This period of my life was one of the most significant challenges I had to face. It has also proven to be the most difficult to write about—and it shows. I have spent hours writing, editing, and then deleting my work. Unlike other parts of my story, where I can share specific events, this time remains deeply personal, even after more than twenty years.

A mentor once told me that we can choose to learn the truth about life and who we are through difficult situations or through loving ones. I eventually came to realize that in order to find my way out of the dark shadows my childhood had ingrained in me, I had to experience a life event that would shake me to the very core of my being—an event that would subject me to more than five years of life that were more difficult than the first forty years of my life combined.

That shift happened when I broke the heart of someone who meant the world to me. Knowing him opened my heart in ways I had never experienced. He was different. For a moment in time, we shared a natural connection that I would not fully appreciate until years later. I still think of the time we played an arcade trivia game in a restaurant. The top scores from previous players were around 500,000, but together we scored well over a million points. That moment has stayed with me as a form of validation—our connection was just that effortless.

But childhood scars had left me naïve and gullible, with little to no self-esteem. When I faced a horrible situation that I didn’t know how to handle, those scars triggered a reaction that made no sense at the time. Everything began to snowball. The more I tried to control it or explain it away, the worse it became. I became someone I didn’t recognize, and yet I felt powerless to stop the descent. I touched the edge of insanity. I kept believing there had to be something I could do or say to change the ending. Eventually, I had to accept a painful truth: the most important person I had met in this life was someone who would never be a part of my life again.

I then entered a season of “unlearning” everything I had been taught as a child. I had to put the pieces back together to find what was actually true about my life. My "need to know" self screamed for answers, and life hit hard as I began finding them—along with questions I never realized I had, but that desperately needed answering. I learned and “remembered” so much during those years. I slowly released the fear of living that had been a part of me since childhood. Some of the details from that time in my life may never be shared. They are too personal, and even after two decades, they still hurt.

I will always grieve for the pain I caused man who changed my life. My only consolation is the hope that one day, on the other side of this life, we will finally understand the reasons behind it all. That I will finally understand why it had to be this way. Only then will our hearts and souls truly heal.

My World Changed Forever