A Journey into Darkness

 The day I lost the person who was hurting me was also the day I lost a part of my essence. As a little girl, I grew up feeling invisible, unaccepted, and unloved. I didn’t feel like I mattered in the world or belonged anywhere. But with him—my abuser—I thought I was seen. I thought I could be myself. He was the only person who, in my childlike mind, seemed to truly acknowledge me.

 

Now, as an adult, I see the truth. His intentions were neither kind nor loving. He wasn’t offering me safety or care; what he offered wasn’t love at all; it was manipulation. He used my desperate need to be seen and valued to feed the emptiness inside him—the darkness that led him to prey on a child. But back then, my innocent mind couldn’t comprehend that. I believed I was safe with him, believed I was loved, believed I belonged.

 

It is one of the cruellest truths of trauma: the one who caused me harm was also the only person who seemed to give me what I so desperately craved. Outside of that relationship, I felt like a ghost—unworthy of attention, a burden. But he, with the instincts of a predator, knew exactly what I needed. He gave me just enough to ensure I would surrender to him. It was a trap I didn’t even know I was walking into.

 

Then, one day, it all came crashing down. My parents discovered what was happening, and in that moment, the fragile world of false safety I had built collapsed. They decided never to speak of it again. I was no longer allowed to be alone with him, but the silence that followed from them was deafening. To my young mind, their silence held a new message: I would never again be loved for who I truly was. The shame, which hadn’t existed before, flooded in like a storm, pulling me under. The light inside me—the part that was pure and untouched—was swallowed by darkness.

 

That belief settled deep inside me, and with it, the light I once carried—fragile, pure, untouched by the world’s cruelties—was extinguished. I felt like I had been cast out, not only from my family’s love but from my own self. Shame became a constant companion, twisting everything inside me. Before this moment, I hadn’t even known what shame was. But now, it became a force that shaped how I saw myself.

 

This is what Carl Jung might have called the shadow—the part of ourselves we hide, the part that festers in the dark when it is not acknowledged. My shadow grew from that moment of betrayal, from the unspoken words, from the shame that took root in my heart. Jung teaches that we must face the shadow to heal, that it is not something to be feared, but something to be understood and integrated. But as a child, I didn’t know this. I only knew that something in me had been broken, and I felt exiled—not just from my family but from my own light.

 

This is the tragedy of trauma, especially childhood trauma. When we are young, we don’t have the ability to understand what is happening to us, and often, we internalise it. I didn’t just feel the loss of safety; I felt the loss of me. It was as though I had to leave behind who I truly was just to survive. From that day on, I believed that to be accepted and loved, I could never truly be myself.

 

That was the moment I was exiled from my essence, from my own light. I disconnected from the part of me that was pure—the part that was naturally connected to the universe and to the unconditional love we are all born with. It felt as if the door to my true self had been slammed shut. I was left wandering in the dark, and so, I became someone else.

 

A lot has happened in the darkness, and it’s only now that I can look at the shadow and begin to heal the parts of me I once thought were lost.

 

But here’s where healing begins—when we start to understand what happened and why. When we can look at the child we once were with compassion, knowing that she did the best she could with what little she knew. My journey into the darkness wasn’t a failure or a weakness; it was survival. It was a child’s way of coping with something too big for her to understand.

 

Healing doesn’t come from erasing the past but from understanding it—from seeing how that darkness formed and how it shaped me—without judgment or shame. Trauma often leaves us feeling fragmented, as if pieces of us were left behind in moments of pain. But with love, patience, and self-compassion, we can begin to gather those pieces, welcoming them back into the light.

 

What I’m learning now is that the light was never truly lost. It was hidden, covered by the shadows of fear and shame, but it was always there. The journey back to myself is one of rediscovery. I’m learning that my worth isn’t defined by what happened to me or by the beliefs I once held. I’m learning that I don’t have to be anyone but who I truly am to be loved.

 

There is power in this realisation. There is power in reclaiming the parts of myself that I once abandoned. It’s not an easy path, but it’s a sacred one—a path from darkness back to light, from exile back to home. And in this home, in this place of truth, I belong. Not because I’ve earned it or proven myself, but because I always have.

 

The darkness I journeyed through taught me that love isn’t something I need to chase or earn. It’s something that was always mine, waiting to be rediscovered.

AnaLo