“I Didn’t Realize I Was Losing Myself Until It Was Too Late

I Didn’t Realize I Was Losing Myself Until It Was Too Late

BY: Khan

I used to believe that losing yourself was a dramatic event—something loud, obvious, impossible to miss. I thought it happened in a single moment, like a crack in a mirror. But the truth is quieter. Sometimes you don’t notice it happening at all. Sometimes it feels like nothing. Just small choices, tiny compromises, little silences… until one day you wake up and the person staring back at you isn’t you anymore.

For me, it started with a simple desire: to be liked.

I was always the kind of person who valued peace over confrontation. I blended into groups, adjusted my opinions depending on who I sat beside, and softened my voice so much that even I could barely hear myself. It didn’t feel like a big deal back then—it felt like survival, like a shortcut to acceptance. When people praised me for being “easy” or “chill,” it felt like love. So I kept giving them what they wanted.

The first real shift happened when I met Arham.

He was confident in ways I wasn’t. He knew what he wanted, what he believed, and where he belonged. I admired it. Maybe I also envied it. Slowly, without realizing, I began to orbit around his personality. His preferences became mine. His routines shaped my days. If he liked a certain movie, I loved it. If he disliked someone, I avoided them. If he thought my dream of becoming a writer was “cute but unrealistic,” I laughed and agreed—even though that dream had kept me alive for years.

At first, it felt like partnership. Later, it became submission.

But the strangest part? I didn’t notice I was disappearing. I thought this was what love looked like—adapting, compromising, bending. I didn’t understand that bending too much turns you into a shape you can’t even recognize.

My friends did try to warn me.

“Ubaid, you’re quieter these days.”

“You don’t hang out anymore.”

“You changed.”

But I brushed everything off. I told myself they didn’t understand. I told myself love required sacrifice. I told myself I was happy. The lie was comfortable.

Until it wasn’t.

The breaking point arrived on a night that seemed ordinary. We were at a small gathering—just friends, music, laughter. Someone mentioned a writing competition and encouraged me to join. It was harmless, just a suggestion. But Arham scoffed loudly, right in front of everyone.

“She won’t do it,” he said. “She drops things halfway. She’s not built for that kind of commitment.”

People laughed. I smiled too. What else could I do? But something inside me cracked—quietly, invisibly. That laugh tasted bitter, like swallowing a version of myself that still wanted to fight back.

Later that night, when everyone had left, I asked him gently, “Why did you say that?”

He shrugged. “Because it’s true.”

It wasn’t the insult that hurt the most. It was the realization that he believed it… and maybe I did too. I had let him define me for so long that his definition became my truth.

That night, I wrote for the first time in months. My hands trembled; the words came out jagged, wounded. But they were mine. And they reminded me of a version of myself I had abandoned.

In the days that followed, I tried to reclaim small pieces of me. I started reading again. I reconnected with old friends. I said “no” to things that didn’t feel right.

But the more I found myself, the more I lost him.

He didn’t like the new—actually, the original—me. He accused me of changing, of being distant, of becoming “difficult.” But I wasn’t difficult; I was simply alive again. I was breathing in a way that felt honest.

And then came the moment I will never forget.

We were sitting in a café. He looked at me, frustrated, confused, almost angry, and said, “I liked you better before.”

It was such a simple sentence… and it broke me.

Because the “before” he was talking about wasn’t me. It was the watered-down version of myself I had created to keep him comfortable. And suddenly, everything made sense: I didn’t lose him. I had lost myself.

I walked away that day—quietly, without drama. It hurt, yes. But the freedom hurt less than the cage I had built around myself.

Healing was not immediate. It wasn’t magical. Some days I felt powerful; others I felt empty. Rediscovery is slow. But each day I chose myself, even when it was hard.

I realized something important along the way: losing yourself doesn’t happen in a single moment, but finding yourself does. It happens the moment you decide you deserve to exist fully—unfiltered, unapologetic, unedited.

Today, I’m still learning how to take up space. How to speak without fear. How to follow my dreams without waiting for someone’s permission. I’m still healing, but I’m finally home—in my own skin, in my own truth.

And maybe that’s the real lesson: you don’t notice you’re lost until the world becomes too quiet, too controlled, too small. But once you hear your own voice again, even faintly, you realize it was never too late to return.

I didn’t realize I was losing myself
until I finally found me.