If narcissism were a monster, we'd call her Death.
I recall too fiercely every painstaking moment that I shouldered all responsibilities, submitted to avoid outbursts of rage, absorbed disparaging words and violent strikes all leading to becoming consumed by a fury that didn’t belong to me. Rather than regretting wasted time, bearing stomach-curdling disgust and burning alive in adrenaline-soaked skin, I will grasp onto all the powerful ways that my body was learning how to reach higher. I am worth the freedom of existing as my own creation. A life of servitude and bending to the whims of a narcissist is no true existence at all. And here, in the deepest of uglies, and alongside this world’s most enchanting offerings, I can see how urgently necessary it is to strive for nothing less than my own true identity and connection to the natural world. Nothing but this darkness could have shown me how worthy every risk for the light is.
I've come to know narcissists as the greatest teachers of our generation. But, true to their form, they believe they are great for the wrong reasons. They are not a gift to this world, but rather, a warning of the destructive nature of a false image. It is my hope that the story of Shedeath’s Reflection will finally urge people of the world to wake up and find bravery enough to shatter the mirror and nurture the seeds that grow in the deep beneath.