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Alone in the Dark, Volume II Part III: Love Bombing, Masks, and the Cycle That Hooks You

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Just because someone does nice things does not mean they are nice people. That is love bombing 101. If you are easily enticed by gestures, they’ve got you. If validation is what you seek, they now know exactly how to hook you. And you need to be very careful with this, because this is how people are conditioned to accept abuse. It starts with excess. Overdoing the nice things. Overcompensating. Making you feel seen, chosen, special. Then comes the explosion. They blow up on you. Hurt you. Cross a line. Afterward, they cry. They apologize. They say they were having a bad day. They insist they never meant to hurt you. They do the thing you like most. You accept the apology. And the cycle begins again. I was beaten so badly once that I cried myself to sleep thinking about how I could take myself out. That night, my body shut down in ways I didn’t understand at the time; I wet the bed. The abuser entered my grandmother’s room to apologize. But by then, something in me had already shifted. ...
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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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