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Trigger Warning: This piece contains references to childhood trauma, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Please take care of yourself as you read, and step away if you need to. If you are struggling, you are not alone — support is available through trusted loved ones, a therapist, or resources like the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (in the U.S.).
Hello, darkness, my old friend.
I can’t push you away—because if I do, you only grow stronger. So I’m learning to let you be here. You settle in my chest like a hollow weight, speaking not in words but in pressure.
At two years old, I could already feel my grandmother’s sadness. She didn’t believe anyone really loved her. I absorbed it for her.
At three, I sat in front of my mother while tears welled in her eyes. A lump rose in my own throat as I told her, “Don’t cry, Mommy. It’s okay.” She needed comfort, so I gave it. I did the best I could.
At four, I can still see myself on the porch, singing a song of longing for my mother, hoping she would come get me. I hadn’t seen her for two years. I had been kidnapped back and forth between my parents—not because of custody battles (my mom never had the money to fight), but because that was the reality of the seventies, when parental abductions, divorces, and conflict between parents were far too common.
My mom was a domestic violence survivor, scarred and traumatized. Her depression deepened over time. All I knew was that I missed her. So I sang.
At twelve, I stood in front of my best friend’s casket—her hands folded, a bruise on one. From then on, the feeling never really left. It would shrink sometimes, but it always lived somewhere in the background.
At fifteen, I shoplifted a pair of floral shorts because my mom couldn’t afford the things that made me fit in. I stared at myself in a mirror lit like a stage: green eyes, smiling on the outside, aching on the inside. I was waiting for my first love to pick me up. Even then I could feel it.
At twenty-two, just before Christmas, I had nowhere to go. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment by myself, just trying to get through the last semester of college. My mom was back in the hospital—the depression that had deepened over the years had become a more permanent fixture. Now I know it was bipolar disorder, sometimes followed by psychosis. I held the sadness silently. No one really knew how much I was hurting.
I went to the kitchen cabinet and grabbed a bottle of household chemicals. I almost did it. I really almost did. Then I didn’t. Maybe I couldn’t let go of hope entirely. Maybe some stubborn strand inside me decided there would be another day.
Instead, I pet my cat and cried. I opened a little book of scripture my aunt had given me and whispered a prayer. My cat purred beside me. I was grateful for his company.
When the darkness returns, it doesn’t always come as me. Sometimes I’m inside the memory, reliving it. Sometimes I’m watching from above, seeing a girl I used to be, hurting quietly.
Darkness, I hear you. I know you’re here because you need to be seen. I can hold you. I can love you. I’m getting better at this.
What follows isn’t a conclusion I arrived at all at once, but an understanding that emerged gradually through my body.
The memories I’ve shared, though not linear, all surfaced in one Brainspotting session.
Brainspotting is, at its core, a deep, focused form of mindfulness: using the eyes to find a spot in the visual field that connects with the body’s felt sense, allowing the subconscious to release what words alone cannot reach.
I first learned about it as a therapist, trying to do my own healing while also searching for what worked with clients who were much like me.
Over the years, I’ve had hundreds of sessions—sometimes on my own, sometimes with my therapist. Each one takes me deeper into myself, my own story, my own inner knowing. My body shows me what my mind can’t access—old grief, stored memories, and the protective patterns I built as a child.
Facing these truths has changed my life in drastic ways. Each session deepens my self-compassion, strengthens my capacity to sit with hard feelings instead of dissociating, and expands my understanding of how trauma lives in the nervous system.
The wisdom isn’t tidy or instant; it’s an ongoing process of seeing the little girl and young woman I once was with gentleness—reclaiming my voice and agency in the present and learning to make choices from the adult me rather than the child me.
One night, while out of town, the ache returned. I had been away from a relationship I was in at the time after a long day. The abandonment wound rose in my chest—not because anything was overtly wrong, but because distance and quiet pressed against something familiar. At other times, space hadn’t been a problem. But that night, something in my subconscious was ready to surface, and I felt it before I could fully understand it.
I went into the bedroom where I was staying, sat down, and found a spot.
Images began flashing—moments of grief, loneliness, and survival my body had been holding for decades. As they moved through me, my chest softened. What had been tight and wordless began to organize itself, allowing my nervous system to release what it was ready to release.
By the next morning, the ache felt different—no longer overwhelming but something I could hold with more space and less fear. I understood more clearly where this pain had roots, even as I stayed curious about how the present moment interacted with the past.
What Brainspotting gave me wasn’t a simple answer—it gave me capacity. Capacity to stay present with sensation, to listen instead of panic, and to remain anchored in myself while navigating intimacy and uncertainty.
Healing doesn’t come from fighting the mud. Pain is wisdom wrapped in mud: messy, heavy, but also the ground from which the lotus rises—when the right conditions allow it.
About Allison Briggs
Allison Jeanette Briggs is a therapist, writer, and speaker specializing in helping women heal from codependency, childhood trauma, and emotional neglect. She blends psychological insight with spiritual depth to guide clients and readers toward self-trust, boundaries, and authentic connection. Allison is the author of the upcoming memoir On Being Real: Healing the Codependent Heart of a Woman and shares reflections on healing, resilience, and inner freedom at on-being-real.com.
