Photo by jens schwan on Unsplash
Finding My Way Back to Myself
I spent most of my life presenting a version of myself that others could accept. If you’re reading this, you probably know exactly what I mean.
The mask becomes sophisticated when you’ve worn it long enough. It learns what rooms want from you, what faces to wear, what to swallow. It keeps you safe, and it costs you everything — slowly, then all at once.
I’m on the other side of that now. Not because I found a system or followed a protocol, but because I ran out of road. The healing that followed was nonlinear, embodied, and often ugly. What I found along the way were a few things that reached me beneath the performance that spoke to the self I’d locked away around age seven.
This is what I use to find my way back.
The Playlist
I built this for the part of you that already knows it’s time. It begins with recognition and ends with lightness. Eleven songs. The arc is the point.
The Deck
The Naked Heart Tarot is the only deck I've used for years. The imagery is direct without being heavy, and the figures are unguarded in a way that makes you want to be too. They are also beautiful, and the book that accompanies them speaks to me in a way that standard decks don't. I don't use it for prediction, but for regulation. It's a mirror that doesn't flinch. When you've spent your life managing how you're perceived, a tool that simply reflects you back — without judgment, without an agenda — is quietly radical.
The Thing I Can’t Give You
I’ve been finding my way back to movement. To the version of me who danced even when people were watching — and didn’t give a shit.
I can’t hand you that. But I can tell you it’s still in there. The body remembers who you were before you learned to perform. The playlist is one way back in. The cards are another. And somewhere underneath all of it is a self who was never actually lost — just waiting for you to stop pretending long enough to come home.
oof, it is "often ugly", I resonate so much with your writing, and it's been a little nod/nudge to start writing myself, i've been ignoring the urge for months, and now today a little nudge to "move". I just last week sifted through childhood school papers and my "all about me" books from grade school, and was reminded I thought of myself as a dancer...who me? now? i don't dance, haven't in years...thanks for your words!
This theme of identity dissolution and going back to someone we once were, or were supposed to be, is SO huge for late-diagnosed folks (and also psych med withdrawal – and yay, in my case it's both 😣). I have stopped asking people to try and understand what I'm going through, as far as that goes. You've either lived it, or you haven't.
Also, every late-diagnosed person needs a playlist with "This Is Me" – such a badass song!! 🔥