The universe has jokes, and most of them aren’t funny.
They come at you sideways — not when you’re ready, not when you’re armored up — but when you’re raw and exposed. It doesn’t all happen at once… and yet somehow, it all happens at once.
There’s no neat, linear path. No two descents look the same. But the one constant is this: it feels like a face-plant into the abyss.
For me, the mountain before me grew taller with every desperate step. Every punch that landed wasn’t just a bruise; it felt like broken bones — physical, sure, but that’s the easy part. It’s the deep cuts — the invisible ones — that tear through your soul. The wounds no one can see. The ones you have to carry while pretending you’re “fine,” holding life together like a crumbling facade, while inside, reality is disintegrating.
Everything you thought you were, every story you clung to about who you are and what this world is — it collapses. Not gently. Not gracefully. It shatters suddenly, violently, all at once.
And your ego, the faithful mask you wore to get you through all the good days and all the bad ones — it fades quicker than you ever thought possible. You are left alone with the undeniable truth:
That’s not who you really are.
You meet the child hiding in the corners of your soul — the one whose innocence was snatched away, somewhere, some time ago, by the hands of someone who should have loved you. You see the face you’ve hidden behind all these years crack and fall away, a mirror breaking before your eyes. And as it shatters, so too does the ground you stand on.
Loss strikes like a sudden earthquake — a betrayal, a death, a failure so deep it rattles your very core.
It doesn’t just hurt — it guts you, layer by painful layer, like a hunted animal being skinned alive. Your life peels apart like an onion. Each layer, a memory. Each layer, a lie you once believed.
And the universe — ruthless in its mercy — throws you face first onto the cold bathroom floor. Screaming. Kicking. Bleeding out your illusions with no dignity left to spare.
Rock bottom.
It’s a place of absolute chaos.
Every door you try to open slams shut in your face. Every escape route is bricked over. You’re trapped in a cage you can’t even see.
Depression descends, a black fog so heavy you start to wonder if breathing is even worth it anymore.
This is the darkest of nights.
The lowest of lows.
And the cruelest part is, daylight feels a thousand years away.
You want to run. You want to disappear. But somewhere deep — maybe in a voice so faint you barely hear it — something says: No. Stay.
The truth is, there’s no clear path that leads you here. No neon warning signs. No calendar appointment for your soul’s collapse.
One day, you simply arrive.
Broken. Exposed. Unrecognizable even to yourself.
It feels like the universe, tired of your running, tired of your excuses, roars out:
“Enough. We will watch this no more.”
You have ignored the signs long enough.
You have hidden your true self long enough.
Now — whether you want it or not — you are being initiated.
The call into darkness is brutal.
Part of it is because the universe wants you here.
And part of it is because the universe needs you here, now.
There is no way around it.
Only through it.
And on the other side of this violent descent — if you survive it — you will not be who you were.
You will be who you were meant to become.
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