The Darkness I Had to Understand

I learned to survive when I was six years old.

And I was really, really good at it.

Good enough to grow up, take responsibility, build a career, lead others, provide, and make quite a life. Good enough that people could see my accomplishments without seeing what it cost me to keep accomplishing them.

I could solve problems, carry pressure, and show up when people needed me.

But I could not sit peacefully inside myself.

For more than forty years, I kept moving. There was always something to do, someone to help, another responsibility that made my own needs easier to postpone. Being needed gave me a place in the world. Being productive gave me something measurable to hold against the quiet feeling that I was never enough.

I built a real life. There was love in it. There was purpose. There were accomplishments I am still allowed to be proud of.

There was also a frightened child underneath it all, still trying to earn the safety he should have been given.

Eventually, the way I had learned to hold everything together could no longer hold.

My life shattered. And the shattering finally reached the part of me that success, responsibility, and sheer determination had kept protected.

That is ultimately what broke me.

I wish I could tell you I had found another way to listen sooner. I would never prescribe that breaking to someone else. But in my own life, something had to give before I could admit how much pain I was in—and how much pain I was carrying into the lives of people I loved.

Understanding my darkness began there.

With an inventory I could no longer afford to soften.

It is difficult to look honestly at yourself when you already carry shame. Every admission can feel like evidence for the prosecution. Every mistake seems to confirm the worst thing you believe about yourself.

But I had to learn to name what I had done without using those names to end the possibility of becoming someone healthier.

I had been hurt.

I had also hurt people.

I had abandoned myself to preserve connection, then carried resentment into the very relationships I was trying to protect. I had wanted to be understood while becoming defensive when someone explained how they experienced me. I had confused being useful with being loved, then felt discarded when nobody needed anything.

Those truths required accountability. They also required me to stay long enough to ask why.

My writing and music have become places where I practice that honesty.

Donkey Boy carries the child who learned to survive before he could understand what was happening. Unspoken Truth gives language to what stayed secret for forty years. Somatic Reality expresses the alarm, numbness, shaking, and intensity that can live underneath a functioning exterior. A Complex Healing Journey tries to bring those experiences into the same room and accept responsibility for the man living with them.

Together, they help me hear what my darkness has been saying.

A small part of that inventory looks like this:

Rage: I can hear the force of my reaction first. When I stay with it, I sometimes find fear, helplessness, grief, or the humiliation of feeling powerless again. Beneath those feelings, shame can whisper that needing protection makes me weak.

Depression: In my experience, its heaviness can hold exhaustion, loneliness, buried grief, and anger I have turned inward. Shame adds another weight: You have so much. What is wrong with you that you still hurt?

Resentment: I have to examine what someone actually did, what I never communicated, and where I agreed to something while abandoning myself. Underneath, there may be hurt and a longing to matter without having to keep proving my usefulness.

Withdrawal and numbness: Sometimes I discover that I am overwhelmed, afraid of getting it wrong, or ashamed of how much reassurance I need. I may long for closeness while protecting myself from being fully seen.

These are patterns I am learning to recognize in myself. They do not follow the same sequence every time. Sometimes anger is the first honest response to something painful. Sometimes shame appears before I can identify anything else.

That is why the inventory takes time.

I have to notice the feeling on the surface, then become curious about what came before it. What hurt? What frightened me? What did I believe this moment said about my worth?

And what did I do with that feeling?

Understanding the wound does not repair the damage my reaction caused. I still have to listen, apologize, respect boundaries, and practice responding differently. Someone else should not have to absorb my pain so I can avoid feeling it.

But punishing myself has never taught me how to do those things well.

Shame kept telling me that if I hated myself enough, I would finally change.

Instead, I became more afraid to look.

Self-love is teaching me how to remain present for the truth.

It asks me to acknowledge the harm without surrendering my humanity. To forgive the child for what he could not control. To hold the adult responsible for what he can begin to change. To accept that healing requires repeated choices after the insight, after the apology, after the moment when I finally understand.

There is a light in that kind of love that I struggle to describe.

For me, it feels like an immediate connection to my Creator.

When I can look at a part of myself I have spent decades condemning and respond with honesty, compassion, and a willingness to help it heal, I feel closer to God. I can begin to believe that love includes me, even here, with all this work still unfinished.

I experience that connection as light: something that brings warmth and makes it possible to see.

We are emotional beings. We affect one another. A gentle response can change what a difficult moment feels like. An honest apology can make room for connection. A boundary can protect the possibility of love continuing.

I believe we are bound together by an energy whose deepest expression is love. Yet I can believe that with my mind and still struggle to feel it in my own life.

Learning to love myself is where that belief begins to become an experience.

It does not mean I must finish healing before I can love someone else or receive their love. It means I have to include myself in the compassion, accountability, and grace I hope to share.

That relationship requires conflict and resolution, too.

There are parts of me that still want to hide, defend, perform, or disappear. I have to listen to what they fear while deciding how I will live. I have to keep promises to myself, repair the times I abandon myself, and learn that my needs can be spoken without becoming demands.

Just like every relationship, this one grows through the difficult moments we are willing to work through.

After more than forty years, I am beginning to understand the darkness I carried.

Some of it is grief that needs room. Some is fear that needs reassurance. Some is behavior I need to change. And some is shame that has kept a six-year-old boy believing he was responsible for what happened to him.

I am learning to meet each part honestly.

And when I reach that boy, I want to bring enough light for him to see my face.

I want him to know I understand.

I want him to know he can stop earning his place.

And I want to stay long enough for him to feel loved.