From Shadows to Self: Navigating Trauma and Finding Light Through Brainspotting
Trigger Warning: This article contains references to childhood trauma, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Please prioritize your well-being as you read, and step away if needed. If you are struggling, remember 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. This familiar greeting isn’t a surrender but a recognition. I’ve learned that pushing you away only amplifies your presence. So, I’m learning to let you be. You settle in my chest, a hollow weight, communicating not in words but in an undeniable pressure.
Echoes of a Childhood Burdened
At just two years old, I absorbed my grandmother’s profound sadness, her belief that no one truly loved her. I carried it for her. By three, I sat before my mother, tears welling in her eyes, and a lump rising in my own throat as I offered, “Don’t cry, Mommy. It’s okay.” I gave comfort, doing the best a child could.
At four, I vividly recall myself on a porch, singing a song of longing, hoping my mother would return. I hadn’t seen her for two years, a casualty of the turbulent seventies—a time rife with parental abductions, divorces, and bitter conflicts. My mother, a survivor of domestic violence, bore deep scars and trauma. Her depression deepened, but all I knew was her absence. So, I sang.
At twelve, I stood before my best friend’s casket, her hands folded, a bruise marring one. From that moment, the feeling of profound loss never truly departed. It might recede, but it always lingered, a quiet hum in the background. At fifteen, I shoplifted floral shorts, a desperate attempt to fit in when my mother couldn’t afford such luxuries. I remember staring at my reflection in a brightly lit mirror: green eyes, a smile on the outside, an ache within. Even then, waiting for my first love, I could feel it.
A Brush with the Abyss: The Turning Point
At twenty-two, just before Christmas, I found myself adrift. Alone in a one-bedroom apartment, I was merely trying to survive my final college semester. My mother was hospitalized again, her deepening depression now identified as bipolar disorder, sometimes accompanied by psychosis. I held my sadness silently, convinced no one truly grasped the depth of my pain.
I walked to the kitchen, opened a cabinet, and reached for a bottle of household chemicals. I came terrifyingly close. I really almost did it. But then, I didn’t. Perhaps a stubborn flicker of hope remained, a resilient strand within me that insisted on another day. Instead, I petted my cat, cried, and whispered a prayer from a small scripture book my aunt had given me. My cat purred beside me, a comforting presence I cherished.
Understanding the Darkness: A New Perspective
When darkness returns, it doesn’t always manifest as ‘me.’ Sometimes, I’m reliving a memory, immersed in the past. Other times, I observe from above, watching the hurting girl I once was. Darkness, I hear you. I know you’re here because you need to be seen. I can hold you. I can love you. And I’m getting better at it.
This understanding wasn’t an epiphany but a gradual emergence, felt deeply within my body. The fragmented memories I’ve shared, though not linear, all surfaced during a single Brainspotting session.
Brainspotting: A Path to Profound Healing
At its core, Brainspotting is a deep, focused form of mindfulness. It uses the eyes to locate a ‘brainspot’ in the visual field that connects with the body’s felt sense, allowing the subconscious to release what words alone cannot reach. I first encountered it as a therapist, seeking my own healing while also searching for effective methods for clients who mirrored my experiences.
Over the years, I’ve undergone hundreds of sessions, sometimes independently, sometimes with my own therapist. Each session guides me deeper into myself, my story, my inner knowing. My body reveals what my mind struggles to access—old grief, stored memories, and the protective patterns I constructed as a child. Confronting these truths has drastically reshaped my life. Every session deepens my self-compassion, strengthens my capacity to sit with difficult emotions instead of dissociating, and expands my understanding of how trauma resides within the nervous system. This wisdom isn’t neat or instantaneous; it’s an ongoing process of viewing 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 my adult self, not my wounded child self.
Reclaiming Agency: Living from the Adult Self
One night, while traveling, the familiar ache resurfaced. After a long day, I was away from a relationship I was in at the time. The abandonment wound rose in my chest—not due to any overt issue, but because distance and quiet pressed against something deeply familiar. While space hadn’t always been a problem, that night, something in my subconscious was ready to surface, and I felt it before I could fully comprehend it. I went in…
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