The Self I Outgrew While I Was Busy Surviving

The slow, uncomfortable process of becoming someone new.

I used to believe identity was something you built once you figured yourself out. I imagined it as this final, polished version of “me” that I’d eventually grow into. I thought once I became the strong one, the stable one, the grounded one, the woman who finally had her life under control, that would be the end of it. I’d stay her. I’d hold that shape for the rest of my life.

That’s what everyone tells you. Find yourself. Discover who you truly are. Make the right choices and become the person you’re meant to be. There’s this quiet promise attached to it, the idea that once you figure it out, the rest of life becomes easier. You become consistent. Predictable. Steady.

But identity doesn’t care about that storyline. It isn’t a final form. It isn’t a fixed object. It isn’t a single choice. It shifts. It wiggles loose. It starts feeling tight long before you’re ready to admit you’ve outgrown it.

It’s slow at first—almost nothing. You just feel slightly out of sync with yourself. You feel a little off in conversations you used to love. You shrink away from situations where you used to shine. You start saying no to things that used to excite you, and you’re not sure why. There’s a low-grade friction between you and your own life. Nothing big. Nothing dramatic. Just a quiet whisper inside you saying, this isn’t working anymore.

For most of my life, I didn’t listen to that voice. I didn’t even know it was a voice. I became whoever I needed to be to survive whatever was happening at the time. I shaped myself around responsibility. I shaped myself around other people’s needs. I shaped myself around chaos and uncertainty because that’s what life handed me.

I was the responsible one.
The caretaker.
The one who absorbed the hit.
The one who made it work.
The one who didn’t fall apart, because falling apart wasn’t an option.

I didn’t sit with myself long enough to ask who I actually wanted to be. I didn’t even think that was a real question. You don’t get to choose your identity when you’re surviving. You just keep moving. You adjust. You adapt. You carry whatever needs carrying. You fit yourself into the cracks of the moment and call it strength.

There’s a strange comfort in operating that way. When you’re in survival mode, you don’t pause to feel. You don’t check in. You don’t linger. You become a master of handling things. You become a version of yourself who’s efficient and capable and focused and numb in all the places that might slow you down.

And it works. It works incredibly well until life stops demanding that level of crisis-response from you. Then the old identity that saved you starts to suffocate you.

For me, the unraveling is always quiet. I don’t implode. I don’t make dramatic declarations about transformation. My unraveling arrives like a small tug. A restlessness. A slow and steady discomfort with the way I’m living. I’ll feel myself resisting things that once felt automatic. I’ll lose interest in roles that used to define me. I’ll feel myself withdrawing from spaces I used to fill.

And I’ll rationalize it.
I’ll say I’m tired.
I’ll say I’m stressed.
I’ll say I’ve got too much on my mind.
I’ll tell myself everything is fine.
I’ll keep trying to squeeze myself into the identity that existed before the shift.

But underneath all the excuses, the truth is simple.
I’m shedding.

I’m shedding the version of me that was built out of necessity. The one who knew how to survive but didn’t know how to exist outside of survival. The one who could get through anything but didn’t know how to trust ease. The one who lived with her shoulders raised because life trained her to expect impact.

There’s nothing wrong with that version of me. She was brilliant. She was strong in ways nobody saw. She was the reason I made it through things I never thought I would. She held my life together with grit and instinct. She kept me alive.

But I’m not supposed to stay her.

That’s the painful truth most people don’t talk about. The identity that carried you through your hardest years isn’t meant to carry you into the rest of your life. Survival identities aren’t designed for peace. They’re not designed for joy. They’re designed for endurance. They’re heavy and they’re protective and they’re deeply rooted in behaviors that came from pain.

Eventually, the weight becomes too much. Not because you’re weak, but because you’re finally allowed to want more.

Letting go of that version of yourself is emotional in a way nobody prepares you for. You feel guilty for outgrowing her. You feel ungrateful. You feel like you’re abandoning someone who carried you. You feel like you’re betraying your own resilience.

And then there’s the grief.
Real grief.
The kind that catches you off guard.
The kind that shows up while you’re washing dishes or driving or trying to fall asleep.
The kind that feels like you’re losing a person rather than a pattern.

Because you are. You’re losing her.
The old you.
The strong one.
The one who handled things.
The one who didn’t have the luxury of softness.
The one who kept going no matter what.

Letting her go feels like losing your edge.
It feels like weakening yourself.
It feels like stepping into unknown territory without armor.
It feels like vulnerability you didn’t ask for.

And still, something inside you keeps pulling forward.
Keeps insisting you’re meant for more.
Keeps nudging you into a new version of yourself that feels truer, even if she also feels unfamiliar.

People think transformation is a moment. A switch you flip. A revelation that changes everything instantly. But real transformation is awkward. It’s uncomfortable. It’s full of doubt and hesitation. It’s long. It’s messy. It’s layered.

Real transformation is sitting in the in-between.
You’re not who you were.
You’re not who you’re becoming.
You’re suspended between two realities, shedding an identity that used to feel essential, and slowly trying to grow into one that feels honest.

That middle space is brutal.
It’s confusing.
It’s disorienting.
It’s tender in a way you don’t expect.

But it’s also the place where self-awareness finally begins.
It’s the place where you hear yourself again.
It’s the place where you realize survival took up the space where your identity should’ve been.

I’m learning to let myself change without apologizing for it. I’m learning to follow the internal pull instead of the external expectation. I’m learning to stop performing versions of myself that aren’t real anymore. I’m learning to choose truth, even when it’s inconvenient. I’m learning to be someone new without needing permission for it.

I’m learning to thank my old self instead of dragging her into rooms she doesn’t belong in anymore. She taught me strength. She taught me resilience. She taught me how to move through pain without breaking. She taught me who I could be in the hardest moments of my life.

But she can’t teach me who I’m becoming.

Maybe identity isn’t something we claim once. Maybe it’s something we grow into again and again. Maybe it’s something we reinvent as we heal and as we learn more about who we actually are underneath the versions we created to survive.

Maybe the self you outgrew wasn’t wrong.
Maybe she was perfect for the chapter she belonged to.
Maybe she deserves gratitude instead of attachment.
Maybe her purpose was to get you here.
Maybe the next version of you is the one who finally gets to live.

And maybe the most honest identity you’ll ever have is the one that keeps evolving. The one that doesn’t stay small just because someone liked you that way. The one that expands with your truth. The one that makes room for who you’ve become, not who you had to be.

You don’t outgrow old identities because they failed you.
You outgrow them because you’re ready for a life they never had the chance to experience.

— — — — —

Keri Tietjen Smith is a Human Systems Architect, talent strategist, and writer exploring identity, reinvention, and the messy, beautiful truth of becoming yourself.

If this hit you in the chest, you can read more of my work at keriellentietjen.com or join my Substack for weekly stories on growth, power, and the future of being human.

You might also like:
• The Job Market Didn’t Collapse, the Hiring System Did. Here’s What Really Changed.
• I Learned How to Breathe Again in Places That Did Not Know My Name
• Unpredictable Experiences: We Survived a Concert Crowd Stampede