The warm scent of cinnamon and maple sausage wafted out of the conference room into my cubicle. Dishes full of French toast casseroles, sausage, bacon, muffins, and all kinds of other goodies bounced past my desk on the way toward their potluck destination. It was breakfast themed. My favorite.
Why did it have to be in the conference room outside my cubicle? Why did this have to be the week I did my juice cleanse? I swirled the green liquid in my cup before taking another sip. Mmm, yummy. Grass.
Coworkers passed with heaping plates. “Did you get a plate?” they asked through mouthfuls of sugar and carbs.
I lifted my cup, sloshing my juice around and smiled, “Only three more days of my cleanse.”
“Oh, I could never,” they’d say, taking a swig of orange juice or delicious coffee. “You’re so much more disciplined than me.”
My chest would warm. It was working.
I was disciplined. I was taking care of my body. People could see it.
I didn’t recognize it at the time, but this moment was part of a pattern I had been repeating for years—mistaking restriction for discipline, and discipline for self-love.
Whenever I started to feel shitty about myself, I’d end up on some diet or trend disguised as a ‘health kick,’ only to exacerbate an eating disorder I didn’t yet know I had.
Really, I was just trying to keep up with social media and be a “healthier” person. I wanted to love myself, so I worked overtime to become something loveable.
Usually, I just didn’t eat much. When I did, I’d overdo it. Getting disciplined and counting every calorie that went in my mouth had to be the way to go. Instead of completely depriving myself, I’d go on juice cleanses. At least then I was being healthy and getting nutrients instead of just… existing.
Before long, I was weighing myself twice a day, logging every fluctuation like it meant something about who I was as a person.
People complimented me. At work. Around town.
I was doing something right. I was becoming loveable.
I didn’t love my body yet. I hadn’t reached the goal weight I thought I needed, but people were approving of me. That felt close enough to love that I convinced myself I was on the right path.
By the time I was in my twenties, I had mastered the art of being a chameleon. I had a knack for fitting in almost anywhere.
People-pleasing? Check.
Code-switching? Check.
Emotional shape-shifting? Checkity check.
I could be whoever those around me were most comfortable with, even if I wasn’t comfortable with the crap that came out of my mouth, or the things I’d blindly nod along to. (Ugh. Big cringe.)
I was a great friend to others. They could cry and pour their souls out to me into the wee hours of the night. I’d be there regardless of how early my toddler woke, or if I had an early shift at work. When I needed a shoulder, I’d be understanding of their more important obligations, like driving somewhere or watching a TV show they were interested in. It was fine. It was always fine.
If a friend wanted to try a new diet or trend, you bet I was right there by her side so she didn’t have to go it alone. I couldn’t afford the supplements? No problem. I just went grocery shopping and now half of it would be wasted? That’s cool. I was their girl. Being supportive made sure I wasn’t left behind.
I became the perfect girlfriend, changing the way I dressed, how I wore my makeup, even how visible I allowed myself to be. If they wanted me more polished, I polished. If they were threatened by me getting attention, I shrank. Their comfort felt like my responsibility. Their approval was like a safety blanket.
And if my mother needed me, whatever I had planned disappeared. My schedule, my needs, and my life were all negotiable. Letting her down was never an option. When she canceled on me or changed plans at the last minute, I was understanding.
What kind of daughter would I be if I made her life harder?
Somewhere along the way, I stopped recognizing what I wanted—or even needed. I only recognized what would make everyone else happy and stay.
Then one day, I was with a new guy I was dating, and he noticed my love for the horror genre. I was in complete denial. I told him, “No, not really. It isn’t my thing.”
He paused, tilting his head to the side slightly, like he was replaying something in his mind. “Aren’t your favorite movies right now Repo! The Genetic Opera, May, and House of 1000 Corpses?”
I thought about it for a second. “Yes.”
“You just finished reading The Girl with All the Gifts. And then there’s that…” he pointed at my bookshelf where my Stephen King collection lived.
I didn’t know what to say.
No one had ever held up a mirror like that before. Not gently, and certainly not without judgment. I had spent so many years denying parts of myself that I hadn’t even realized I was doing it.
Liking horror wasn’t something I’d ever been allowed to enjoy openly. It was strange. It was dark. It was too much.
But there it was. And there he was… seeing it. Naming it. Somehow liking me more because of it.
That moment stuck with me longer than I expected. Not because he liked that part of me, but because I didn’t know why I’d tried so hard to pretend it wasn’t there.
Once I noticed it, I couldn’t stop noticing things. How easily I downplayed myself. How often I adjusted my interests, my opinions, or my tone to match the room. How automatic it all was.
I was just being flexible. Easy-going. Agreeable. I had spent years thinking these were just parts of my personality. I didn’t recognize how much of myself I’d quietly edited out along the way.
Everything within me began to shift—hard and sudden. It jolted the very fabric of my being. Something wasn’t sitting right anymore. The things that used to keep me safe were starting to feel suffocating.
That was when I started therapy. Not because I had some big breakthrough. I needed help figuring out why my system was in an upheaval. Why I didn’t feel safe in my own skin.
Once I understood what I was doing and why, it became much harder to keep doing it. The discrepancy started to itch. The dishonesty lodged itself in my throat. I could still hear myself agreeing when I didn’t mean it, still feel my body shrink when it sensed disapproval. But now I noticed.
Therapy gave names to things I had always thought were personality traits. People-pleasing. Fawning. Becoming a chameleon in response to emotional and narcissistic abuse. I had believed they were skills I cultivated. They were proof I was adaptable, empathetic, and easy to love. It was unsettling to realize they were actually survival tools.
With this new found awareness came a quiet but persistent question: Who the fuck am I, really?
I didn’t have an immediate answer but I started digging, slow and steady.
I liked horror.
I liked playing with makeup and nail polish.
I was a total book nerd.
Gaming was fun as hell.
As I continued to learn about myself, I was encouraged to set boundaries with the people who expected me to be a curated version of myself.
It started small and awkward, with pauses where there used to be an immediate “yes.” With discomfort sitting in my chest where relief used to live. I let people feel disappointed instead of rushing to fix it. I let conversations end unfinished. I let myself be misunderstood.
Not everyone took it well.
I began setting boundaries with my mother around my time, my decisions, and especially with what felt appropriate for my daughter. She told me she was scared of how much I was changing. She kept asking who I was anymore, as if the version of me that said no couldn’t possibly be real.
Despite still calling and seeing her, she started mailing handwritten letters to my house.
Demeaning ones.
If she was a bad mother, it was only because I was depressed and she didn’t know what to do with a self-harming teen. She didn’t know where she went wrong, and couldn’t understand why I was punishing her by limiting her access to me and my daughter.
When I moved six hours away, she really lost her shit. She sent threatening letters via lawyer, and eventually took me to court to demand a visitation schedule. As if she were a fucking co-parent. It was extreme. It was painful. It was traumatic.
And it made one thing painfully clear: my boundaries weren’t the problem. They were simply exposing one.
I was showing myself respect. I was making decisions to protect my daughter. I was honoring instincts I had been trained out of. While it cost me relationships that relied on my silence and compliance, it gave me something I never really had before.
Myself.
Once I stopped shape-shifting for other people’s comfort, something unexpected happened. I started to feel myself come back in small, almost ridiculous ways.
I listened to the music I liked out loud. Not the curated playlists I thought were acceptable, but the ones that bounced from hard rock to country to bubblegum pop and somehow landed on alien opera. One afternoon, my younger brother caught me cleaning out the garage, singing and dancing along without headphones. He laughed and teased me about it. Instead of shrinking, I made direct eye contact and sang louder. He got uncomfortable and walked away. I stayed. I laughed. I kept enjoying myself.
I started dressing the way I wanted to, too. I wore things because they made me happy, not because they made me palatable. The day I wore fishnets under my shorts with combat boots, my father made sure to comment on how slutty I looked. He hoped I wasn’t going to wear that to my next job interview. The words still landed, but they didn’t root themselves in me the way they used to. I didn’t apologize. I didn’t change. I didn’t explain. I went about my day exactly as I was.
I finally discovered myself. I began to accept all my pieces, even if they didn’t all make sense; despite how clunky and unhinged things felt or seemed. Horror movies and nail polish. Yoga days and lazy mornings. Softness and edge. I stopped trying to curate which parts were acceptable and started letting them all exist in the same body.
I found beauty in myself, just as I am.
I’m still healing. I’m still in therapy, with no intention of stopping. I may never be completely ‘healed’, but I don’t disappear to be loved. I have boundaries now, and the people who remain in my life respect them with ease.
I’m married to the wonderful man that saw me clearly from the start and loved me anyway.
These days, I still care about my health, but I approach it with balance instead of obsession. I go to the gym with my husband a few times a week. We drink protein shakes together in the mornings. I don’t weigh myself compulsively or count every calorie. I treat my body with care instead of control.
The more I accept myself, the less I feel the need to explain my weird to anyone else.
