I noticed it in a small moment. Someone asked me what I wanted, and my first instinct wasn’t an answer; it was a pause. Not the thoughtful kind. The searching kind. Like I needed permission to check in with myself first. I used to know. Now I double-check everything. I replay conversations hours after they end.
Question choices that felt right at the time. Wonder if I misread my own needs, my own limits, my own gut. This loss of trust is subtle. It doesn’t arrive with one big failure. It builds quietly, after enough times pushing past discomfort, after enough times being told you’re wrong about what you feel.
Eventually, listening to yourself starts feeling risky. So, you outsource it. To logic. To other people. To anything that feels safer than your own voice. I don’t think I stopped trusting myself because I failed. I think I stopped because I was trying to survive. If this sounds familiar, you’re not broken.
Something interrupted the conversation between you and you. And noticing that, gently, without blame, might be the most honest place to begin.