Spirals

author's note

5/1/2022

~~~

this story may very well have saved my life.

it began as a vent story where i could explore my feelings behind the shield of metaphors, worlds, and characters.

however, after ten pages, or here, the third chapter, i stopped writing the story for an entire year.

i went back to it again when i needed to vent. i wrote another, what, seven pages before i stopped for another few months. but this time, i had a story progression. i wanted to write a story, not another vent.

then one fuzzy night, i wanted to kill myself. actively. i felt i needed to die to save my family from my sinful nature, to save myself from the onslaught i felt within. i could have attempted. i may have succeeded. but a small little thought rose inside of me: what if the very "sinful nature" i wanted to eliminate could help someone? what if my story could comfort someone? not the trauma, not the symptoms, just... the nature they formed? 

what if i could give someone hope?

i took this thought and held it close, obsessed with it, wanting to watch the thought grow into a vision and develop into reality, willing to live to watch it grow. 

and then i remembered this story.

and then seventeen pages turned into seventy-six. and then it felt complete, but i knew i could not share this story with many people in my personal life.

i do not expect this to get famous. i do not expect many to read this or make it through to the end. maybe three or four kind souls, maybe six if i am lucky. maybe none; maybe this story is meant to be mine and mine only.

but if you, friend, are reading this, then it reached someone, and you were interested enough to finish it. i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. and if you relate to this story, or left feeling touched by its words, i have something to tell you.

the tough moments may not feel fair. they may batter you when you least expect it, like a sudden storm the moment you are left without shelter. they may hurt like a personal hell. they may make you spiral. but the truth is that spirals always end. the tough moments always pass. and the moment you understand what makes you spiral, the moment you can hear the crying child behind the thoughts that present themselves as grand predators, you have made beautiful, crucial, irreversible progress. you have begun to fight back, just like that, because you have shone a light in the face of your own demons.

things do get better. tough moments pass. and for each moment you add a "because" to the "why"s that plague you, those tough moments pass faster.

it might sound selfish of me, but after finishing this story, i still return to read it when i spiral. sometimes it saves me like it did the night i decided to finish it. and whenever a storm comes to tell me that i am a fraud, that i am not truly a creator, i point to this story i completed, and the storm nods and passes by.

i completed this story three months ago, and since then, i have felt freer as a creator than i ever have before.

i wish for you to explore what sets you free. it is not a cure to your troubles. it is not a savior that will always rescue you from spirals, or even something that will always stay the same. to me, it is like a being that you know you can turn to when you need comfort. a being with its arms always open for you, always ready to embrace you, always ready to remind you that you are someone beautiful.

you are someone beautiful. you do not have to believe it now. it is a truth regardless.

i wish to thank my closest friend, and to thank god dearly for watching over me even through the toughest times.  and i leave you now, my friend, with many thanks and prayers.

~~~