Chapter One — The Shape of Things
"The shadow is the negative side of the ego… it is our inner devil, the personification of evil." -Carl Jung
I never, ever wanted to do this.
I’ve spent most of my life running from Michael Myers—at least in the metaphorical sense. He’s haunted my nightmares, but more than that, I think it’s his visage that my subconscious has latched onto to assert itself.
It seems that sometimes the sickest jokes we play are on ourselves.
Being neurodivergent, I’ve been in and out of therapy for most of my adult life and have worked through several different modalities. So, the idea of the Jungian Shadow isn’t something that’s new to me. But it hasn’t been until now that my journey of healing has brought me to the precipice of actually having to face him, and I’m feeling all kinds of ways about that.
But who am I facing? It’s not really Michael Myers; that’s just a name given to a person. In his groundbreaking film Halloween, director John Carpenter referred to his antagonist as The Shape and I feel that’s the perfect description. The shadow comes in many forms… all kinds of different shapes. That’s one of the more disturbing things about Carpenter’s masterpiece—the idea that each and every person is carrying within them the capacity for this kind of darkness. It was Michael Myers in this case, but really, it could have been anyone.
I’ve been terrified my whole life of that darkness living inside of me, because I saw it on display all around me in my family of origin.
Abuse. Neglect. Abandonment. You name it. I didn’t have to look very far out my window or lose myself in horror movies late at night to find darkness in my life. It was there in plain view every day. Even though I couldn’t put words to the idea at the time, I think I felt deep down that the darkness around me was also being deposited into me. Even as a child, there was this overwhelming sense of foreboding and fatalism that I was consigned to go down the same lonely and dysfunctional path as those who had come before me. That idea terrified me then. It still does now.
And it’s the reason why I’ve struggled all my life to try to be good.
Or more to the point, I’ve tried to be who I thought other people would accept as a good person. I took to religion like a duck to water because it gave me a tangible path toward achieving the goodness—the worthiness that I was so desperate to feel. All I had to do was confess with my mouth that Jesus was lord and believe in my heart that god raised him from the dead… and I would be saved.
For a long time I thought that I was doing these things to save myself from going to hell. I suppose that’s true in an esoteric sense, but what I feel I was truly hoping to be saved from was myself—or rather my shadow self.
The Shape.
I’m terrified of him, but I can’t look away…
He’s the other side of me.
I have never wanted to admit that… but it’s true. The Shape embodies certain qualities I have been begrudgingly forced to accept that my subconscious shadow persona places high value upon.
The first and most obvious characteristic to observe is his silence. He moves in the darkness with a grace as still as the night. As a person whose mind is always thinking, always in motion, always turned on… the idea of that kind of silent, stoic existence is alluring. Imagine not living anywhere else except for this moment in time—the only sounds that meet your ears are the crickets chirping, the dull hum of the night air, and the slow, consistent rhythm of your own breathing.
Steady. Controlled. Inevitable.
You feel as if each cycle of inhalation and exhalation carries with it the echo of fate’s inescapable heartbeat. I desperately wish I could turn my mind off sometimes and just live in the moment like that, with no constant inner dialogue making it noisy, no anxiety pressing at my psyche, and no fear holding me down. A part of me deeply yearns for just one moment where all of those barriers are suppressed and only silent intention guides my steady hand toward achieving my goals.
That doesn’t sound so bad, right? Perhaps, but confronting the shadow self is not an exercise in rationalization. The truth is that The Shape moves in silence and with precision for the express purpose of realizing his ill intentions.
He is an outsider viewing the world through a mask that he hides behind. The everyday humdrum of life is something he can never enter into. He only exists in the dark places where he can observe what others are doing, but he can never take part in those things. He can only watch… and wait.
It doesn’t matter what his motivations are. The truth is that they can’t be vocalized. His compulsion to act comes from an elemental desire to assert control over life and make others respond to his presence, rather than vice-versa. His plans are methodical and unrelenting. He weaves a web for his prey to become ensnared within, and then he moves in for the kill with clinical efficiency. He takes what he wants and he exerts himself at will.
He is extremely powerful and seemingly irresistible.
The yearning to personify these qualities… there is no rationalizing that—no neat bow I can tie and put on top of a box to make it more presentable.
Yet, that darkness is there.
Immovable. Unshakeable. Enduring.
There is no ignoring him. There is no escaping him. The shadow within… The Shape of my subconscious can only be confronted. Even more, the true work of self-love requires that he must also be acknowledged and accepted for who he is, and holy hell, that’s one tough row to hoe.
But… there is no other path forward.