The Loss of Innocence

 There is a difference between sadness and depression. Depression is hopeless, frightening, and mind-numbing. But sadness is beautiful—the gentle moment when your spirit prepares itself for a fresh start. 

When you begin to feel real sadness, it’s a sign that you’re reaching the light at the end of the tunnel. Instead of devastating emptiness and upsetting triggers, your heart is ready to make one last transition. You’re done mourning the loss of your soul mate—and instead, you are finally ready to mourn for yourself. You go from a perpetual state of thinking about someone else, to suddenly thinking about what you lost from all of this.

But there’s one thing you will never be able to get back: your innocence. Keep in mind that innocence has nothing to do with ignorance or naivety. It’s simply the well-intentioned belief that all human beings have some good in them—the trust and love that you wholeheartedly gave to someone else. That’s innocence.

Moving forward, you will never see the world like that again.

That’s not to say you’re now hypervigilant and jaded. It just means that you’re going to view the world and the people around you in a more realistic light. Instead of automatically projecting your own goodness onto others, you let their actions speak for themselves. You see, this is not at all a bad thing. It’s just sad at first, because you can never know you’re losing your innocence until it’s actually gone. 

 For months, you oscillated back and forth between the idealize and devalue phases, trying to understand which one was real. You reasoned that of course they loved you, because they said they did. But then you looked at their actions, which did not at all reflect their words. You know intuitively that love i

s not insulting, criticizing, cheating, and lying. Love does not make you feel suicidal. Love does not mock you for having hurt feelings. 

And so, the more you thought about it, the angrier and more depressed you got. The light inside of you began to fade away as they consumed your every thought. The light could not transform their behavior, so instead it started to absorb it, growing dimmer every day. 

As time went on, you felt profound rage and emptiness that you’d never felt in your life. Throughout most of the process, you probably didn’t even know how to express it. So on the outside, you remained this happy person that everyone expected and needed. You wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone with your feelings. But deep down, something was changing. The light was almost out, and suddenly you found yourself feeling very resentful and irritated with many people—people you thought were your closest friends. 

With time, you will find your own answers to these questions. Your innocence was a beautiful gift, but the paradox was that you never knew you had it. This was why you tended to pour so much of your love and affection into other human beings. Because you hadn’t yet felt that love for yourself. Through the psychopathic healing process, you make that final leap. As uncomfortable as it may be, you find self-respect and begin creating healthy boundaries. Instead of trying to fit in with others, you find yourself wondering why people don’t behave more like you. Empathetic, compassionate, loving, outgoing, creative, easy-going, responsible, caring… The gentle souls who walk this Earth and touch it only with kindness. 

When your light is gone, you can no longer use it to fix all of the broken things around you. So in its place, you begin to surround yourself with people who actually share and appreciate your most wonderful qualities. And you can’t discover all of that magic until your innocence is gone, giving you an opportunity to see the world as it truly is—as you truly are.

This journey is about you, and it always has been. Once you discover this, you are finally ready to fly free.