404: Identity Not Found

One of the strangest things about the human experience, in my opinion, is that we spend so much of our lives trying to figure out who we are.

Sometimes the hardest thing to grasp in life is that we change. All of us. Our circumstances, our beliefs, our habits, our environment, what we want from life, what we want for ourselves, etc.

Sometimes slowly. Sometimes dramatically. Sometimes so quietly that we don’t even realize we’ve changed – until we look in the mirror and wonder where the person we used to know went.

That is what an identity crisis feels like to me. 

It isn’t necessarily not knowing who you are. Sometimes it’s knowing exactly who you used to be, and not understanding why you can’t seem to become her again.

Who am I without the things that made me feel like me?

Identity is interesting because so much of it is built around what we do, what we have, how much we make, who we know, how people perceive us, and what we believe about ourselves.

“I’m a social person. I’m disciplined. I’m athletic. I’m successful. I’m a go-getter. I’m fun. I’m energetic. I’m interesting. I’m the girl who has it together.”

I wish I could say “and then life happens”

… I wish I could say that.

You stop doing those things. Your circumstances change. Your relationships change. Your body changes. Your mental state changes. Your priorities change.

And suddenly, the things you used to use as evidence of who you were… aren’t there anymore.

So you start asking yourself: If I’m not that person anymore, then who am I?

Maybe that’s where the ego gets involved. 

Because the ego isn’t necessarily this evil thing we’re supposed to destroy. I think the ego is simply the part of us that needs a definition. The ego is necessary because it keeps us safe in situations that require it, however, I truly believe that it is the very thing that holds everyone back in some part of their life. 

The ego is just like that. It wants labels. It wants continuity. It wants to say: This is me. This is who I am. This is who I’ve always been.

And when life forces that definition to change, the ego doesn’t always know what to do. It panics. It searches backward. It starts looking for the last version of you that felt familiar.

And that is exactly what I’ve been doing. Before COVID, I knew who I was. Or at least, I thought I did.

I was always doing something, going somewhere, seeing someone, moving my body, transforming through situations. There was a certain momentum to my life and it flowed with such ease.

I didn’t question it. Why would I? When you’re living inside an identity that feels natural, you don’t stop to analyze it. You just live it.

I didn’t wake up thinking: Wow, I am a person who has discipline and energy and a really active social life.

I simply was. Until I wasn’t. And I don’t think I understood how much that would affect me. Because between that version of me and the person I am now, there wasn’t just time.

There was trauma. A lot of it. I’ve experienced trauma before. I’ve been through difficult things before. But this was different.

It was compound trauma.

One thing after another.

And then another.

And another.

And another.

And even when one thing hadn’t been resolved, something else would happen. There was never really enough space to process one thing before I had to survive the next thing.

Eventually, I couldn’t keep pretending I was functioning the way I used to. I didn’t want to go out. I didn’t want to socialize. I was sad. I was exhausted. 

I was dealing with things internally that nobody could necessarily see. And when I looked around, it seemed like everyone else had something that I didn’t.

Healthy parents. Healthy bodies. Supportive relationships. Financial stability. A sense of direction. 

Something going for them. Some type of clarity in their life existed, and it was during a time that there was absolutely none in mine. And I felt like I had nothing.

“So how are you? How is life?”

Ha. What do you want me to talk about? How I am barely holding on?

And it is a very lonely feeling to look at the people around you and feel like everyone else received a map to life that somehow never made it to you.

I wasn’t me anymore. I wasn’t fun. I wasn’t interesting. I didn’t have energy. There was no spark. There was nothing in me. I was hollow.

That’s when social anxiety hit. I lost my ability to socialize and I couldn’t stand the thought of being perceived by anyone. So I withdrew. And the more I withdrew, the further I felt from the person I used to be. And the further I felt from her, the more desperately I wanted her back. 

Trying to become her again is the part I’ve struggled with the most. And I’ve spent so much time trying to reverse-engineer myself.

What happened? Where did I go wrong? When did I stop being disciplined? When did I stop having energy? Why did I stop being social? When did I become so anxious? When did life become so exhausting? Why can’t I just get back to who I was?

I’ve tried. I’ve tried to work out. I’ve tried to create routines. I’ve tried to become more social. I’ve tried to motivate myself. I’ve tried to force myself back into the shape of a person I remember being.

And sometimes I get angry with myself: Why can’t you just be her again?

But I’m starting to realize something.

Maybe I can’t be her again because I’m not supposed to be. And that doesn’t mean she wasn’t real. She was. She was me.

But she was me then. And I am me now.

The part I didn’t understand, and I’ll be honest with you. Sometimes it’s STILL hard to understand because when I look back at that version of myself, I see so many things I admire.

Her discipline. Her energy. Her confidence. And so much more. There are pieces of her that I genuinely want back.

But there are things she had that have magnified in my life now.

She had love and loyalty, and she did understand herself to a certain extent. She knew how to rise from her ashes, and she did it without hesitation.

But she didn’t fully comprehend that she was a spiritual, divine being having a human experience. She didn’t understand the weight of creating her own reality.

Ironically, I have a tattoo, a viking symbol on my left wrist, that means exactly that. Create your own reality. I felt like I’ve always been a mystical being, but, at the time, I didn’t know the power it would hold on my life. Not then.  

Now I fully do understand. And that realization changes everything.

Because creating your own reality isn’t just about manifesting the life you want. It’s also about understanding the person who is creating it.

Understanding your patterns. Understanding your wounds. Understanding your fears. Understanding your ego. Understanding what you actually want versus what you were conditioned to want. Understanding what you’re willing to release. Understanding what you no longer need.

That kind of work isn’t always visible. You can’t put emotional clarity on a fitness tracker. You can’t measure spiritual growth by how many followers you have. You can’t look at someone’s life and see how much internal work they’ve done.

And I think I forgot that.

And I’m tired. 

I’m tired of trying to figure out why I’m so anxious. I’m tired of trying to understand why I feel functionally depressed. I’m tired of feeling exhausted by life.

And I want to be careful when I say that, because I don’t want to romanticize the person I was before all of this as if she had an easy life. She didn’t.

I’ve been through a lot. That girl knew how to survive, but something was different after COVID.

It wasn’t that the pain was necessarily more legitimate than everything that came before it. It was that there was so much of it, for so long, and it kept coming from every direction.

My relationships changed. My sense of security changed. My relationship with my body changed. My relationship with myself changed.

And before I could really process one thing, there was another thing.

And then another.

And then another.

It felt like life kept moving the finish line before I ever had the chance to catch my breath.

I wasn’t necessarily giving up. I was functioning. But I was functioning on autopilot.

There is a difference between surviving something and having the capacity to process what you’re surviving.

I could keep going.

I could go to work.

I could answer people.

I could show up.

I could make decisions.

I could get through the day.

But internally, I was carrying so much that eventually there wasn’t much room left for me. And I think that’s what changed.

The girl I was before COVID knew how to get back up because she had gotten back up before.

She wasn’t naïve. She wasn’t untouched by life. She wasn’t some perfectly disciplined, emotionally uncomplicated version of me who had never experienced pain. She had already survived things I never thought I would.

But after COVID, I wasn’t just getting back up from one thing.

I was trying to stand while everything around me kept changing.

Before? I wasn’t even aware of how exhausted I was because there wasn’t enough time to stop and feel it. After? I felt it in every part of me.

It felt like I was drowning, and every time I tried coming up for air I was being pushed deeper down. 

So when I look back now and wonder, Where did I go?

I don’t think the answer is that I stopped being strong. Because I haven’t. I became exhausted from having to be strong in too many directions at once.

And maybe that is why getting myself back has taken so long.

But I am. I’m still here.

And maybe that counts for more than I have allowed myself to acknowledge. There were so many points where I could have gone deeper into the rock bottom. And I didn’t. 

I never let myself completely disappear – even when I felt like I had, and I never will. 

So who would I rather be?

If you ask me now, after all that I have understood about myself and my journey? 

I choose me now. I will a hundred times over. 

Because I love myself now in a way I don’t think I knew how to love myself then. I respect myself now. I understand myself more.

I’ve seen myself come back from things I genuinely didn’t think I would come back from. I’ve watched myself lose things. I’ve watched myself grieve. I’ve watched myself break. And I’ve watched myself rebuild.

I have wisdom now. I have clarity now.

There are things I used to care desperately about that I don’t care about anymore. And honestly? That feels peaceful.

I’m not chasing anymore. I’m not trying to force everything. I’m learning that what is meant for me does not require me to abandon myself to obtain it.

And somewhere along the way, I became a better person.

Not necessarily a more impressive person (honestly, I may be a bit boring now).

I am a better person. For myself. And for the people around me.

Maybe I didn’t lose myself. Maybe this is the part I’ve been getting wrong.

Maybe. I. Did. Not. Lose. Myself.

Maybe I lost some things that were no longer meant to come with me. And maybe some of the things I lost were actually necessary losses. 

In order for the new to come in, the old must be released. Otherwise resistance is created by the old taking up space. 

I am still trying to bring certain parts of that old identity back. I want the discipline. I want the energy. I want the movement. I want to feel excited about life again.

But I don’t want to become the old me. I want to become a version of me that has everything she had and everything I learned afterward.

Maybe that person doesn’t exist yet. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so confused. I’ve been looking backward for someone who is supposed to be built forward.

And maybe that’s what an identity crisis actually is. Maybe it’s not always the loss of identity. Maybe sometimes it’s the space between identities.

The awkward, uncomfortable, lonely space where the old version of you no longer fits, but the new version of you hasn’t fully developed yet.

And perhaps that’s why it can feel like nothing is happening. Because sometimes you’re not supposed to be perceived yet. You’re supposed to be developed. You’re supposed to be formed. You’re supposed to become.

Maybe self-identity isn’t something we are meant to understand at every stage of our lives. Maybe there are stages where we’re simply building it. And while we’re building it, it doesn’t have the space to be perceived just yet. It just needs to exist.

And maybe, after everything I’ve been through, that’s where I am now. Not lost. Not finished. Not who I used to be. Not yet entirely who I’m becoming.

Just somewhere in between. And for the first time, I’m okay with that.

Because I didn’t lose myself. I finally made space for myself.

A niche, if you will. The real niche.

– nk.