Motivation logo

Why Are You Doing This?

"Why am I?"

By Raven WillowPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
Like
Raven Willow is a horror and paranormal author and columnist. But why?

I was born in Middlesboro Kentucky, it was a small town with relatively little to capture a young girl's imagination. My father was an alcoholic, rarely at home and when he was, all I heard was arguing in the house. My mother blamed me for literally every negative thing in her life. She was both mentally and physically abusive. I could write an entire series of books on how I survived. To make a long story short, I had zero support, it seemed like everything that I said or done was a mistake. By the time that my teenage years came around, my self-esteem was in the gutter. I had no perception of my self-worth and was slowly drowning in a lifetime of bad memories and confusion.

Eventually my dad left, he remarried a girl not much older than me and started a new family and life for himself. My mother's abuse grew worse, police and child services got involved and again, she blamed me for everything. "I was a bad kid." or so she told any one that would listen. I had very few friends, I mainly kept to myself, it felt safer that way. I spent a lot of time alone, reading books and writing stories about places that I wanted to escape to. Writing became my escape from reality and trust me, my reality was so very deserving of an escape.

By the time that I was seventeen, I wasn't sure if I was going crazy or exactly what was happening with me. I was having vivid dreams that would later happen for real. Every night when I went to bed I would prepare to watch another movie unfold in my head. And then came the voices. As I drifted off to sleep I began hearing voices talking to me. Some of the voices were familiar but most wasn't. "Who was these people and why was they talking to me?" In the beginning the voices were jumbled up and hard to understand. They came so fast, loud and rowdy. I'd get terrible headaches and my health was suffering. Eventually I was able to control them and lay down ground rules for our nightly conferences. The voices became calmer and more respectful. It was later suggested that I was a medium, someone capable of communicating with the dead.

I always had a fascination with ghost stories, vampires and all of the creepy things in life, but the voices drew me in closer. I wanted to understand them. I soon discovered that I wasn't alone. I discovered people all around me who believed in the unseen and unknown. People who wanted to understand this whole other word, just as much as I did. I also realized that there was so many people out there, in fear and tormented by what they couldn't understand. I made it my mission to learn all that I possibly could and use my abilities to help others. My life-long dream had been to become a writer. I decided to combine my magnetism to the paranormal world with my love for writing. I began writing about every new experience that I had and sharing it with the world.

I met a lot of criticism along the way. I was told that my dreams were incoherent with reality and that I would never achieve anything in life. "Ghost's aren't real and writing stories about them is unreasonable and ridiculous." I was told that if I didn't change my aspirations in life that I would end up standing in food lines and on government welfare. I refused to believe this and kept pushing forward and reaching for my dreams. I took every ghost story and urban legend that I heard and made it my own. By using modern technology and common sense I worked to provide unfeigned, undoubted evidence for each claim. I quit everything else that I was doing and decided to make a career out of my writings and stories about these experiences and by helping others with their own transcendental dilemmas.

So why do I do it? They money is often destitute. I get called crazy and have to depend on the hope that someone out there cares enough to read my stories. My tummy has been hungry and I've had my electricity shut off several times. But I keep doing it! Why? Because I truly love and believe in what I'm doing. If I can help just one person be less afraid or find peace in their life, then it's worth it. If my stories capture just one person's attention, then it's worth it. If only one person ever looks at me and says "thank you" then it's all been worth it.

Sometimes in life we forget that doing what we truly love is so much more important than making money for something we hate.

Am I a starving artist? Yes, most of the time. Am I a happy person? Yes, every single day of my life. And that is why I'm doing this.

success
Like

About the Creator

Raven Willow

Raven Willow is a multi-award winning, horror and paranormal author and columnist.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.