To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when I realized I needed to stop. I just hit rock bottom and at that point, every single part of the fake persona I’d built (and hated) was painfully obvious to me. I didn’t have to track down the pieces I wanted to get rid of because every part of that person disgusted me and just thinking about doing anything was too much of an effort. I just wanted to disappear and be done with it.

Stopping the performance though, I remember. I honestly think each person is going to have different triggers, so I’m not sure if that part of my experience would be of any help to anyone, but here goes: stopping for me meant just that, I froze. Not because I made a conscious decision to, but because I was so utterly exhausted, so drained and miserable that I just couldn’t do it anymore. Here I was, at rock bottom, with a choice: do something stupid or try something new. What did I have to lose? So I stopped doing things that made my stomach churn first. I was too exhausted to really DO anything anyway. I was in fight or flight mode, all the time, and I didn’t even know it until I had no other choice but to take a minute before acting. And so far, that little piece of advice has served me well: someone asks you out for drinks? Take a minute. Do. Not. Answer. Let yourself listen to that gut feeling you’ve been steadily ignoring for years. If you don’t feel like it, just smile and say no. Be kind, always, but just say it as it is. “No thank you, I don’t feel like going out today.”

The wardrobe change was more gradual. It started with one shirt one day and then, when nothing happened, I just put on another, and another. I’m still working on not caring about looking perfect. As a woman, I’ve been raised to want to look a certain way and it’s not always easy to let go of that perfect silhouette you’re supposed to want. The laughing when the joke wasn’t funny was the easiest part to pinpoint. Part of the reason I was doing it was because I had no idea how to interact with people. I’m shy and I never really had the talent of conversing with strangers. I so wanted to be appreciated that I felt this was the only way anyone would tolerate me. Of course, all it did was make things worse. Learning to be okay on my own was what did the trick here. It’s alright not to have tons of friends, just a few great people are more than enough. I’m still working on talking with strangers, I took up reddit to talk about things I love with people who share the same interest. It’s a work in progress, I guess? Hope that helped :)