I’ve been thinking about how to introduce myself here, and I realized that I don’t want to do that with facts or a timeline of events. I want to begin somewhere closer to my heart.

This blog exists because for a long time, I didn’t feel seen or understood, and I also didn’t know how to express myself. At a young age, I learned that expressing my feelings didn’t necessarily bring me love; it was often perceived as being complicated. So it felt safer not to express my needs or show my emotions too openly.

As a child, I often carried the feeling that something was wrong with me. I felt like I was a burden and that I constantly had to meet expectations, even when they were not clearly spoken. I experienced a deep fear of failure, but I didn’t know how to talk about it. I didn’t have the language for what was happening inside of me, so most of it stayed there. Over time, that silence translated into physical and mental struggles, including an eating disorder and extreme fatigue that my body could no longer hide.

On the outside, my life probably looked normal. I grew up in a small village, went to school, did sports, had some friends and lived within a clear structure. From a distance, there was nothing obviously wrong. But internally, I often felt misplaced and deeply lonely, even in rooms full of people I had known for years. The loneliness sometimes became so heavy that I questioned what the point of being here even was. And yet, there has always been a small spark inside of me that quietly insisted that this could not be all there was.

When I look back at my childhood and my student years, I realize that I moved through them more than I truly lived them. I adapted to who I thought I needed to be: the good daughter, the kind friend, the perfect girlfriend, the best colleague. I tried to meet expectations and to make myself manageable. I attempted to quiet my anxiety by becoming smaller, more agreeable, less demanding and less complicated. On the surface, that strategy worked for a while. Underneath, I felt increasingly unsure of who I actually was.

One question kept returning, even if I didn’t always know how to articulate it: who am I, really? Not in relation to my family, a partner or my work. Not according to expectations. But who am I when I strip all of that away?

For a long time, I didn’t have an answer and didn’t know how to find one. Not knowing created a deep sense of insecurity. It made the world feel unsafe and unpredictable. Other people’s opinions carried too much weight, and rejection felt like confirmation that something was fundamentally wrong with me. Without realizing it, I had built an identity around adaptation rather than authenticity.

This blog is part of how I am finding my way back to myself and toward a life that feels aligned.

Over the years, I tried many things in an attempt to understand myself better. I experienced a physical wake-up call that later proved to be life-changing. It forced me to slow down, and in that slowing down I began to question the patterns I had long accepted as normal. I looked more consciously at the roles I was playing and at the emotions I had learned to suppress. I explored silence, had conversations that felt uncomfortable but necessary, and gradually allowed myself to feel what I had previously pushed away. It has been a long road filled with difficult situations and decisions, but somewhere along the way I started to see that not fitting in was not a flaw. It was an invitation to look beyond the environment I had been trying so hard to belong to.

Writing became one of the places where I could finally hear myself clearly. When I write, I notice that I don’t adapt in the same way. I don’t perform or adjust to what I think is expected of me. I explore, reflect and slowly untangle what feels true. Writing helps me trust my own voice.

In future blogs, I will share more about the specific experiences and themes that shaped me. I will write about anxiety and the impact it had on my body and decisions, about family dynamics and the subtle weight of guilt and expectations, about relationships, spirituality and doubt, about feeling lost and slowly finding direction. I will write about moving away from environments and people that no longer fit the person I am becoming, and about building a life that feels aligned, even when that means choosing differently and sometimes standing alone.

I am not writing because I have everything figured out. I am writing because I am still in the process of understanding myself, and because I believe there is value in being honest about that process.

If you have ever felt like you were the only one who didn’t quite belong, maybe you will recognize something here.

This is where I begin. If something here resonates, I’m glad you’re here.