The Monster Under Your Bed Wants to Talk

As children, we're afraid of monsters under the bed; fear of the unknown. But we're told to face our fears because doing so usually means discovering that our fears are far worse in our minds than they turn out to be in reality.

As adults, however, we're afraid of skeletons in the closet. It's not about fear of the unknown, but fear of repeating past mistakes or experiencing distressing events all over again, aka PTSD.

You see, when you face the monster under the bed, your fears are illuminated by reality. The monster turns out to be nothing more than dust bunnies, and you breathe a sigh of relief.

But when you face the skeletons in the closet? There's a visceral reaction because your skeletons are your past, not your imagination, and they don’t have flesh because you absorbed theirs.

The body keeps the score, just like Bessel van der Kolk’s book mentions, so the terrors you experienced don't remain outside of you, but within you. This is something I've been experiencing over the last few years, and I know I'm not the only one.

Some of my skeletons have to do with broken relationships: a divorce, friendships ending, and even having a messy relationship with myself.

You see, as a child and teenager, my greatest fear was becoming some evil version of myself. I even had a nightmare that this person hijacked my life. So the monster under the bed was me.

That fear stemmed from being the 'good girl,' the 'church girl.' From reading the Bible like a good little Christian, and learning about the 'end times' and the anti-Christ. I was afraid that if I stopped being the 'good girl,' I would turn into a monster, that I would be deserving of hell, or worse...

In fact, I got it in my head that I would be the one who would end up giving birth to the anti-Christ. Go ahead, laugh, it's ridiculous... I know that NOW, but there was no getting that irrational fear out of my head when I was younger.

Side note: Years down the road, I would find out that I wasn't the only one with this fear as a teenage girl.

I was terrified of turning into this person, of spawning the beast. Or worse, BEING the beast. I was afraid of wreaking havoc. Primarily because I've always been angry, always had a short fuse the size of a tictac, and I constantly had to reel that part of myself in.

I had held back this version of myself for such a long time that the monster under my bed turned into the skeleton in my closet, because when you don't face your fears, you end up absorbing them. They become a part of you.

It wasn't until I started feeling caged that I realized that version of myself was already inside me and she needed to be released. She wasn't a monster; she was just fierce and completely unhinged. She was scary, but only to people who kept a piece of themselves hidden under the bed.

The 'evil' version of myself that I was so afraid of? That was my wrath and the dead version of my 'good girl.' That version of me lost her flesh every time I reigned her in, every time I had to be on my best behavior. Because I didn't confront or accept her, I drained her tenacity and turned her into nothing but bones.

However, when the 'good girl' in me was broken, that's when she came alive. When it became physically painful to be on my best behavior, to stay silent when I wanted to scream, to be understanding when I wanted to rage, that's when I let her take the reins.

Did she wreak havoc? Sure did. Did she give birth to the anti-Christ? No. Did she hijack my life? Yes. But do I regret it? No. In fact, I wish I had released her sooner.

No, actually, I wish I had faced her when I was younger and she was still a monster under the bed. Because now that, as an adult, she's a skeleton in the closet, I've absorbed her fear of being locked up, of withering away until there's nothing but bones.

So if there's something you fear RIGHT NOW, face it, while it can still be illuminated by reality. Don't absorb that fear. And to those of you who are still reigning yourselves in because you're afraid of turning into a beast, I will quote one of my favorite song lyrics:

"Beauty realized that she was the beast."