The Boogieman in my heart

I spoke with a counsellor solo yesterday for the first time in my life. In this day and age of therapists and shrinks I am rather late to the game. I didn’t know what to expect except that I somehow knew the house would smell of the ghosts of human waste — I was not wrong. Just something to expect I guess since it’s in a house and not a place of business.

The talk went well and seemed to narrow down to a very vulnerable topic to me — fear. I didn’t give it that name but I knew what it was and I’m sure she did as well. I feel fear in my heart. I call it the ‘boogieman’ in this post because it’s fucking scary and it’s there. He lives there and torments me more now because the former resident of my heart has vacated. You see, the boogieman in my heart used to share space with an old sea captain called Security. Cap died last week. He didn’t even get a good funeral out to sea — he just got dumped out with the trash.

So now I have the boogieman in my heart taking over — he’s making himself at home, he’s making tacos, drinking Sol and chillin’ with Netflix. He is so present and visceral that he makes it hard for me to swallow food, he stops me from sleeping through the night and he makes my hands wobble. Boogieman is fear itself.

When the old sea captain lived in my heart he prevented the boogieman from becoming powerful — they would have some knockdown drag out fights but Cap would always win. In fact, he would win so hard that he would put boogieman back into a box and shove him in the dark recesses of the attic. Then Cap would make himself a stiff drink, stretch out and just own the joint. I miss the Cap.

So now that Cap is no more, I have the boogieman living large in my heart. I feel him now — he’s decked out in his ‘big pimpin’ style and he’s tearing up the floorboards of my heart. He’s making it hard to breath and making it impossible to think. Boogieman is whispering things like ‘you need a man to survive’, ‘you’re going to be alone forever’, ‘you’re a failure at relationships’, ‘you deserve this’ and ‘I’m going to haunt you forever’. This fucker is unrelenting!

Now I realise there is a distance between my heart and my head. I realise that these two houses don’t speak with each other all the time — there is the odd check in to see how things are but over all they don’t consult with each other before making decisions. Probably for the best since they are each governed by pretty powerful inhabitants. They have stopped speaking all together since Cap died and the boogieman now rules the roost. The inhabitant of my head is the former head of MI6. She doesn’t take shit from anyone. We can call her ‘M’.

Since my marriage broke up last weekend, M has been calling the shots with life. Boogieman has been trying his best to sabotage my life and he’s having some success. M is powerful and has a lot of connections. Boogieman is unrelenting and knows all the triggers.

The battle continues.