I Can’t Go Back to Who I Was—And I Know I’m Not the Only One

I Can’t Go Back to Who I Was—And I Know I’m Not the Only One

This narrative is for the professionals, the quiet survivors, and the ones who keep showing up—even after everything. If you're at a crossroads, this is for you.

I got a Google reminder this morning that it was the anniversary of my dad’s death. Eighteen years ago today, he passed away.

Grief is strange. It doesn’t follow a timeline. It doesn't listen to reason. And it certainly doesn’t come with a roadmap. Sometimes the ache feels distant, softened by time. And other times, like today, it crashes through the walls I’ve built around it. Grief is love with nowhere to go, they say. But for those of us who’ve lived through trauma, grief is also complicated.

My relationship with my father was not a simple one. He was a powerful force, intense, unpredictable, and, at times, deeply damaging. He was also a product of his own pain, shaped by generational wounds and patterns that were never broken. He could be charming, magnetic even. People outside the house saw that version of him.

But we saw the other version, the one who inflicted fear, confusion, and emotional wounds that didn’t always leave marks on the skin but left damage just the same. He didn’t just hurt us; he broke us down.

Growing up in a house like that, you learn survival early. You learn to scan the room, listen between the lines, and hold your breath. You learn to keep secrets. You learn to disappear in plain sight.

And sometimes, the cost of that is losing touch with who you really are.
I was left with dissociative disorder, a survival response I didn’t choose, but one my mind created to protect me. It was my way of disappearing when things got too painful, too loud, too unsafe. I could be standing in a room, talking, smiling, doing everything right on the outside... and yet feel completely detached on the inside, like I was watching my life from somewhere far away. It wasn’t numbness, it was distance. Safety. A shield my brain built so I could survive what should’ve broken me.

And yet... I loved my father. I loved him even when I didn’t know how to. I searched for his approval. I feared his anger. I absorbed his chaos. I watched my mother navigate storms most people will never understand. And when he died, it wasn’t just the loss of a parent. It was the collapse of a world I had spent my entire life trying to navigate. The questions were endless. The pain was disorienting. I wasn’t relieved, I was wrecked. Traumatized. In my own mind, I felt left for dead on the side of the road. Not free. Just broken.

But healing doesn’t come all at once. It’s slow. It’s hard. And it doesn’t always look like progress.

His death brought up everything. Not just the pain, but the fragments. The flickers of memory I had long buried. And one of those memories came back hard today, the moment he carried me to the doctor when I couldn’t even walk.

I was in the first grade. I had been sick for weeks - fevers, joint pain, and overwhelming fatigue. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t stand. And then, without warning and completely out of character, he picked me up, carried me to the car, and took me to the doctor.

The doctor took one look at me and said, “She’s gravely ill.” My dad drove me straight to the hospital.

That moment was strange for me. Surreal. Because I had never experienced that kind of care or tenderness from him before. It didn’t erase the fear. It didn’t undo the damage. But it was real. And I never forgot it.

At the hospital, I was diagnosed with rheumatic fever, a serious inflammatory disease that can develop when strep throat or scarlet fever isn’t properly treated. It causes the body’s immune system to turn against itself, attacking the joints, nervous system, and heart.

That’s what it did to me.

I spent a full month in the hospital. I missed the entire first-grade year. And I was left with lasting heart damage and joint pain that followed me into adulthood.

I was seven years old and already learning what it meant to carry pain.

My body knew what my heart hadn’t yet spoken: something wasn’t right. Illness has a strange way of showing up in children who are under intense emotional strain. Even now, I look back and see how much my little body was trying to say. I didn’t have the language then. But I do now.

And the truth is, I’ve spent most of my life unlearning what trauma taught me. I've had to unlearn the idea that love has to hurt. That safety is something you earn. That silence is strength. That performance is the only way to be valued.

One night, I was watching a movie on TV, Duets, with Gwyneth Paltrow and Paul Giamatti. The movie changed my life. Paul Giamatti plays a man named Todd Woods, a traveling salesman, husband, father. He comes home from another soul-sucking business trip and walks through the front door like a ghost. His wife barely looks up. His kids don’t stop what they’re doing. It’s like he doesn’t exist.

And something in him just... breaks.

Not in a dramatic, yelling kind of way. But in the quiet, suffocating way that happens when you've spent years being everything for everyone and nothing for yourself.

He walks out.

Not in rage, but in collapse. He doesn’t even pack a bag. He just says he’s going for cigarettes and never comes back.

As the movie progressed, I really identified with Todd. It felt like being gutted.

Because I know how he felt. I know what it’s like to be in a room full of people and feel completely unseen. I know what it’s like to be the one holding it all together, to perform, to show up, to keep the peace—until one day you realize you're not living. You're enduring.

Todd stumbles into a karaoke bar somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and for reasons even he doesn't fully understand, he signs up to sing. And in that moment, standing on a stage with a microphone in his hand, he finds something he didn’t even know he had lost: his voice. His self. His aliveness.

By the end of the film, his wife comes to find him. She sits with him on the steps outside the karaoke venue. No accusations. No big confrontation. Just presence.

And he says something that has stayed with me ever since:

“I can’t go back to who I was. I’m different now. I sing.”

That line unlocked something I’d kept buried for years. I cried. I sobbed. I gave myself at that moment permission to sing again.

Because that’s what healing feels like.

After trauma, after silence, after spending years surviving what you couldn’t control, you don’t just bounce back. You become someone else. Someone more real. Someone who doesn’t fake it to make others comfortable. Someone who sings, not because their voice is perfect, but because it’s finally theirs.

That ache, that reckoning, that moment of awakening, it’s universal for anyone who’s ever lost themselves and dared to come back different.

So no, I can’t go back to who I was.

I’m different now.

I sing. 🎶💖

If you’ve been carrying pain, I leave you with this:

• You are not broken. You were wounded. There’s a difference.

• Survival mode helped you then. It doesn’t have to run the show now.

• Grief can hold both love and anger. You don’t have to choose.

• You don’t need anyone’s permission to heal.

• Forgiveness is not forgetting, it’s freeing yourself from the grip of it all.

• Your voice matters, even if it shakes. Especially if it shakes.

• You are not too late. You are not too much.

• You are not the things that were done to you.

• You can sing.

And I hope one day, when you’re ready, you will. I’ll be right here.

So, thank you for allowing me to share my story. I don’t take that lightly. If it resonated with you, I want you to know, you’re not alone. I want to know you and your story. If we’re not already connected here, I’d love to change that. And if this touched something in you, hit the follow button. I’m sharing more, especially for those who’ve been through it. Professionals trying to stay on track or standing at a crossroads wondering if it’s time to finally pursue something of your own. There's magic in connection. Real connection. Authentic connection.

Wishing you peace, power, and a clear path forward.

- Suzette