There’s a term for what you’re experiencing:
Role fusion.
It happens when a role you’ve performed repeatedly — often out of necessity — fuses with your core identity.
🧠 Why it happens:
✧ You’re rewarded for being “good” at the role
✧ Others reflect that role back to you (and call it your essence)
✧ Over time, your sense of self becomes externally shaped — not internally rooted
This is especially common in:
✧ High-performing women
✧ Children of emotionally unavailable or chaotic homes
✧ Entrepreneurs and creatives who tie identity to output
✧ People whose social value is built on adaptability
💥 The conflict:
You're skilled… but not at peace.
You’re respected… but not recognized.
You’re functioning… but not feeling yourself.
🌪️ This creates identity dissonance:
When your actions no longer match your values,
but you’re too entangled to extract yourself.
You know it’s not you.
But you don’t know who “you” is anymore without it.
🕊 Rebuilding begins not with quitting the role —
but noticing where you’ve disappeared inside it.
✧ soft anchor:
Being good at something doesn’t mean it belongs to you.
Recognition ≠ resonance.
🌒 loop back:
→ read the lived experience: they praised the version of me i rehearsed daily
→ reflect deeper: the role you became to survive
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