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Alone in the Dark, Volume II Part II: The Same Person in Different Fonts

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They all had her face. The dream was so clear it startled me awake. I was at a speed dating event. Every table I sat at, every person I leaned toward, every conversation I attempted to begin when I looked up, they all had her face. Same face. Different font. It was frightening. Disorienting. Too real to dismiss. When I shared the dream with my therapist, her expression shifted. It was as if a missing piece had finally landed where it belonged. Without hesitation, she assigned me a book to read before our next session: Psychopath Free . I read it in a matter of days. My session, however, was months away. By the time I finished the book, it was filled with notes, pages folded, passages underlined, patterns circled. I recognized my family in it. My child’s father. The relationship I was in at the time. Even a manager I once had while working at a hotel. It felt like the room was spinning. What I was reading wasn’t just information; it was my entire life reflected back to me. These people ...
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Alone in the Dark, Volume II Part I: When Chaos Became Normal

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I spent much of my life wondering why I was ever brought into this realm. If we choose to come here, what would have possessed me to make that choice, knowing what I was up against? Why these parents? Why these people I once called family? Why a life that felt like a detriment to me emotionally in more ways than I can count? Before I knew what depression was, I experienced it. Before I knew family could hate you, I was hated. Before I knew emotional scars could last decades, I was already feeling their ache. I had no terminology. No psychology language. No understanding that what I was experiencing had a name, that other people dealt with it too, and that some of them did not make it out. When I eventually found that out, it scared me. It almost broke me. But we’ll talk about that later. What I knew then was this: I have never been protected. I have never felt psychologically safe. Even with people around me, I have been alone ninety percent of my life. Life felt like one hit after ano...
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The Roots We Don’t Talk About

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There’s a mother of seven who often comes across my timeline. I don’t engage with her content. It isn’t what I seek out, and I’m not the type to leave harsh comments or critique strangers online. When something doesn’t resonate, I scroll quickly, so the algorithm learns and moves on. But her content kept returning. Eventually, I paused on a video of her cleaning. In it, she spoke about the condition of her home and attributed it to raising seven children. The word condition made me stop. So I looked more deeply, not to judge but to understand. What I noticed was that the conditions she referenced weren’t occasional. They were frequent. And while I immediately saw a lack of structure, I also knew that wasn’t the real conversation. The real concern wasn’t the home. It was the foundation. Because the foundation we lay today is the one our children build on tomorrow. As I continued observing, I learned she was a teen mom. That added context. My first thought was that perhaps she was grow...
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