I’m taking it back. I’m taking it back because you stole it away from me for far too long now. How many years has it been? My heart has had its rest now, my brain its retreat. You were once fun, and spooky, mysterious and unpredictable. I welcomed your terror with open arms even though my fear wanted me to gouge out my own eyes, but wasn’t that the point of it? The fun of it? Remaining tied with romantic comedies as my favorite genre. Strange, huh? I know.

So I’m taking it back. I refuse to become a lifeless Frankenstein before electricity was charged into me. I am ready to take on my original form. And I say original, so as not to confuse the “now” me with a “new” me. Because I am the person I was before. Before the horror seduced me.

Now, this post might confuse thee. There are two terrors of which I speak. One is real, made me feel like a freak. The other a game, a hoax, just for kicks, and I am all about getting lost in that mix.

You see each year since 2012, Halloween would come, and with it, hell. Ceaseless chatter, Endless whispers, the taunts…the ghosts in the night, all were far crueler and darker than any headless horseman or witch could conjure. And I couldn’t hide my madness with a costume it took me 2 hours to create. A costume it’d take any other person 10 minutes. And I forced myself from my house, and shoved myself behind the wheel. I dashed towards the party 20 minutes away despite the fear I did feel.

Nasty whispers were crawling into my ear as I drove. Other voices telling me to turn back. I knew I wouldn’t like it. I knew it would be hell. I knew what awaited me. But I went anyway. I don’t know why but I did. And I stormed into the party, acting like I owned the place. Surprised my boyfriend Richard was that I made an appearance. “Go back home,” came a voice’s interference. But I stayed. I suffered. In silence.

And I remember the room spinning around me. I remember the people talking. I remember looking from each mask to mask, trying to make sense of the space around me. What had I gotten myself into. Most importantly, why did they smile in my face, but laugh at me behind my back? Why did they talk about me, hissing in each other’s ears, as if I could not hear them?

And so, I stood close to Richard, as if that would make the voices fade. But the madness continued. I was ready to melt away. Have the floor open up and engulf me. And I was sorry I had come. I knew I should’ve stayed back. Although my home was no better than that hell, at least I knew my pillow well. At least, I could attempt to shut it out.

I remember that Halloween, and I remember the one that followed. I knew a pattern was forming, but I was stubborn, I had something to prove. Again, I went out. Despite all the warning bells in my head. Despite telling Richard I wouldn’t enjoy myself. Maybe I felt if I didn’t, I’d be dead, I don’t know. But the pattern that was beginning to form, was that around every Halloween, I lost my sanity a little. Or, perhaps a lot. Auditory hallucinations. Paranoia. Unwarranted anxiety. A wee bit of mania. It was a pattern. A pattern that just wouldn’t break. A pattern that kept me indoors last Halloween, safe from whatever terrors (imaginary or not) that awaited me outside. And it is a pattern that reminds me that the illness I have has no rhyme nor reason. That, sometimes, it appears, and sometimes it just…disappears out of thin air.

My sanity is so precious. You don’t even know. I hold on to it like, like a fistful of gold, and I can’t afford to let it drop. I can’t afford to spend it. I have to keep it safe, in the treasure chest that is the vault within my mind. Trouble is, some words hold the key to trigger it…tweak the lock open. But so long as I stay grounded, so long as I remind myself of the invaluable yet intangible sanctity of that sanity…I just have to breathe, and when I can’t breathe, when I find myself under, buried deep beneath kilometers of concrete, it is then MY turn to whisper, MY turn to speak, and I say, God, help me. I need your help today. And every day. And I’m scared. And I don’t know where this is going, so I’m trusting in you to take my hand and lead me in the right direction.

Because I am human, and I will err. I will fail, and I will fumble and I will tumble. And I cannot be trusted. Please, Lord, just keep me sane. Don’t let me go down that road again.

And I thank Him for every new day He gives me. Every “now” day. When it is not a “new” me, but rather, the original me. The me that was before illness struck me.You don’t know how precious your sanity, your sensibility, your own credibility with your own self is until you lose it. And I’ve lost it far far too many times.

Having peace of mind is nothing to be taken for granted. And everything that I pray for on a daily basis. Is something I now have. (Knock on wood.) That I pray to God I will continue to have for as long as I can.

Because I’ve seen the darkness. I’ve been trapped in its embrace. And I know the light is so much more majestic, and warm, and comforting. I will not let the darkness win. So many times it had, most times without my consent.

This Halloween, I’m taking the fun back. The joy. The laughter. Forget the Halloweens of the past. I will dress up. I will dance. I will party. Because I have that critical, crucial state of mind now, that is even and true.

Everything else has just been white noise. This year, it will be different. It will. It simply has to be.