I Thought I Was Feeling — But I Was Just Surviving

For most of my life, I believed I was feeling emotions the way everyone else did.
If someone told me I was happy, I accepted it.
If they said I was overreacting, I believed that too.
I let the outside world define my inside world, because I didn’t know there was any other way.

But recently, something clicked—and it’s shaken me to the core.
I realized that I wasn’t truly feeling. I was surviving.

As a kid, I spent so much time in fight or flight mode that I didn’t even know what it meant to feel safe.
I was constantly scanning, adapting, responding—just trying to stay out of trouble, avoid being misunderstood, or not fall apart.
I thought I was emotionally aware, but really, I was emotionally guarded.
Everything I did was a performance to keep the peace or protect myself.

I look back now and see how often I mimicked what others expected.
Smiles when I was scared.
Calm when I was boiling inside.
“I’m fine” when I didn’t even know what “fine” felt like.

Because of that, I never really learned how to feel.
I learned how to please.
How to avoid conflict.
How to survive.
But I never learned how to connect deeply with myself, because my nervous system was never calm enough to try.

Realizing this has been both heartbreaking and freeing.

Heartbreaking because I mourn for the version of me who never got to feel safe enough to just exist.
Who didn’t get to explore his emotions without judgment or fear.
Who spent years thinking his reactions were wrong, too much, or not enough.

Freeing, because now I see it.
And in seeing it, I can begin to undo it.
I can give myself space to feel—not for someone else’s comfort, but for my own healing.
I can start learning what my emotions actually sound like, beneath the noise of survival.

If you’ve ever felt this way—like you were performing instead of feeling—
I just want you to know: you’re not alone.