When You Don’t Feel Like Yourself Anymore

(And What to Do When You’re Still Here, But Something’s Missing)

Have you ever caught yourself mid-sentence and realised you didn’t sound like you?

Not in a dramatic way.
Not like an identity crisis or some life-altering epiphany.
Just a soft flicker that said,
This doesn’t feel like me.

Maybe it’s in the mirror in the morning.
Maybe it’s in a photo you didn’t know was being taken.
Maybe it’s in how you laugh, how you respond, how you disappear in conversations you used to feel alive in.

You’re still here.
But you don’t feel anchored, more like you're drifting but you're not sure why.

This Is What Disconnection Can Look Like

It doesn’t always scream.

Sometimes it looks like going through your daily activities
without remembering how they used to feel.
Getting dressed, making coffee, answering emails but doing it from somewhere slightly outside yourself.

Sometimes it feels like your life is still happening, but you’re watching it from the other side of a screen.

Dream-like.
Muted.
Like you’re present, but not participating.

You’re not necessarily sad.
You’re just… uninhabited.

I Didn’t Know This Was a Kind of Grief

There was a time I thought I was fine because everything still looked normal.

My routines were intact.
I was showing up.
Smiling when expected.
Replying when needed.

But underneath it, I didn’t feel real.
Not completely.

It wasn’t numbness.
It was distance.
A delay between stimulus and feeling.

And the worst part?
I thought I had no right to name it because nothing “bad” had happened.

But sometimes the trauma isn’t sharp.
Sometimes it’s slow.
Sometimes it’s waking up and realising you’ve been disappearing one layer at a time.

You’re Not Failing. You’re Adapting to Something You Haven’t Named Yet

This feeling of not recognising yourself isn’t weakness.
It’s a flag.
Not of danger but of depletion.

Your emotional health is trying to speak.

Maybe something shifted quietly in the background.
Maybe you’ve been carrying stress too long.
Maybe something hurt and you didn’t let yourself call it trauma because it didn’t fit the usual script.

But your body knows.
Your mind knows.
And now they’re asking for a different kind of attention.

You Don’t Have to Fix It All At Once

Sometimes the first step is just saying it out loud.
I don’t feel like myself right now.

You don’t need a treatment plan.
You don’t need a new routine.
You don’t even need to explain it to anyone.

Just name it.
That’s the re-entry point.

Then listen.

Is it exhaustion?
Is it emotional backlog?
Is it the quiet grief of who you used to be before something interrupted your inner rhythm?

Whatever it is it’s not too late to come back to yourself. And no, you haven’t wandered too far.

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Notes to Self:

If this felt like recognition, we send more like it. Quietly.

Read Next:

When You’re Not Sad, But You’re Not Okay

When You’re Not Sad, But You’re Not Okay (And What It Means to Feel Flat Without Falling Apart)