“Jung has said that to be in a situation where there is no way out, or to be in a conflict where there is no solution, is the classical beginning of the process of individuation.”
Marie-Louise von Franz
When I was young, I did not believe in monsters. That came later.
I cannot remember a lot about my childhood, but the few things I do recall are still so real I can feel and smell them. One such thing was the book of Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm.
The book was a faded blue with gold embossed script on its broken spine. I was the culprit behind the broken spine because that book was my demon catcher. My first memory of fear is reading the story of Bluebeard in that big blue book.
I was an early reader. Books were my home, and in those days, no one thought to censor fairy tales. That afternoon, when I came across the story of severed heads and bloody rooms, it terrified me. The pictures in my head would not go away. I was afraid to sleep, and I could tell no one. Somehow, I could not voice the terrors that were haunting me. I didn’t believe in monsters. I knew that the odd creatures slithering around in the shadows under the bed and crouching in the corners would disappear by morning. But these gruesome images would not go away. I dealt with Bluebeard in a way that maybe only a small 5-year-old can. I waited until it was nighttime, took the book over to my bedroom window, climbed on a…
