Not Enough Monsters: We're Van Helsing's Children

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By Alan D.D.

After writing about so many monsters, about leeches, immortals, flesh-eating beasts, and so on, and when I think about what else we are, we the insane, we the so-called damaged, those who are one in four, I couldn’t stop think about a man usually erased from stories and who falls in a secondary place. I’m speaking about Professor Abraham Van Helsing.

Reclaiming my heritage

Mental health issues can take many forms, different names, use a new face each time they come back to haunt us, but there is something we keep doing and will always do in that case. We will fight back and show no mercy, no shame and no remorse. People say that the devil never dies, so you have to keep killing him. That’s exactly what we do for a living.

My problems keep coming back, and they still come and whisper to me. They insult me, they spit me in the face and try to catch me. But I always have my weapons ready, I always spit back and try to cut off whichever piece I can get from them. Just a slice of their skin is still a good enough trophy.

They didn’t hold back when I was unarmed, when I was on my own and alone, but things changed before they knew it. One second I was the poor little boy, and the next, I was reclaiming my power as a monster hunter, part of Van Helsing’s breed. People capable of killing the same creature over and over again, gaining experience and knowledge.

Not a victim but a hunter

One of the main problems with mental health issues is that you keep thinking about yourself as a victim, as a poor, needy creature, and although there’s nothing wrong with being vulnerable and afraid of yourself, for it proves you know something’s deadly wrong and you have to solve it, those thoughts cannot control you.

I’m done being the victim, I’m done being needy, I’m done being broken, and most of all, I’m done waiting for help to come. I’m the one who knows this problem from the core, no one understands it better than I do and it is my health that is at stake. Why should I play the waiting game if I can do something by myself?

The same goes for you, the reader. There will never be enough monsters to bring us down, remember that. From now on, I’m hunting the demons, the vampires, the wolves, the voices, my other sides, all of the creatures that taunt me. We’ll see who laughs last.