The Woman I Became to Survive

I used to think the hardest conversations I ever had were with other people.

I was wrong.

The hardest conversations were the ones I had with myself.

The ones nobody heard.

Those quiet conversations where something inside me would whisper, This doesn’t feel right, and I would answer myself back with, Maybe you’re overreacting.

The moments when I wanted more, but talked myself into being thankful for what little I was getting.

The moments when I was tired, hurt, lonely, disappointed, overwhelmed, or quietly breaking, and somehow still found a way to explain my own feelings away.

I became very good at that.

Maybe you have too.

Looking back, I don’t think I spent most of my life ignoring myself on purpose.

I think I spent most of my life negotiating with myself.

Just give it more time.

Just be patient.

Just don’t say anything right now.

Just keep the peace.

Just try to understand.

Just be grateful.

Just get through today.

And the strange part is, when you repeat those things to yourself long enough, they start sounding wise.

They start sounding mature.

They start sounding like strength.

But sometimes what we call strength is really survival.

Sometimes what we call patience is really fear.

Sometimes what we call keeping the peace is really abandoning our own peace so everybody else can stay comfortable.

That’s not easy to admit.

I didn’t see it for years.

Honestly, I don’t think I was ready to see it.

When you’re busy living, working, raising children, loving people, carrying responsibilities, and trying to keep your life from falling apart, you don’t always notice what is slowly becoming normal.

You don’t notice how fast you dismiss your own feelings.

You don’t notice how quickly you make room for everyone else while making yourself smaller and smaller.

You don’t notice how often you become the very voice talking yourself out of what you need.

For me, the shift wasn’t dramatic.

There was no big speech.

No perfect moment.

It was quieter than that.

I started noticing myself.

I noticed that every time something felt wrong, my first instinct was to explain it away.

If someone hurt me, I looked for their reason before I honored my pain.

If something felt unfair, I tried to be more understanding before I admitted I was bothered.

If I was exhausted, I told myself other women had it harder.

If I wanted something different, I listed every reason I should be satisfied.

It was almost automatic.

And once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.

Then I asked myself something I had never really sat with before.

What if my feelings aren’t the problem?

That question stayed with me.

Because for so many years, I treated my discomfort like something that needed to be fixed.

If I was unhappy, I told myself to be more grateful.

If I was overwhelmed, I told myself to try harder.

If something felt wrong, I told myself to look at it from everybody else’s side.

And yes, there is wisdom in being patient.

There is wisdom in being grateful.

There is wisdom in seeing another side.

But there is also a cost when a woman is always asked to understand everyone else while nobody asks what all that understanding is doing to her.

That is the part we don’t talk about enough.

We can become so good at being reasonable that we stop being honest with ourselves.

We can become so good at being strong that we don’t recognize how tired we are.

We can become so good at surviving that we forget survival was never supposed to become our whole personality.

I know that version of myself.

She could handle a lot.

She could keep going with a heavy heart.

She could smile while carrying things nobody knew about.

She could lower her expectations and call it peace.

She could convince herself that wanting more meant she was being difficult.

She was strong, yes.

But she was also exhausted.

And that is the woman I became to survive.

I don’t blame her anymore.

I wondered why I stayed quiet when I should have spoken up.

I wondered why I accepted less than I needed.

I wondered why I kept trying to be understanding in situations that were hurting me.

But now I look at her with more compassion.

She was doing the best she could with what she knew.

She was trying to keep life together.

She was trying to avoid conflict.

She was trying to protect her heart from more disappointment.

She was trying not to lose everything at once.

A lot of women know what that feels like.

We know how to become who we have to become just to make it through a season.

We become the quiet one.

The strong one.

The low maintenance one.

The one who doesn’t ask for much.

The one who says, It’s okay, even when it isn’t.

The one who keeps showing up because there are bills, children, work, family, and a life that still has to be lived.

After a while, people start believing that version of us is who we really are.

Sometimes we start believing it too.

But survival can shape you in ways you don’t notice until later.

It can make you calm when you’re really shut down.

It can make you agreeable when you’re really afraid of being a burden.

It can make you independent when what you really needed was support.

It can make you proud of needing no one, even when deep down you wish somebody would notice you were tired.

That part is hard to say out loud.

Because nobody wants to admit they got used to being unseen.

Nobody wants to admit they became easier to love by becoming quieter about their own needs.

But I think healing begins when we stop arguing with the truth.

And the truth for me is this.

My feelings were not always trying to make my life harder.

Sometimes they were trying to bring me back to myself.

My disappointment was telling me something.

My frustration was telling me something.

My exhaustion was telling me something.

My loneliness was telling me something.

The turning point wasn’t becoming a brand new woman.

It was learning how to stop fighting the woman I already was.

Learning how to pause when something felt off.

Learning how to ask, What am I feeling right now?

Learning how to admit, This hurt me, without rushing to defend the person who caused the hurt.

That has not been easy.

Some days, I still catch myself slipping into old habits.

I still have moments when I want to minimize something.

I still have moments when I hear that old voice telling me not to make a big deal out of it.

But now I notice.

And noticing changes everything.

Because once you start hearing your own voice again, it becomes harder to keep silencing her.

These days, I’m trying to spend less time convincing myself and more time listening to myself.

Less time negotiating with my own needs.

Less time explaining away my hurt.

Less time pretending something is fine when my spirit already knows it isn’t.

I used to think strength meant enduring everything.

Now I think strength also looks like paying attention.

Paying attention to what feels heavy.

Paying attention to what keeps hurting.

Paying attention to the places where you keep shrinking.

Paying attention to the life you are building and asking if you are actually in it.

Not every feeling needs an immediate decision.

Not every emotion needs to become an argument.

But every feeling deserves enough respect to be heard.

I think that is something many women were never taught.

We were taught how to care.

We were taught how to adjust.

We were taught how to keep going.

We were taught how to think about everybody else.

But many of us were never taught how to trust ourselves without feeling guilty for it.

Maybe that is what I am learning now.

Not how to become someone completely different.

Not how to erase the woman who survived.

Not how to pretend I was never hurt, tired, lonely, or unsure.

I’m learning how to stop talking over the woman I have been all along.

I’m learning how to honor the version of me who survived, without letting survival be the only version of me that gets to live.

Because she got me here.

She carried me through years I didn’t know how to name.

She kept going when I didn’t have the words for what I was feeling.

But now, I don’t want to only survive.

I want to hear myself.

I want to trust myself.

I want to live in a way where I no longer have to abandon myself to be accepted, chosen, needed, or loved.

The woman I became to survive deserves compassion.

But the woman I am becoming now deserves room.

#EvolvingWomanhood