Evaporating the Fog: Driving Back from the Dark Places

    It started with a single, stray thought. Just one thought that managed to slip past my defenses and breach the surface.

It was a memory of the greatest betrayal my mother ever handed me. I have touched on the edges of this before, but recently, the specific, detailed abuse I endured from my father came rushing back into sharp focus. The weight of remembering that in such vivid detail was exhausting enough on its own. But what truly broke something inside me was the realization of how she failed me.

She never once got me the help I needed. She didn't remove me from that hell, or place me in a safe environment where I could actually just be a child. Instead, I was left to survive an environment that damages parts of you. That twists the very wiring of your brain.

When she saw the signs, when she asked me how I knew things a child of that age should never know, she didn't get me help. She didn't believe me. Years later, after I took it upon myself to get into therapy as an adult, I finally asked her why she never tried to get me into a therapist when I was a kid. Her excuse was that back then, she couldn’t get me in without my father's consent, and he was completely against it.

I don't know how true that legal loophole actually is, but in my gut, it felt like a deflection. It felt like she couldn't face the reality of her own complicity because she needed to maintain the illusion of the "amazing mom." But she wasn't. And that is the one thing she refuses to admit, because admitting it means saying the words out loud: I didn’t protect my child. I wasn't there. And she wasn't, even long before she got sick.

People love to use the comforting blanket statement that "she did the best she could with what she knew and what she had." To me? That feels like a cop-out. If you truly want to protect your child, if you truly want to save yourself, you find a way. I know this because I have found a way to save myself countless times as an adult. If I knew then what I know now, I would have shouted it to anyone, absolutely anyone, who could have pulled me out of the flames.

With the weight of those memories crashing down, everything went downhill. I dropped into a very dark place.

I went completely inward. I stopped talking. I withdrew from my partner, unable to show interest or connection. I stopped journaling, stopped using the apps that support my mental health, and stopped doing the social media work that usually brings me so much purpose. I even stopped writing, the very thing I love most in this world.

At first, I blamed the withdrawal. I had gone a week without nicotine. The one little tether that usually keeps me grounded when the world feels dizzying. The withdrawal was definitely part of it; it fueled the weird, disturbing dreams and heavy depression. But it wasn't the whole picture.

I reached a point in the darkness where I looked around and thought, What is the point of any of this? My words don't matter. I'm not getting anywhere. Why am I doing this to myself?

The cloud just kept getting darker and more suffocating. The worst part was that I couldn't feel or hear my goddesses. I wasn't really talking to them, and they mean everything to me. I haven't been stuck in a darkness that absolute in a very long time.

I call that dark, hijacked state of mind "Becky." And for two weeks, I let her take the steering wheel.

But today, as I sit here typing this, I can feel the emotions starting to move again. The stagnant air is clearing. My thoughts are gaining clarity, and I am officially reclaiming the driver's seat.

Most importantly, I can finally feel my goddesses again. I know now that they never actually left me. I did reach out to them once through the haze, demanding to know what I was doing with my life, asking why everything feels so stalled, and why we aren't moving forward. I couldn't hear their reply at the time, but deep down in the core of my inner knowing, I knew they were just sitting there quietly in the dark with me, waiting patiently for the fog to lift so I could fully hear them again.

The fog is lifting. The baseline is returning. And I am still here.

Thank you for sticking around as I navigate the fog of life and trauma.

With love from the shadows, Ashley



If my words have offered you a moment of healing, consider buying me a coffee. Your support keeps this voice independent and the magic moving.

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