The Identity Shift That Changed Everything

Part 1: The Emotional Blindspot No One Warns High-Achieving Women About

When I was young, I believed relationships were supposed to be simple.

Be kind, work hard, and do the right thing. One day, someone will choose you, and life will fall into place.

That was the story we were fed.

Especially as women.

We watched movies in which the successful, lovable girl was “rewarded” with love, and being chosen was the highest validation.

And where being saved was proof you were worthy.

But real life?

Real life didn't reward me for following the script.

I built a successful life.

The career. The independence. The accolades.

The carefully curated version of “having it together as a single mum.”

And still… in relationships, something never clicked.

I kept finding myself in dynamics that didn’t reflect my worth.

Where I wasn’t fully seen.

Where I over-functioned, made excuses, or shrank myself, even as I stood tall everywhere else.

It was maddening. Quietly humiliating, even.

How could I be this competent, this self-aware, and still feel so wobbly in the relationships that mattered most?

What no one tells you is that emotional insecurity doesn’t look like a crisis for women like us.

It looks like second-guessing yourself after a text.

Like over-explaining your feelings to avoid conflict.

Like being the one who gives more, holds more, and tolerates more, because it feels safer than risking the pain of not being enough.

And it wasn’t just romantic relationships. It showed up everywhere.

In friendships where I played therapist.

In family dynamics where I became the emotional anchor.

In parenting moments where I lost myself trying to be everything.

I had become the woman who looked strong, but didn’t feel safe.

And the truth?

That wasn’t love.

That was an identity.

An identity built around performance and perfectionism.

Where my worth was measured by how well I held everything together.

Where being chosen by others was more important than choosing myself.

I never saw a model of a woman who was both powerful and deeply at peace in her relationships.

I saw strong women tolerated, not cherished.

High-achieving women praised in public, but dismissed at home.

Exceptional women but emotionally invisible.

And whether I realised it or not, I internalised that blueprint.

I became the A* girl.

The one who got it right.

The one who fixed, adapted, and achieved.

Not to thrive but to STAY SAFE. To feel worthy. To be enough.

And it worked everywhere except in relationships.

Because relationships don’t give out gold stars for over-functioning.

They don’t respond to performance.

They respond to presence.

And presence?

Presence was something I had long abandoned.

Instead, I attracted people who mirrored back my own emotional unavailability.

Who fed off my need to be needed, but never met my own.

Who were inconsistent, hot-and-cold, sometimes cruel, often kind, but never safe.

I kept asking myself, “Why does this keep happening?”

Why could I create success, impact, and results, yet feel so shaky in the relationships that mattered most?

And then I realised…

No one teaches high-achieving women how to feel safe in relationships.

They teach us how to succeed. How to lead. How to get results.

But not how to trust ourselves in emotional spaces.

Not how to advocate for our needs without guilt.

Not how to discern connection from trauma bonding.

Not how to stay rooted in our power when the people we love don’t validate it.

They tell us “just love yourself,” but they don’t show us how.

Especially when our entire sense of worth was built on what we could do, not who we are.

And here’s the part that wrecked me for a while...

I didn’t actually DEEPLY believe I was worthy of secure relationships.

I thought I did. I said all the right affirmations.

But deep down, I feared abandonment more than I trusted myself to choose peace.

And so, like many women I work with now, I tolerated the emotional minimum.

I stayed in connections that mirrored my old wounds.

I avoided the truth to keep the peace and called it 'maturity'.

I swallowed pain and called it patience.

I performed safety when what I craved was freedom.

Until one day, someone unexpected held up a mirror and I just couldn’t look away.

(Coming up in Part 2: The Moment That Shattered My Identity and Started My Return to Myself)

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