There was a space inside me that I could never quite describe. I lived around it, avoided it, adapted to it. It was never loud, never dramatic — just this constant hum of absence. A void. A weightless heaviness. I didn’t have a name for it for most of my life. I just assumed this was what it meant to be human — to always feel slightly out of sync, slightly off-center, slightly... not here.

But I’ve named it now. The black hole.

And with that naming, something cracked open. Not in a clean or cathartic way. Not like a movie scene where clarity arrives like a sudden sunrise. No — it was more like a tremor beneath the surface of everything I thought was solid. A silent shift. An uncoiling. The beginning of something terrifying and important.

The black hole is what formed when my needs were met with silence. When my feelings were too big for the room I was in. When I learned to anticipate everyone else’s reactions before I was even old enough to spell the word “boundaries.” It’s the result of growing up in a house where survival meant smiling when I wanted to scream. Where “I’m fine” wasn’t just a phrase — it was a way of life.

Naming it didn’t solve anything. It didn’t fill the emptiness or stitch together the missing pieces of memory. But it gave me a reference point. A way to stop floating. A way to start asking the questions I’d been too afraid to form.

Since then, I’ve been doing research. Deep, emotional, obsessive research. Not just to understand what happened to me — but to find out if I was the only one. I’ve been reading books about childhood emotional neglect, about complex PTSD, about the long-term effects of being raised in environments where your inner world was never seen, reflected, or encouraged to exist.

And the answer is: I’m not the only one. Not even close.

That should be comforting, right? To know that you’re not alone? That others have walked this path and found words for the things you didn’t think could ever be described? And yes, in some ways, it is deeply comforting. I have wept reading the words of strangers. I have sat in stunned silence as I watched videos of people describing their childhoods, and felt like they had reached into the locked drawer in the back of my soul.

But with that comfort comes grief. Heavy, thick grief. The kind that wraps around your lungs and makes it hard to breathe.

Because if so many of us are walking around with black holes in our chests, what does that say about the world we were raised in?

What does that say about the systems, the families, the emotional blueprints we inherited?

What does it say about what we’ve had to become just to appear okay?

And what does healing look like when the wounds aren’t from what was done to us — but from what was never done at all?

There’s something uniquely disorienting about grieving an absence. There’s no clear memory to hold onto, no concrete event to revisit. There is only the sense that something should have been there and wasn’t. It’s like walking through a house you lived in as a child and realizing there was never a bedroom for you. You slept in the hallway your whole life and never questioned it — until someone pointed out that most kids have doors that close and beds that belong to them.

That’s what this feels like. Like I’m finally noticing the things I trained myself not to see.

And with that noticing comes a kind of collapse. Not dramatic. Not noisy. Just... slow. Quiet. Inward.

I’m discovering parts of myself that were stunted before they had a chance to grow. I’m remembering times I should’ve cried and didn’t. Times I was praised for being “so mature,” when really, I had just given up on being a child. Times I was rewarded for being emotionally low-maintenance — when really, I was starving.

And now that I know what the black hole is, I can see how it’s shaped everything.

I see it in my relationships — the way I wait to be needed instead of asking to be loved.

I see it in my work — the way I overdeliver to prove I’m worthy of being noticed.

I see it in my body — the way I carry tension like armor, always braced for an impact that never comes.

I see it in my language — the way I soften my truths, dilute my anger, minimize my pain.

Because when you grow up without emotional safety, you learn to survive by erasing yourself.

And now, all these years later, I’m trying to find the outline of the person I was always meant to be.

But that’s where things get complicated. Because healing isn’t just a straight line forward. It’s not just insight and journaling and therapy and suddenly everything’s better. It’s messy. It’s circular. It’s slow and uneven and, at times, deeply discouraging.

There are days when I feel strong — when I feel the power of naming the black hole, of claiming my truth, of stepping into the light.

And then there are days when I want to curl into a ball and disappear. When the sadness is too big. When the memories feel like ghosts pressing on my chest. When I doubt everything I’ve ever felt, ever said, ever believed about myself.

I’m finding words now — but sometimes they hurt more than they heal.

Because once you can name a thing, you can no longer ignore it.

I can no longer pretend that I wasn’t emotionally neglected just because there were no bruises.

I can no longer excuse the emotional silence by telling myself, “They did their best.”

I can no longer gaslight myself into thinking I’m overreacting.

I’m done minimizing. I’m done performing. I’m done trying to heal quietly so no one gets uncomfortable.

This is my work now: to feel. To name. To remember. To grieve.

To get angry — not just on my behalf, but on behalf of the child I used to be, who deserved so much more than survival.

To reclaim my right to take up space, to have needs, to be messy, to be human.

But it’s hard. God, it’s hard.

Because the black hole isn’t just a metaphor. It’s a learned way of being. A survival instinct so deeply embedded that it feels like identity.

There are days I still doubt myself. Days I wonder if maybe I’m making it all up. Days I hear that old, poisonous whisper: “It wasn’t that bad. You’re just sensitive.”

But I know better now. I’ve seen too much. Felt too much. Learned too much to go back.

I may not have all the answers. I may still fall into old patterns. I may still freeze when someone asks how I’m doing. I may still struggle to believe I deserve love without earning it.

But I’m here. I’m doing the work. I’m finding my way back.

And even if the black hole never fully disappears, at least now I’m not circling it in silence.

At least now I have words. At least now I have a map.

At least now, I have me.

And that is where healing begins.