30 Days of Radical Honesty Journalling Challenge – Day 15: Who was I Before the World Told Me Who I Should Be?
I don’t know who I was before.
And that’s the truth.
Not in a poetic, metaphorical way—but in a devastatingly literal one. I don’t know who I was before the world told me who to be. Before the expectations and projections and punishments for falling short. Before the crushing silence that came when I didn’t smile just right. Before the applause that came when I disappeared into something palatable, manageable, silent.
Since I was a little girl, I’ve been told who to be by almost everyone around me. And as a terminal people pleaser—a shape-shifter, a mirror, a mimic—I tried to be it all. I was polite and pleasing and productive. I was easy. I was obedient. I was the echo of what they wanted to hear.
I was also drowning.
I grew up inundated by double-bind communication from three directions at once. Mixed messages layered with emotional minefields. Smile, but don’t be fake. Speak, but don’t talk back. Be strong, but don’t be cold. Be soft, but never weak. Be extraordinary, but never outshine. I twisted myself into silence. I made myself small. I disappeared into the stress of trying to be enough while being told I never quite was.
My girlhood—if you can even call it that—was not made of light and wonder. It was girlhood only in chronology. There was no youth in my youth. Just performance. Just pressure.
And still—I’m not sad.
I don’t romanticize it. I don’t mourn it. And I certainly don’t thank it. I don’t believe in the cult of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I am not stronger at the broken places. I am just broken in places. And I don’t think I needed to be.
I don’t believe I had to suffer to become who I am. I don’t believe the trauma was a teacher. I don’t believe in the human equivalent of Kintsugi—gluing your shattered self back together and pretending the gold lines are beautiful. I wish I had been allowed to grow up in love. In warmth. In safety. I wish I’d had softness instead of survival.
But still…
I love where I am now. I love who I am now. I love the people who surround me—my chosen family, my brilliant and loving husband, the friends who have held me through rebuild after rebuild.
If I had taken a different path, I might not have landed here. I might not have built this life. I might not have found them. I might not have been writing this now—writing at all, writing on a high note, writing with fire and freedom and a voice I finally know how to use.
So no, I don’t know who I was before the world told me who to be.
But I know who I am now. I know what I am now. And I am so fucking proud of it all.
Peace, Love, and Inspiration,
~Britt Wolfe💚
