When the Story Turns Against You — And You Start Believing It
There’s a particular kind of pain that happens when life hits you professionally and personally at the same time. It’s not just loss — it’s disorientation. It’s identity collapse. It’s the moment when the story you’ve always told about yourself suddenly stops making sense.
And for me, that unraveling didn’t start the day they pushed me out.
It started long before.
I began shrinking months earlier.
Not because I lacked skill.
Not because I lacked ideas.
Not because I lacked initiative.
I shrank because the environment made it unsafe to be fully myself.
I watched leaders avoid leading.
I watched decisions get made based on comfort, not competence.
I watched inefficiencies pile up while my solutions were ignored.
I watched my improvements get dismissed because they required courage.
I watched my clarity get treated like a threat.
And slowly, quietly, painfully — I shut down.
Not all at once.
Not dramatically.
But inch by inch.
I stopped offering ideas.
I stopped pushing for excellence.
I stopped raising my hand.
I stopped expecting support.
I stopped believing my voice mattered.
This is the part people rarely admit:
Sometimes you start disappearing before anyone pushes you out.
Because the push-out is just the final act.
The shrinking is the slow death that happens long before.
So when the day finally came — when they mishandled me, minimized me, and made decisions rooted in fear instead of truth — I was already weakened. I was already questioning myself. I was already carrying the weight of their leadership failures as if they were my own.
And then, before I could even process that loss, my brother died.
Grief has a way of stripping you down to the bone. Suddenly, I wasn’t just questioning my professional identity — I was questioning my entire existence. I felt hollow. Unanchored. Like the world had tilted and I couldn’t find my footing.
This is what compounded loss does.
It makes you vulnerable to believing the worst about yourself.
It makes you absorb other people’s behavior as if it defines you.
It makes you forget your own strength.
And because I had already been shrinking, the grief hit even harder.
Because I had already been doubting myself, the loss cut even deeper.
Because I had already been silenced, the pain felt even louder.
But here’s the truth I had to claw my way back to:
What they did does not define who I am.
Their fear is not our identity.
Their avoidance is not our reflection.
Their disinterest in our brilliance is not evidence of its absence.
Their failure to lead is not our failure to shine.
our grief is not a verdict.
our pain is not a definition.
I had to learn — slowly, painfully — that identity is not built on what happens to you. Identity is built on what you reclaim.
I reclaimed my voice.
I reclaimed my brilliance.
I reclaimed my boundaries.
I reclaimed my standards.
I reclaimed my truth.
I reclaimed my name.
And that reclamation is the work I now help others do.
Because there are people walking around today carrying stories that were never theirs.
People who internalized someone else’s fear.
People who absorbed someone else’s dysfunction.
People who believed the lie that their worth is negotiable.
People who shrank in environments that never deserved their full wingspan.
If that’s you, hear me clearly:
You are not the story they told about you.
You are not the story you told yourself while you were shrinking.
You are the story you choose to tell now.
Your identity is not lost.
It’s waiting to be reclaimed.
And when you reclaim it — fully, fiercely, unapologetically — you don’t just rise.
You return to yourself.
We can rise.
We can fly.
We Deserve more.
It is time to soar.
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