Monster - Intellectual

The speaker wants to be like the person they’re talking to, the last salvation for their mental health, “their rock” so to speak, the light of their life, but everyone else is also light in comparison to the darkness in their mind, everything they touch “isn’t dark enough” the world is too light, it’s too good for them, they don’t belong here, and never have belonged.
While before they pretended to be someone they’re not, now they don’t put up the façade but even that doesn’t make them feel content with their life so they feel “that this problem lies in me” -while yes, this can be true (mental illness is something in the person) but they aren’t helping themselves by not getting help, so their rock is what they have as their help, rather than going to therapy -backed up by the chorus with “I’m only a man with a candle to guide me”

The person speaking believes the mental illness to be a “burden” and “it made its home inside” -keeping it as that it is a “monster” and that it is not the person but that the actions of the monster are also not the person, but that the person also cannot control “the monster” (which they are wanting to do) but they feel that they are alone and therefore cannot control the mental illness.

I feel as if this is a metaphor for faith. The subject of the song is in a dark place, but a promising light is there to guide him. It reminds me of the verse Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

The question that has plagued man since the dawn of time exhibits itself once again in popular rock music. Will you stand by my side even though I stray from the pack?

If I go crazy then will you still
Call me Superman
If I’m alive and well, will you be
There a-holding my hand
- Rock progenitors, Three Doors Down

“I’m only a man with a candle to guide me” implies that if the speaker has a mental illness then he’s not getting help for it and is going through it alone.
“I’m taking a stand to escape what’s inside me, a monster, a monster, I’ve turned into a monster, a monster, a monster, and it keeps getting stronger” The person is trying to get help to overcome, or at least live with and cope with the mental illness -even if it’s just one person, it’s a start.
“a monster” well, mental illness can take many forms, but they can cause people to have unhealthy habits and thoughts that are unwanted, hence it being a “monster” when you want people close to you you can end up pushing them away because of the habits and thoughts which is where the “and it keeps getting stronger” fits in, as as the person loses control of the mental illness which they’ve had for a while, it gives them a sense of drowning with no way out, like a riptide or the current in a river.

He was never one for people who pretend to be someone they’re not simply so they can fit in with the crowd, and anytime he tried it just wasn’t who he was and he never fit in with the forever expanding crowd of “popular” kids who think they’re hot shit because their parents bought them overpriced shoes or some stupid social item that apparently makes you infinitely cooler than someone who doesn’t nag their parents for a meaningless item of clothing.

What is society? A bag of shit. Dan Reynolds is cool.

This heart-wrenching line harkens back to similar impassioned cries put forth by rock and roll godfathers Simple Plan in the early days of the genre, 2005:

I’m just a kid and life is a nightmare
I’m just a kid, I know that it’s not fair
Nobody cares, cause I’m alone and the world is
Having more fun than me tonight

Both bands outline the worst pain imaginable: the draining exclusion of not being able to fit into popular society. This is probably a conscious allusion to Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil.

the speaker feels guilty about his actions and feels that he is isolated from other people, perhaps believing falsely that he IS different from everyone else (due to not fitting in in his youth he may lack the skills to effectively socialise with other people, and therefore doesn’t look for common interests between himself and others making him believe that he’s different to other people to the point of still being an outcast as an adult -which is negatively affecting his already poor mental health further.

The speaker tries to ignore the effects of the mental illness “do I have to run and hide?” but also tries to escape the unwanted thoughts by doing other things.
“I never said that I want this” – people with mental illness tend to find out when something big happens, so they may seem to occur suddenly, out of the blue for what may seem to be no reason (usually there) and people don’t decide whether or not to have mental health issues.