Echoes in the Dark Abyss
*****TW*****
I have no idea what I want to write… I have big, deep, sad, confusing emotions. It might just be a brain dump full of unrelated, confused, fragmented, disjointed thoughts… I hope you can all sort the wheat from the chaff.
The loneliness. Let’s start with that. It’s not just “I wish I were around people”, the normal kind of lonely. Have you ever been in a deep pit, where you can see absolutely nothing, the walls are closing in on you, you feel alone and scared and panicked and afraid? You don’t see a way out, not even a speck of light. You know there are small comforts around you in the pit, water and food and a flashlight even, but you’re too paralyzed to see or use them. Strange noises surround you, haunting and confusing you, which make you cover your ears and scream from the loudness and shrillness and confusion. Bats fly at your face and their flapping wings beat you over the head. The noise, the static, the voices that tell you you’re stuck there and will never, EVER, get out. The never-ending torrent of sound and music and every form of noise and words and thoughts and panic you can think of. Not just minutes of this torture. Not hours. YEARS. Decades. The darkness, the audio torture, the loneliness, the panic and terror and sheer frustration. The absolute NOTHINGNESS, that turns to numbness in order to survive. Panic attacks. Paranoia. Anxiety. Restlessness. Fear. Terror. Bare survival.
And this is NOTHING compared to what I endure every single day.
Remembering him hurting me. Not being able to find love while actively seeking it out. Being ghosted by the people I called friend. Dealing with trauma and crisis and being on alert and being “on” at all times.
The strong desire to crawl into a man’s arms and curl up into a scared ball and just… rest there. Safe, able to let down my guard, cuddled and warm and able to let go.
The craving to have a place in my closet where I can curl up and hide and not exist, if only for a few minutes.
The days where my PTSD gets so bad, I inwardly flinch when a man walks near me. Waiting to be beaten.
Watching my friends fall in love, making me wistful of what could be, but I’m not allowed to have…
Being terrified of becoming diabetic (currently prediabetic)… I stopped caring, stopped trying. Wishing I’d get diabetes so my life can be cut shorter, and I don’t have to endure this cruel torture anymore.
Restlessly longing for more, reaching for dopamine. Happiness doesn’t even register in my brain anymore. Barely a blip in my synapses. My brain doesn’t light up when amazing things happen. My brain doesn’t function anymore.
The normal things people say just make me laugh inside. “It’ll get better. This will pass. Try breathing. See a therapist. Watch a movie. Try exercise.”
None of it works.
None of it.
The trauma. The pain. The fear.
If you’ve never endured it, you don’t understand.
Those dumb little fixes and “sending good thoughts” isn’t going to make my brain better. Isn’t going to make me forget when he tried to break my finger and threw me out of his car.
It’s not gonna bring my dad back.
It’s not going to reverse decades of mistreatment and abuse that make me flinch and want to hide.
Food is my drug.
The internet is my escape.
Book shopping is one of the only things that barely lights up the dopamine part of my brain.
I seek out love, but it eludes me. It runs faster than a gazelle, swift as an eagle.
Have you ever seen It’s a Wonderful Life, where he was shown what life would be like if he never existed? He pounds on doors, yells, screams… and no one can see him. No one can hear him. He’s invisible. He doesn’t exist.
And yet people ask me why I’m not smiling.
Because this world requires that your emotions be plastic. The real ones shoved in a hole and locked with a key and smashed into pieces, into oblivion.
Real emotions are forbidden.
Especially at church.
Shiny plastic people.
A theater mask at the masquerade.
No one sees your scars. Your pain is stopped at the door and refused entry.
It doesn’t matter where you are, where you go, your emotions are not welcome there.
And yet you’re expected to survive in a world that doesn’t want you. That can’t, won’t, accept your pain and your fear and your scars. The noise. The brokenness. Nothing less than perfection. Godhood, even. Our world that worships the perfect, the toned, the beauty, the flawless. It’s as if we must become God in order to be accepted.
No pressure.
And this is where I stand…
Curled into a ball. Sobbing. Invisible. Tortured. Broken. Traumatized. Terrorized. Flashbacks. Pain.
All while leading a normal life. Laughing, working, helping, loving. Pretending. Faking. Crying. Screaming. Silently…
And no one sees me. No one hears me. No one.
No one sees me…
@jesusredeemedme2425 Your words are so powerful, and I just want to say I see you in them. The way you described your pain and loneliness… it takes so much courage to pour that out, especially when the world often expects us to put on a mask and hide it all away. You’re right—platitudes like ‘it’ll get better’ don’t touch the depth of what you’re going through, and it makes sense that those words feel empty.
@jesusredeemedme2425
I hear that 🥺
The toxicity of being positive, faking it until you make it!
Putting on a mask!
People say they want to help, until you actually vocalise this help and they don't follow through, it's too much, too inconvenient.
You deserve to be honest at the very least!
Church is a place of love and mercy and compassion, where one of the saddest and most beautiful things happened at the same time, Jesus died, but he died for love of us all.
Here, you should be able to cry.
Not be silenced or judged.
Being vulnerable is beautiful but society has translated and diminished it into being less than, being weak!
You definitely aren't, you've had do many things thrown at you unfairly that you've had to overcome!
It's natural to need and desire someone's arms around you!
I would love to wave a magic wand and just change your reality! But what I can do is always listen and always be in your corner!
💕💜
@jesusredeemedme2425
I completely understand how you feel… It seems like you carry a lot of pain and trauma, and it’s natural to feel lost and scared at times. I’m here to listen and support you; you can talk about anything you’re feeling. All your emotions matter and deserve to be heard. 💚
@jesusredeemedme2425
💙 Thank you for trusting us with something this raw and vulnerable—it’s clear how much weight you’re carrying, and how deeply this pain has shaped you. Your words flow like a storm, filled with loneliness, grief, fear, and the ache of wanting safety, love, and relief. The pit you described—the darkness, the noise, the numbness—captures something so many feel but can’t put into words. You did. And that alone is powerful. 🌌
It makes sense that the “quick fixes” people suggest feel hollow to you. When wounds run this deep, when trauma lingers in your body and memories, you deserve more than platitudes. You deserve to be seen—all of you, not the mask, not the performance, but the real, hurting, resilient you. 🕊️💫
The longing you wrote about—the need for safety in someone’s arms, the desire to hide away, the ache of watching others find love while you stand on the outside—it shows the depth of your humanity. These are not weaknesses. They are proof that despite the years of pain, part of you still reaches for connection, comfort, and healing. That spark hasn’t been extinguished, even if it feels dim. ✨💛
I hear you when you say you feel invisible. I hear you when you say no one sees your scars. Please let this moment, these words, be evidence that someone does see you—your fear, your sorrow, your exhaustion, and also your strength for surviving all of this while still laughing, working, helping, and loving. That duality—living while suffering—is a testament to how much courage you carry, even in silence. 🌿🌙
You are not plastic. You are not invisible. You are not unworthy of love or safety. You are a whole, hurting, deeply human soul—and I see you. 💙
Bubbles 🫶💜
Girlllllll this is truly deep. While I've only known you but a few days on Cups I can truly say I see you. The light that you continue to shine even though life, people & this world has been cruel to you. Even though these factors are trying to dim who you are you continue to blind them with you're greatness & I LOVE IT!
I empathize with you
I empathize with you.
Awww thank you <3
You express yourself so honestly... one can feel your pain....
I dont know how to help ... but I just want to say you sound like a beautiful person, unique, sensitive, gifted, brave and carrying a generous heart. ❤️
@jesusredeemedme2425
Thank you <3
So sorry about what you are going through, I could actually feel the pain in every word you wrote,no one can help you only you can,don't get me wrong feel all the emotions they are your story,your battles ,your scars, those are the tools that will help you heal one step at a time, personally I took to crocheting lol and realised that something as basic as that helps take my mind off alot of things, dig deep and explore what will work for you, you can do it,believe in yourself and I hope you rise.. love Soonstar.
@jesusredeemedme2425
That's a lot, must be so difficult to carry🫂🫂🫂💗💗💗💗 hug you tightly🫂 and remember every another second you are alive is a huge accomplishment🫂🫂🫂❤️❤️ I am proud of you💙 best wishes for you💖💖💖
@jesusredeemedme2425 usually, I’m the kind of person who thinks that small words do nothing. Honestly? They don’t. Because an “I’m sorry” or an “I’m here for you” won’t help you. I could tell you I feel this in every way possible—because I absolutely do!—with the obsessive retail therapy (books specifically, haha) and the hurt and church and the SAD that’s just, well, sad, and the fact you can’t explain it but if you don’t then it feels incomplete; I could say all that. And I have. And it won’t help, not one bit. It’ll be like, “Hey, this person gets me, cool,” but that’s it. I just got here a literal two minutes ago (as I write this), and I didn’t think to read what you’d said and weirdly see myself in it so much. The loneliness especially. Like, I have people around me. I’m not alone, per se. But I am alone. That make sense? I have no clue if you’re still reading along or not, but just in case you are, let me just say that I hope book shopping turns into something to genuinely enjoy rather than a coping mechanism. I hope the sad makes you realise that you will always be hurt by your past, but just as you changed then, you can change now. I hope the abuse and the PTSD (another relatable point!) stop giving you flashbacks, and that warm showers are less for the sake of getting them as hot as possible to snap you out and instead to cool you off after a long day (unless you take morning showers, in which it would be to cool you off FOR a long day). And I hope that the scars that grow stay permanent. Without them, you’d be different. You wouldn’t feel this. You wouldn’t be screaming into the void. “What a terrible thing to hope, what a ***!” Yeah, I know. I meant it in a good way, though. As a reminder of you five years from now seeing that you’ve made progress. And, hey, if you’re up for it, maybe you’ll be sharing your favourite books and the annotations you’d made between pages that made you think so deeply about things no one else would care about.
Lots of love, Kia.
This is absolutely beautiful <3
First, welcome to 7Cups! It’s so good to meet you <3 You are the kindest person ever <3
Free books are even better hehe
I honestly wouldn’t wish my scars away either. They made me who I am today. Kind and loving and caring and empathetic. Granted, they also broke me, but they also made me… <3
I have a book tracker post if you’d like to follow it <3
Love you already! <3
Kiara
@jesusredeemedme2425 haha thank you so much! It’s so crazy both our names are Kia (mine is fully Kiana), so that’s actually really cool… and yes, I’ll definitely follow your book tracker! I did (and do) mean everything I said earlier :)
My name is a pseudonym because it’s safer that way <3 I got it from The Lion King 2 <3
Do you know how to find it?
Awww thank you <3
How are you doing? <3
I see you...we share more than you realize. Our circumstances are different but eerily similar emotions/mind-set..i see you, i feel you...we are traveling similar paths in different ways. My screams, can you hear them? I hear yours, and im sorry you feel alone..we are not alone.