Forced Balancing or Forced Repression?

[Reaper]

I've always been a connoisseur of "dark thoughts." As a child I was fascinated by medieval torture devices and would often have elaborate torture fantasies. Because my parents and preacher had taught me that God judged you for your thoughts, I lived in a constant state of shame because of these fantasies, especially when I became sexually mature and they began to take on sexual undertones. I tried to repress the thoughts and desires as much as I could, only to find them creeping out at every opportunity. My creative expressions are often very dark and sometimes quite disturbing, because for a long time it felt like art was the only outlet I had for fantasies that would otherwise label me a monster.

This carried on all the way until adulthood, when I became convinced that the only way to find relief was to become the monster I had held at bay. I couldn't fight being a terrible person any longer so I just succumbed and plunged into the dark side as deep as I possibly could. I reveled in what had once brought me shame, and while I was smart enough to refrain from acting out fantasies of violence in real life, I in no way limited myself on the mental plane. I embraced every dark part of myself because I no longer had any hope of escaping darkness.

Lo and behold, once I had become pitch black inside, I noticed this little light, so bright I didn't know how I'd missed it before. It was so concentrated, so deep within me, that it had been hidden by all the clutter created by repressed thought systems. Only ceasing to judge myself in any way cleared the space enough for it to be visible. The moment I could see this light I knew that I was not a bad person, regardless of the thoughts I had. As I stopped resisting my inner desires, many of them fell away or were transformed, clarifying and focusing. I saw a clearer picture of myself and where I was in life. I rose out of the darkness stronger than I had been before.

Some of my fantasies could still likely be considered quite "dark", but accepting them has allowed me to pass into a deeper layer of understanding; to look at the roots my desires stem from. You cannot understand any part of yourself that you fear or force. With understanding, even the tools of darkness help me to do the work of the light.