A thousand small betrayals

An in-depth essay about how it feels to slowly abandon yourself – and how to return.

Losing oneself doesn’t happen instantly. It happens slowly, everyday - through a thousand small betrayals. I thought it would feel like falling. It doesn’t.

It feels like drifting apart from a friend without either of you noticing.
It feels like watching the color fade from something you once loved.
It feels like forgetting why you walked into a room.
It feels like letting a plant die because you water it a little less each week.
It feels like hearing a song you used to love and not feeling anything anymore.
It feels like wearing a jacket that no longer fits, but still putting it on every day.
It feels like forgetting the sound of your own laugh.
It feels like letting your favorite books gather dust, because you don’t have the energy to pick them up.
It feels like nodding, smiling, agreeing, enduring. Until one day, the weight of all those small yes’s you didn’t mean feels like a stranger inhabiting your body.

And then, it hits you.

You don’t recognize your life. You don’t remember when you stopped choosing yourself. Only that it happened. Quietly. Repeatedly.

But here’s the thing about losing yourself:

If you can lose yourself, you can also rediscover yourself.

Stories from my life

One year in - Still trying

I take out my small amethyst crystal that I’d just bought online. I’ve always loved crystals, ever since I was a little girl. I just forgot. But now, in an attempt to get back to myself, I bought a new one.

I had the package shipped to my parents’ house, so my boyfriend wouldn’t notice. I’ve kept the crystal in my purse for the past few weeks, and I’ve finally mustered up the courage to put it on my nightstand. I sit on the edge of the bed, looking at the nightstand, then down at the crystal. And that’s just a little loop I’ve got going on. Looking. Hesitating. Looking again. Why is it so fucking difficult for me to just put it on the nightstand?

Maybe he won’t make fun of me. Maybe he’ll understand. I just have to make it make sense to him. Maybe I should research it more, so I can defend it. He always says that my feelings aren’t valid - that they’re not a real argument. So I have to come up with something else. Something smarter. I’m getting more and more creative, but lately, even logic doesn’t work. Not when it doesn’t suit him.

I hear the door open, and I freeze. My whole body tenses. I look down at the crystal and frantically slam it onto the nightstand before hurrying out of the bedroom.

“What were you doing"?” I hear him ask, his tone already accusing.

”I was just putting some clothes away.” I smile politely.

He accepts this excuse and starts talking about himself. I nod, but I don’t hear a word. It’s probably a story about how great he was at work today or how some idiot in traffic cut him off. (The biggest idiot in traffic is my boyfriend, and to whoever might’ve cut him off: well done.)

I suddenly start paying attention again as he approaches the nightstand. Every single bone in my body tenses as he walks toward the nightstand. He frowns.

“What is that?” he says, picking up the crystal.

I stammer. My fingers won’t stop fiddling with themselves. “Uhm.” I start, then look down at my feet. He laughs. At me. “Don’t tell me you believe in this stupid stuff?”

Oh, I do. I really do. And I need it - to comfort me. Because there is a monster in my life. And I, stupidly, thought the crystal could help me feel a little bit better.

I can feel the tears start to swell up in my eyes, and soon oceans will pour out of them. So I look at the time on my phone and say: “No, I don’t. It was a gift. Oh I forgot. I have to be somewhere in 5 minutes. I’m sorry, but I have to get ready.”

As I try to escape, he asks me a million questions - where, with whom, why now. I answer them all in great detail. Luckily it’s someone he knows. Luckily I won’t be gone long. He wants to come with. So I make up a reason why he can’t.

He lets me go into the bathroom. I shut the door behind me, turn on the water, and fall to the floor. My whole body is shaking. I cry - no, I sob. And then I start to panic.

Shit. He’ll hear me.

I need to shut my emotions off.

Stop crying. Stop crying. Stop crying.

STOP CRYING.

Okay. Okay. I’m getting it under control. I think about anything else but how I’m feeling. Because if I do let myself feel, even for a second, I’ll break.

And there’s no chance I’ll come back from that.

Three years in - long gone

I stand in the kitchen. We’ve just picked up groceries, and I’m starting to put them away. The plastic bags are still on the counter, half open, soft rustling sounds filling the silence like background static. I move on autopilot. Milk, fridge. Rice, cabinet. My hands know what to do.

My head is very quiet. Normally, it’s very loud. Normally, it’s full of color and daydreams and fragments of stories I want to write, things I want to create, things that make me feel like me. But now… nothing. No buzzing thoughts. No wild ideas. Just… fog. I used to be creative. I used to be bubbly. People used to call me sunshine. That feels almost funny now. The girl who used to light up every room, gone. The creativity didn’t disappear all at once. It slipped away, unnoticed, in tiny pieces. Like dust collecting in the corners, until one day there’s just emptiness where something used to live.

“What is this?”

His voice cuts through the quiet like a knife, sharp and raised. I exit my own mind, and look up. He’s holding something in his hand, I don’t even see what it is. Doesn’t matter. It could be anything. A wrong brand. A wrong thought. A wrong me.

His face is tight. That frown. The one he gets right before everything explodes. His eyes have gone dark now, black holes I know too well. I know exactly what’s about to happen.

The rage.
The shouting.
The words he won’t remember later, but I’ll carry with me for years.

I don’t say anything.
I let him.
I let him yell, accuse, tear me down.
I stand still. I don’t flinch. I don’t cry.
I just wait for it to pass.

When he’s done, I turn back to the groceries. Back to the milk. The rice. The fridge.

I don’t feel anything.

And that, somehow, is a relief.

Years later - gone again?

Years have passed since this incident. And that man… he’s long gone. Luckily.

Not only did I muster up the courage to put the crystal on the nightstand, I mustered up the courage to leave. To walk out. To let go of the twisted, bleeding version of love he offered me.

He’s with someone else now. Another young woman. And when I think of her, I feel a sharp pain deep in my stomach, because I know exactly what kind of silence she’s learning to survive inside.

Now, I pull up at work. At my corporate job. The one he told me was a wonderful idea to pursue, even though something in me resisted. Even though my gut whispered, this path isn’t yours. But I didn’t listen. I didn’t know how to yet.

I rarely think about him anymore. But when I do, when his name or his shadow crosses my mind, something inside me withers. My face goes pale. My chest tightens, like it’s bracing for impact.

I look at the office building. The glass reflects the early light, and everything looks clean, structured, predictable. But inside - inside me - it’s a mess.

I think I’ve been thinking of him more these days, because I’m feeling something familiar. A numbness I know too well. A heaviness in my body. A hollow ache in my chest. As I sit there in the car, hands still on the steering wheel, keys not turned, I quietly whisper.

I’ve lost myself again.

Dammit.

It snuck up on me again. Just like last time. Not all at once - but in quiet, invisible steps.

It’s been a few years since I’ve felt really bubbly, happy and creative. And suddenly, I find myself deeply depressed, anxious, and bone-tired. And that kind of tired runs deeper than sleep can reach.

The rediscovery phase

In every one of those small glimpses where I realized I had lost myself, I thought I had to plan my escape. Map out a 10-step plan. Overthink it a million times. Picture every worst-case scenario. But the truth is this:

Rediscovery doesn’t come in grand gestures. It doesn’t arrive with answers, clarity, or perfect timing. It happens slowly. It’s the same process as losing yourself - just in reverse.

It comes in the quiet moments.
In the pause before saying yes, when your whole body is begging you to say no.
In the tear that slips out when you finally let yourself exhale.
In the flicker of light on a leaf, and how, for a second, you actually notice it and smile.
In the stillness where one question keeps echoing:
What do I want, if no one else has a say?

I’ve lost and rediscovered myself many times in this lifetime.
In friendships that wore me down one joke, one silence, one dismissal at a time. In relationships where I became small enough to fit into someone else’s comfort zone. In jobs where I learned to perform a version of me that was easy to like, but impossible to recognize.

Each time, I’ve had to call myself back home.
Not with force.
Not with self-help slogans or five-year plans.

But with softness. With truth. With patience.

And I wish I could give you a ten-step guide.
But I can’t.
What I can offer is this; a few things that helped me begin again.

My little anchors:

• Long walks with myself in silence - no podcast, no phone call, no music to distract. Just me and my breath.

• Journaling without a filter - and burning the pages if I was afraid someone might find them.

• Choosing honesty, even when my voice trembles.

• Letting nature remind me who I am. Long walks at the beach or in a forest.

• Taking sacred pauses - and doing absolutely nothing.

• Allowing myself to feel. Sometimes, I set a timer for one hour, place my phone far away, and lie still - just looking out the window. I whisper to myself: For the next hour, I can feel and think anything I want. No judgment. No fixing. Just being.

• Writing a letter to my future self - the version of me who has already made the decision I’m too afraid to make right now.

• Saying what I’m feeling or thinking out loud. It doesn’t matter who it’s to - a friend, a stranger, the ceiling. Just say it. Even if you sound unsure. Even if it makes no sense. Even if you’re still doing the thing you know you shouldn’t. Speak it. And say it again tomorrow. And the day after that. Until the truth becomes too loud to ignore.

• My mother always says:

  "If you’re still doubting whether or not to leave someone or something, maybe you’re not ready. And that’s okay. But trust me - one day, you will be. There will be no other choice but to leave. So stop beating yourself up. You will get there. I promise.”

A reminder, before you go

Some people will be deeply committed to misunderstanding you, devaluing you and seeing you through the lens of who you used to be.

Do not let them write your story. You are the one creating your life. You don’t need anyone’s permission to choose yourself.

Quotes for you

I need you to choose yourself.

You don’t have to be who you’ve always been.

Coming home to yourself is not a destination - it’s a decision.

You’ll find your way back. One quiet, repeated step at a time.