Behind the Story: His Castle Crumbles, and its Subtext of Emotional Abuse

This post contains mild spoilers for His Castle Crumbles. 

His Castle Crumbles started as just a cool title that I thought sounded pretty cosmic horror appropriate. The only scene that was a known entity in the story was the gruesome conclusion, a scene which I created specifically because I wanted a raw ending to The Roots Grow Into the Earth. At its inception I intended on creating an atmospheric story of a man blinded by hubris, the author of his own downfall as he toyed too far with something beyond his power.

Part way into writing, however, I realized that the story had chosen to take a different direction. Instead of a egotistical protagonist, I had written a man caught within a cycle of emotional abuse and manipulation. A man repeatedly broken down by his Patron through emotional outbursts, subsequently showered with gifts when he did what it wanted. An endless cycle of abuse that is repeated until he is destroyed by giving up the last pieces of himself.

The story ended up reflecting my own experiences as a survivor of emotional abuse and intimate partner violence. I found myself in a situation where my personality and my challenges as an undiagnosed autistic person were criticized, demeaned, and vilified in emotional outbursts, followed by periods of love bombing after I accepted the blame and apologized. By the end of the relationship my self esteem had crumbled to its lowest low; my ability to stand up for myself, to create boundaries, had disappeared entirely; in effect, I had too torn off pieces of myself to appease this abuser until there was nothing left.

Looking back I realize now that a lot of my work has ended up becoming a way to reflect on the abuse, and the recovery from that abuse that I have gone through. But His Castle Crumbles has by far the most direct correlation to my own experiences.

I have no doubt that my experiences will continue to shape the stories I write, and while it can be difficult to face my trauma I think in the end it creates a very different twist on cosmic horror.

If you enjoy these sorts of insights into my writing please let me know in the comments! If you haven’t yet read His Castle Crumbles you can check it out at this link here.