This is part of a thread I’ve been following — in my own life and in the lives of so many I support — about changing capacity, late discovery, and what happens when we stop performing survival. This piece isn’t a tidy how-to. It’s more of a witnessing. A map made mid-transformation. For those in the fog, the fatigue, the threshold of truth… I wrote this for you.
There comes a moment — maybe many — when you realize the way you’ve been moving through the world isn’t sustainable. Not because you failed. But because the performance is collapsing.
You might call it burnout. Or maybe it’s the slow ache of living in a body that’s been masking for decades. Maybe you’re late-diagnosed, or circling a new neurodivergent truth. Maybe you’re queer, disabled, racialized — raised in systems that rewarded assimilation and punished difference. You learned to scan, to fit, to please, to hustle, to caretake, to overachieve. You became the version of yourself that was safest. That kept you employed, included, needed, alive.
But now… something is shifting. The mask is slipping. The capacity you once had for “keeping up” is gone. And underneath the exhaustion is a question that won’t go away: Who am I without the survival script?
This part of the journey is sacred, but it doesn’t feel soft. It feels like grief. Like disorientation. Like not knowing how to get dressed anymore because your body and your identity no longer want to perform the same roles. It feels like you can’t go back — but going forward means becoming someone you haven’t met yet.
This isn’t regression. This is reclamation.
And no, it won’t happen all at once. You’ll wobble between old instincts and new truths. You’ll have days where you can’t speak, can’t show up, can’t explain why you need silence or softness or solitude. And you’ll have days where clarity arrives — not like lightning, but like a slow tide… washing something real to shore.
This is the spiral path of sacred identity work — especially for those of us who’ve spent our lives adapting. It isn’t about declaring a new self overnight. It’s about shedding what was never yours. Listening beneath the noise. And letting your truth take up space — even before it feels ready.
If your name feels strange in your mouth… If your rituals no longer regulate you… If the mirror feels unfamiliar and the silence feels loud… You are not broken. You are unfolding.
You don’t owe anyone an explanation. You don’t have to rush toward resolution. You are allowed to linger in the fog. To grieve what kept you safe. To stay sacred even when you don’t feel coherent.
This too is becoming. And you’re allowed to not have the language for it yet.
If this resonates — if you’re in that space where the edges of who you’ve been are fraying — you’re not alone. I work with folks in exactly this threshold. In spiritual care sessions. In neurodivergent-affirming energy work. In rituals that don’t require performance.
You can reach out. Or not. You can rest with this for a while. Or come back to it when you need.
There’s no right timeline for becoming. Just the truth of where you are now. And that… is enough.