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Confronting the Monsters
Feb. 8th, 2007 11:10 pmI've always been a huge proponent of confronting fears, way before I ever heard Franklin's Monster analogy. Y'know the one that goes:
"I like to march into the dark closet of my mind and find the biggest, baddest monster in there, grab it by the tail and haul it into the light, then go toe to toe with it in a knock-down, drag out fight to the death."
I've found that often times, the monster in the closet is really more like a creature creating a shadow puppet in the dark recesses of my mind, something that *seems* big and scary, but once you expose it to the light, it's really not as big and scary as it seemed in the shadows.
I like to understand why things are the way they are. I find that once I understand where it comes from, why it is what it is, once I have information (bring the monster into the light), I can more easily attack and defeat a problem.
But what happens when the shadow puppets on the wall of my mind (my fears) are created, not by a monster, an internal conflict or emotion, but by an external source, a real person?
And what happens when someone you care about stands in front of the closet door, blocking you from entering, saying "No, I don't think you should go in there. You're much scarier than she is, and I don't want to scare her away. Just go away and ignore her. Eventually she'll come out on her own when she's more comfortable with you"?
( Find the answers here! )
*The "Brian" character in this story is not the Brian that I dated for a couple of years - for those of you who know him. This happened before then and it is just coincidence that I chose that pseudonym. While I was dating the real Brian, I changed the name in the story to "John". So some of the comments below refer to "John and Julia", and they are talking about "Brian and Julia". Since I am no longer dating any Brians, and haven't been for some time, I returned to the original name so that the comments would match the story, forgetting about the comments referring to "John". Now that I've remembered the "John" comments, it doesn't matter which name I use in the story, there will always be confusion, so I'm sticking with the original name.
"I like to march into the dark closet of my mind and find the biggest, baddest monster in there, grab it by the tail and haul it into the light, then go toe to toe with it in a knock-down, drag out fight to the death."
I've found that often times, the monster in the closet is really more like a creature creating a shadow puppet in the dark recesses of my mind, something that *seems* big and scary, but once you expose it to the light, it's really not as big and scary as it seemed in the shadows.
I like to understand why things are the way they are. I find that once I understand where it comes from, why it is what it is, once I have information (bring the monster into the light), I can more easily attack and defeat a problem.
But what happens when the shadow puppets on the wall of my mind (my fears) are created, not by a monster, an internal conflict or emotion, but by an external source, a real person?
And what happens when someone you care about stands in front of the closet door, blocking you from entering, saying "No, I don't think you should go in there. You're much scarier than she is, and I don't want to scare her away. Just go away and ignore her. Eventually she'll come out on her own when she's more comfortable with you"?
( Find the answers here! )
*The "Brian" character in this story is not the Brian that I dated for a couple of years - for those of you who know him. This happened before then and it is just coincidence that I chose that pseudonym. While I was dating the real Brian, I changed the name in the story to "John". So some of the comments below refer to "John and Julia", and they are talking about "Brian and Julia". Since I am no longer dating any Brians, and haven't been for some time, I returned to the original name so that the comments would match the story, forgetting about the comments referring to "John". Now that I've remembered the "John" comments, it doesn't matter which name I use in the story, there will always be confusion, so I'm sticking with the original name.
