EP64: Why You Don’t Feel Like Yourself Anymore

Have you caught yourself thinking, “I don’t feel like myself anymore”?

Perhaps nothing is obviously wrong.

The children are okay. Work is moving. You are keeping up with the appointments, messages, meals, deadlines and the never-ending admin that apparently breeds while you sleep.

From the outside, you may appear completely capable.

But internally, something feels different.

You feel disconnected from yourself. You are going through the motions, doing what needs to be done and showing up for the people who rely on you, but you no longer feel fully present in your own life.

You have not necessarily lost yourself.

You may simply have stopped including yourself.

Why don’t I feel like myself anymore?

Losing contact with yourself rarely happens in one dramatic moment.

It usually happens through hundreds of small decisions.

You say yes when you would rather say no.

You dismiss what you need because somebody else’s need feels more urgent.

You postpone the course, the idea, the rest, the conversation or the change until “later”.

You become the reliable one.

The person who remembers the school forms, manages the calendar, solves the problem and keeps everything moving.

There is nothing wrong with being dependable. The problem begins when being dependable leaves no space for you to have preferences, needs, opinions or desires of your own.

Eventually, someone asks:

“What do you want?”

And you genuinely do not know how to answer.

Not because you are incapable of knowing.

You have simply spent so long answering everyone else’s questions first that you have lost practice hearing your own response.

You can love your life and still feel disconnected

One reason women struggle to admit that they do not feel like themselves is guilt.

You may look at your life and think:

“I should be grateful.”

Perhaps you are grateful.

You can love your family and feel exhausted.

You can appreciate your career and wonder whether it still fits.

You can recognise everything that is good in your life and still feel that a part of you is missing from it.

Those experiences do not cancel one another out.

Gratitude is not a requirement to ignore your internal reality.

Feeling disconnected does not mean your life is bad. It may mean the way you are participating in it is no longer sustainable or honest.

The cost of constantly performing

Many capable women become so good at functioning that nobody realises they are struggling.

Sometimes they do not realise it themselves.

You perform competence.

You perform resilience.

You perform strength.

You perform the familiar version of “I’ve got this” while quietly wondering how much longer you can continue getting it.

Productivity can hide disconnection.

Achievement can hide exhaustion.

Busyness can prevent you from noticing what you feel because there is always another task waiting to claim your attention.

Functioning is useful. It gets everyone where they need to be.

But functioning is not the same as feeling alive.

You do not need to find the old you

When you realise you no longer feel like yourself, the instinct may be to search for the woman you were before.

Before motherhood.

Before the demanding job.

Before the difficult relationship.

Before the loss, disappointment or years of putting practical responsibilities first.

Looking back can be useful, but not because you need to recreate that woman.

Your old interests, dreams and moments of aliveness offer clues. They can remind you what mattered before your attention became consumed by responsibility.

Some of those things may still belong to you.

Others may not.

You have lived, changed, learned and been shaped by experiences the previous version of you had not yet faced.

The goal is not to go backwards.

It is to become curious about who you are now.

When do you feel most like yourself?

Instead of asking:

“How do I find myself again?”

Try asking:

“When do I feel most like myself?”

When do you feel present?

When do you feel most connected to your own thoughts, body, interests or personality?

Not productive.

Not useful.

Not needed.

Just you.

Perhaps it is when you are creating something.

Perhaps it is while exercising, reading, travelling or laughing with friends.

Perhaps it is when you are alone long enough to complete a thought without somebody shouting “Mom” from another room. A rare and endangered experience, but apparently it does exist.

Those moments leave clues.

They help you identify what creates contact with yourself.

How to start reconnecting with yourself

Reconnecting with yourself does not usually begin with a dramatic life change.

You do not need to resign, relocate or announce a completely new personality before breakfast.

It starts by noticing where you have stopped participating in your own life.

Ask yourself:

Where have my preferences stopped being part of the conversation?

It could be something small.

You always agree to the restaurant everyone else chooses.

You spend your free time catching up on tasks rather than doing anything you enjoy.

You automatically say you are “fine” before checking whether that is true.

You continue doing something because it once suited you, even though it no longer does.

You do not need to fix all of it today.

Begin by noticing one area where you have stopped consulting yourself.

Then ask:

• What do I actually feel about this?
• What do I need?
• What would I choose without immediately managing everybody else’s reaction?
• What matters to me now?

The point is not to make every decision entirely about you.

It is to put yourself back into the decision.

Become available to yourself again

For years, you may have been available to everyone else.

Available to solve.

Available to organise.

Available to support.

Available to respond.

Perhaps it is time to become available to yourself again.

That does not mean caring less about the people you love.

It means recognising that you are also a person living inside the life you work so hard to maintain.

You are not broken.

You have not failed at being grateful, capable or strong.

You may simply have spent so long participating in everyone else’s life that you stopped fully participating in your own.

Reconnection begins when you start including yourself in the conversation again.

A question to take with you

Where have you quietly stopped including yourself in your own life?

Do not search for the biggest or most dramatic answer.

Notice the first honest one.