The Hollow Places: A Story of Self-Awareness and Healing

There was a time in my life when I found myself standing at the edge of what felt like a vast, empty void. On the surface, everything seemed fine—or at least, manageable—but deep down, I felt hollow, like something was missing. It was a strange, gnawing emptiness that I couldn’t quite shake, no matter what I tried.

During that time, I had just gone through a painful experience with someone I deeply trusted—a friend who had been a central figure in my life and part of the spiritual community I had grown close to. Without warning, everything unraveled. The connection was severed, and I was left questioning everything: my intuition, my beliefs, and even my own worth. It left me feeling lost and cast out from a space that had once felt like home.

Rather than facing that pain head-on, I unconsciously turned to escape. Not in the typical ways you might imagine, but through stories—stories that were far darker than anything I would usually consume. These weren’t just your average intense narratives; they pushed boundaries in ways that, in hindsight, didn’t serve me. At the time, I told myself it was harmless. After all, I was just 'exploring' new ideas and themes as a writer. But deep down, I knew that wasn’t the truth.

The real reason I was consuming those stories? I wasn’t just running from something; I was running toward something. I was chasing a feeling. I wanted to feel something—anything—that would fill the emptiness. I craved intensity, adrenaline, that rush of excitement that comes from the unfamiliar. For a while, it worked. Those stories gave me a temporary spark, a fleeting sense of aliveness.

But here’s the thing about chasing intensity: it’s not sustainable. It’s like trying to quench your thirst with salt water—it doesn’t satisfy you, and eventually, it makes you sick.

After a while, that’s exactly how I felt. Those late nights spent diving into these dark narratives left me feeling worse than before. I felt disgusted with myself, not because exploring darker themes is inherently bad, but because I knew deep down that I wasn’t engaging with them in a healthy way. I was using them as a coping mechanism, a way to avoid dealing with the deeper wounds I hadn’t yet faced.

It wasn’t just about the stories, though. I also found myself retreating into fantasy, daydreaming about fictional characters and celebrity crushes far more than I normally would. I created elaborate fantasies where I felt truly seen, loved, and appreciated—something I wasn’t feeling in real life.

Eventually, everything came to a head, and I had to ask myself some hard questions: Why do I feel like this? What am I really craving?

The answer hit me harder than I expected. I wasn’t broken. I wasn’t hollow. I was lonely. I was craving real connection, real love, and a sense of wholeness that I hadn’t been giving myself. I was seeking intensity and fantasy because I wanted to feel something I thought I couldn’t find within myself.

That realization changed everything.

Slowly, I began to heal. I became more intentional about what I allowed into my space—whether it was the stories I consumed, the thoughts I entertained, or the people I kept around me. I set boundaries with myself and others, asking, Does this nourish me? Does this bring me closer to my true self? If the answer was no, I let it go.

It wasn’t an overnight transformation. Healing never is. But with every step forward, I found my way back to myself. I learned to forgive the version of me who was just trying to survive, who coped in the only way she knew how. I thanked her for her resilience, for doing her best with what she had, and then… I let her rest.

If you’ve ever felt like you were chasing something—whether it’s intensity, validation, or just a fleeting sense of feeling alive—I want you to know that you’re not alone. Sometimes that hollow space is just your soul’s way of asking for something deeper. And the beautiful thing is, you already have everything you need to fill that space. You don’t need to chase it. You just need to come home to yourself.