Doom and Gloom – Visible to me only in their absence: For a survivor of domestic violence, the accumulated and normalized adrenal fatigue one carries can cast a perpetual shadow of uncertainty, dread, and anticipation over one’s mind, heart, and mood. It’s easy to lose sight of what life can be without it.

Upon switching the CHI Sun to its second setting, I rapidly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep and woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and rested for the first time in a very long while. That morning, intrusive thoughts of doubt and doom, which had become like shadowed companions, were replaced by a vision of a spiraling beam of light rising from my crown and piercing the darkness that had shrouded my life for months, possibly years. In its sudden absence, I realized that the darkness, once so familiar and consistent, had become an integral part of my subconscious, visible to me only in its absence.