regarding a theme park's Halloween event and two others in the works along with this post, is an essential part of keeping myself out of a padded white room; I am honored to have my ramblings read by even one person so that I may perhaps convince them to look at horror with an open mind. To convince them to step into that darkness with a torch and a brave smile would be even more of an honor.
The dark is always there, affecting each and every one of us in ways we wouldn't wish on another. It clings to us like a monkey on our back, gnaws at us when we go to sleep at night. Monsters lurk in the darkness. They wait for us with slavering jaws, waiting for the right time to strike out at us. To end us.
I wanted to find a way to fight back. I have been lost in the dark before, and sometimes I can feel it trying to slither its way back into my mind. I have found that trying to beat this darkness at its own game is impossible. Life is far too short to bury myself in my own anger and frustrations or hide in my room all my life. I think that, at some point going through school, I realized that writing helped to keep the dark at bay. I found ways to express myself that I wasn't sure I was capable of; when I'm writing, the armies of Hell itself can't stand against the power that I (as a 20-something with a borderline obsession over what a major movie studio is going to make their workers dress like for Halloween) feel. I think that this strength comes not despite but because of the dark. Without struggle, the stories we tell would be incredibly boring. The struggle itself is what matters because it shapes how we survive. If I can’t beat the dark at its own game, then I will change the rules. I will fight tooth and claw, and every word I write will be how I survive. Even when I eventually put up an article here about the hoop snake.
Medusa turned to stone when Perseus reflected her gaze. Dracula can be staked. The Wicked Witch can be melted. The darkness can be channeled and become something beautiful.
Unfortunately, I don’t really have anyone to specifically tag, but I do encourage anyone and everyone reading this and interested in the Channel the Darkness project to talk about how they address their mental health, whether it be through even writing a post on social media, a video, poem, doesn’t matter! However you channel your own darkness is up to you. Volume 1 of Temple Dark Books’ Channel The Dark anthology releases May 27.
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