At night, the world changed.
The sun would set, and with it, any sense of safety I had managed to gather during the day would fade. I remember the way the darkness seemed to settle in my chest before it filled the room. I knew what was coming. I always knew.
I was just a child, but I learned how to lie with my face. I smiled at breakfast. I made my bed. I got good grades. I played the part. But my body held the truth. It remembered the silence, the weight, the fear that crept in after everyone else had gone to sleep.
No one noticed. Or maybe they did and chose not to ask. I became very good at disappearing while standing right in front of people.
I tried to pray it away. I thought if I were good enough, faithful enough, obedient enough, it would stop. I read scriptures under my blanket. I begged God to make it end. But the nights kept coming.
And then one day, they didn’t.
Eventually, life changed. I grew older, moved away, and tried to forget. I built walls so high I couldn’t hear myself think. For a while, I believed I was fine. Strong, even. But the body doesn’t forget. It speaks in panic attacks, nightmares, sudden tears, numbness. I didn’t understand at first. I only knew I was tired in a way sleep couldn’t fix.
It took years before I could even begin to say it aloud—to name what happened without shrinking under the weight of shame. In therapy, I learned to sit with the girl I used to be. I told her I believed her. That it wasn’t her fault. That she didn’t do anything wrong.
The truth didn’t break me. Hiding it did.
Now, when the lights go out, I am no longer afraid of the dark. It’s taken time, and work, and softness I never thought I deserved. But I am healing. I am here. And every day I reclaim a little more of the peace that was stolen.
I don’t need to whisper anymore.
What happened to me matters.
And I am finally learning that I do too.
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