Becoming Someone I Was Never Allowed to Be

by Rebecca Bloom

There is a version of me I am meeting for the first time. She is not a return to my childhood. She is not a memory. She is not a past self. She is someone entirely new. Someone I could not become when I was young because my environment did not allow it.

Growing up, I learned to shape myself around other people. To be what kept the peace. To be what kept me safe. To be what caused the least disruption. There was no room to explore who I was. Every part of me was formed by survival, not by choice.

So when people talk about finding their way back to themselves, I feel something different. There is no self to return to. I never had the freedom to grow one. I only had the freedom to adapt.

Now that I am slowing down, I am learning something new. Identity is not what you discover. It is what you create when survival is no longer running your life. It is the slow building of preferences and boundaries and needs that were once buried. It is learning what feels true instead of what feels safe.

Some days I feel lost because I do not recognise myself. Other days I feel relieved because for the first time I do not have to be anything for anyone.

This becoming is fragile. It is delicate. It is uncomfortable. It stretches me in ways survival never did. But it also brings a softness I have never known. A sense of self that does not disappear when someone else is unhappy. A sense of worth that does not crumble when I am no longer useful.

I am not who I was. I am not who I pretended to be. I am not who others needed me to become. I am someone entirely new. Someone growing from the honesty of what hurts and the courage of what heals.

Becoming myself has taken longer than I ever expected. But for the first time, it feels real.

Rebecca Bloom