grab the Monster by the Horns

It’s about time I address this Monster—the one I discovered in the aftermath of heartbreak. Left to question what had changed inside me, I kept wondering: Was it something new, or had it always been lurking beneath my usual controlled demeanor?

A dear friend unknowingly dropped a clue: a mention of dominance. That single word cracked open the menory of a decade-old personality test analysis, revealing something I hadn’t fully grasped before. Was this dominance my Monster?

In the midst of it all, catharsis felt inevitable—processing this Monster was necessary. The metaphor took deepe

r shape as I resonated with Shinedown’s song, Monsters. It gave me a voice, a way to feel and articulate the rawness. While the song speaks of “monsters” in the plural, I find my truth in the singular:

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" 'Cause my monster is real, and it's trained how to kill

And there's no comin' back and it just laughs at how I feel

And my monster can fly, and it'll never say die

And there's no goin' back, if I get trapped I'll never heal

Yeah, my monster is real"

(Paraphrased from “Monsters” by Shinedown, 2018)

 I invite you to watch the official video below and listen for yourself

The realization struck hard: My Monster had been there all along—raw and deaf, self-occupied with my internal thoughts, too detached to fully grasp the context and nuances in my relationship. For weeks, if not months, that’s where I had been—stuck in an internal loop—while the inevitable catharsis loomed, demanding I face my demons (Monster).

So here I am. Facing it. Processing it. And maybe, just maybe, learning how to live with it.