When You Are a Good Swimmer Nobody Knows You Are Drowning
I got very good at not looking like I was struggling.
Meetings ran smoothly. Deadlines were met. I smiled at the right moments, said the right things, held it together in every room I walked into. From the outside I looked like someone who had it handled.
On the inside I was running on empty, terrified, and so exhausted I had forgotten what it felt like to not be tired.
Nobody checked on me. Why would they? I looked fine.
This is the particular cruelty of being capable. The stronger you appear, the less anyone thinks to ask how you actually are. The more you manage, the more you are trusted to keep managing. The better you swim, the less anyone watches to see if you are going under.
I went under quietly. For a long time.
The 2am version of me and the 9am version of me were completely different people and nobody ever met them both at the same time.
If someone had asked, really asked, sat down and said I want to know how you actually are underneath all of this, I think I would have told them everything. I was desperate to tell someone. I had just learned, over years of being fine, that nobody was actually asking that question.
So I kept swimming. Better and better. Deeper and deeper under.
The day my body gave out it did not look dramatic from the outside either. I was just brushing my teeth.
If you are a good swimmer right now and nobody knows you are drowning, I am asking. How are you actually doing? Not the managed version. The real one.
You are not the only good swimmer who is secretly exhausted. I see you. You are allowed to stop performing strength you do not have.
rise · believe · fly 🪶
From the Ashes She is for the woman in the middle of it. Not after.If this found you today, you are exactly where you are supposed to be.