How I Realized I Had a Black Hole Where Understanding Should Be

Writing this blog cracked something open in me — a slow crack at first, but then it all gave way. And what came out wasn’t gentle. It was volcanic. A deep, relentless, unstoppable force — not rage, exactly, but truth. A molten core of memories, feelings, and realizations that had been trapped under layers of silence and coping.

But something even bigger happened in the aftermath of that eruption. And I need to talk about it.

I realized I never really talked to anyone about their childhood. Not in a meaningful, side-by-side, "let’s compare this to mine" kind of way. People would share things in passing — a holiday memory, a moment with their dad, a time their mom stepped in to protect them, or comfort them — but I never really heard it. Not in the way that made me reflect and say, Hold on… I didn’t have that. I wasn’t listening the way a person listens when they’re trying to understand themselves through others.

And now I know why.

Because I had a black hole inside me.

That’s not poetic exaggeration. That’s what it felt like — and still feels like, sometimes. A gravity well inside my mind and heart that sucked everything inward and stripped it of context. Any time something didn’t fit my internal script, it got swallowed up. I couldn’t hold it long enough to study it. I couldn’t compare it. I couldn’t challenge it. The black hole just took it — friends' stories, books I read, moments that should have sparked recognition. Gone.

I didn’t use other people’s childhoods as mirrors because I didn’t know mirrors existed. I thought we were all operating with the same raw deal — just trying to survive, keeping our heads down, figuring it out on our own. I thought numbness was maturity. I thought absence was independence. I thought not needing anyone was something to be proud of.

But when the blog started to break those thoughts open, I started seeing how wrong all that was. I started reading my own words back to myself and asking, Why did I think that was normal? Why didn’t I question that sooner?

Because the black hole had shaped everything. It warped my perception of what was possible. It convinced me that deep emotional connection wasn’t real — or at least not for me. It told me that love was transactional, that affection had to be earned, and that safety was something I’d have to build alone, brick by brick, because no one was coming to do it for me.

When I finally started listening correctly — not to others, but to myself — that’s when everything changed.

I saw that I had been walking around with a distorted map of the world. One where love meant performance, and silence meant safety, and memories were only allowed if they didn’t rock the boat. I had survived, yes — but I hadn’t understood myself. I hadn’t lived in a way that allowed for actual healing.

And the second I saw that — truly saw it — everything shifted.

My thoughts changed. They didn’t just improve, they evolved. I stopped blaming myself for things I couldn’t have known. I started forgiving the kid I was for not speaking up. I stopped accepting pain as the price of connection. I stopped assuming that every good thing had an expiration date or a hidden cost.

I still have work to do. I’m in counseling now, learning skills I never learned — how to hold emotions without drowning in them, how to sit with discomfort instead of running from it, how to speak truth even when it shakes the room. I’m building a new map. And for the first time, I trust the direction it’s pointing.

This blog — it’s part of that map. It’s a record of the eruptions and the aftermath. It’s where I learn to speak with my own voice instead of an echo. It’s where I find others who’ve been walking through their own quiet eruptions, holding their own truths inside volcanoes they didn’t know were still active.

I’m not writing from a place of arrival. I’m still traveling. But the difference is — now I know where I came from, and I’m not pretending it didn’t shape me.

If you’re reading this and feel like you’ve been numb or disconnected or stuck in a pattern that doesn’t make sense — maybe it’s not you. Maybe your black hole has been doing the thinking for you. Maybe your volcano is ready to crack open, too.

It won’t be easy. But I promise — when the light finally breaks through the ash, the air is clearer than it’s ever been.

---

I can’t end this without saying something important. My wife was the one who started me on this path. She saw things I couldn’t, gently pushed when I resisted, and stood beside me as I began unraveling decades of silence. Thank you. And to my counselor — you are helping frame my world in ways I never imagined possible. Your clarity, patience, and insight are giving me the tools I never had. I don’t know if either of you fully realize how much this means to me — how deeply this process is changing me. But I do. Thank you, both. From the bottom of the heart I’m finally learning to trust.