There are times that I brood. I turn off all the lights. I silence every sound. And I confront the darkness. It's never about self-pity or lamenting the suffering that is life. I think through my feelings. Slowly. Methodically. Tracing pathways through my mind. Allowing myself to feel what I wasn't ready to feel before. I talk to myself. I write to myself. I do whatever it takes to turn scabs into scars and scars into beauty marks. And when I am done, and the lights come on, I am no longer afraid of the seething shadows within me.