When You Never Expected a Future: How Survival Mode, Trauma, and Self-Doubt Shape Our Relationship With Success

TW: conversations discussing suicidal ideation

In this deeply personal solo episode of The Visibility Standard, I’m sharing something I’ve never talked about publicly: what it means to build a life when, for a long time, you didn’t believe you’d make it this far.

I open up about not expecting to live past 17, how early trauma shaped my relationship with success and safety, and the quiet, ongoing work of releasing the belief that everything good in my life is just luck—or a mistake waiting to be taken away. This episode is about surviving and learning how to receive a future you once couldn’t imagine.

In this episode, I explore:

• Healing from survival mode and learning how to thrive, not just endure
• When imposter syndrome is actually trauma telling you you don’t deserve good things
• The daily practice of rewriting your story with compassion instead of self-criticism
• Choosing visibility while you’re still figuring yourself out—and why that’s brave
• Making peace with your becoming, even when your timeline looks different
• Holding your own story with the tenderness you’d offer your best friend

This episode is for the survivors.
 For the ones who never thought they’d be here.
 For anyone learning to trust that they’re allowed to want a future—and to keep it.

Your story doesn’t need to be polished to be meaningful.
 Your success doesn’t need to be justified.
 And choosing to stay, build, and be seen is not luck—it’s courage.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today we're going to talk about being cringe and I'm going to share a little bit of my visibility journey. Welcome to All Our Parts. I am your host, Jasmine, and I'm very excited because this is my 50th episode. It has been such an amazing journey creating a show, creating a platform, and I am so deeply humbled by the impact that it's already having and that so many people are resonating with what I'm putting out there and so thank you I really appreciate it it means everything and like I said solo episodes are going to be more about me sharing my story things about me and being more vulnerable in this space so today we're going to talk about being cringe I feel like I was always pretty cringe i think about in middle school i was definitely like in my emo phase so i was listening to pierce the veil like fallout boy i owned these blue and black skinny jeans when multi-colored skinny jeans were a thing i had a red pair i had a yellow pair and it never dawned on me that i was standing out but my peers made it very clear that i was standing out because I didn't like the music that everyone listened to I was wearing very bright colors I owned a neon pink bow that I wanted to wear because Lady Gaga was wearing it I was a huge Lady Gaga fan in middle school so when Just Dance was still hot and fresh and she was still very much in her building and visionary era I was obsessed I was obsessed with how unwavering she was she was committed to the bit every time she was committed to creating this brand this perception that regardless of what anyone else thought like she still showed up and I've loved seeing her trajectory as she has morphed into maybe a different version of herself a more authentic version I think we always get closer and closer to a authentic version and authenticity can look really different at any given point and so I love that she is allowed herself to shift and evolve but this isn't about her it's about me but she was one of my really big role models like growing up in terms of what it meant to be visible be weird be cringe so give that I wasn't really popular in middle school and I don't know anybody that was popular in middle school I had braces I clearly had glasses by then too so I really had a lot going against me at that time I also couldn't text so at this time this was when like texting you pay by the text you send so you have 50 texts 50 or so like minutes on your phone so I was also the weird kid who didn't who like didn't really have the technology and so it absolutely riddled my self-esteem when I think about it and not feeling like I can relate to my peers or constantly feeling like the odd one out at that age it It's really isolating and I felt really isolated because I felt like no one wanted to really understand me and it was just weird I also went to a middle school where most people went to elementary school together so they already had these really close ties so I was coming in already there was a lot going against me in middle school high school I wasn't popular but I will say I was friends with just about everybody so really cool kids like theater kids I was an athlete so I played volleyball and then I worked with the basketball and softball teams a little bit I was a peer minister which at my school that was just like a mini mentor and so I had a group of mentees who were freshmen my senior year so I always carry this want to be a leader to be out front I still struggle with that word leader and I was also team captain of most of my volleyball teams and not so much in the club space, but definitely in the school space. I was the odd one out. It wasn't that I didn't get along with most of my teammates, but I did not care about the same things as them at the time. And so we didn't have a lot that we could relate to. That also felt really isolating and is one of the reasons I didn't play volleyball my senior year. But yeah in high school I loved showing up how do I put it because I definitely resented high school also but that was also my own mental health challenges starting to take a front seat really experiencing depression for the first time lots of anxiety and so high school for me was I think me giving myself permission to try on all of these different hats but also doing it in a way that maintained the perception of me and being seen as like someone who's ambitious someone who's seen as versatile Jane of all trades I also went to a college prep high school and so I was also really worried about what my college resume would look like when I'm applying to colleges what are they going to see what are they going to think of me and so being involved in as many clubs that I had capacity for while maintaining good grades was really important to me and now it doesn't matter and that's just the crazy thing is that especially in high school we feel like and for a moment our world is that bubble we want to fit in we want to have a group we want to have our identities solidified classic erickson if you are interested in the psychosocial model we want to belong we want to feel like we are one with our peers and now i'm retelling the story and i'm like god none of that fucking mattered and that's such a relief because i That means I didn't peak in high school.

UNKNOWN 7:41

Woo!

SPEAKER_00 7:44

But it just didn't matter. I'm trying to do all these things that make me look good. And I think a lot of it too, I was really going through so much emotionally that it also was a really nice distraction to have. It was nice to be involved in so much to not have to think. That's where the doing, not feeling, I'm pretty sure, gave birth. I wasn't popular, but I was in a lot of different spaces. I wasn't like someone that had influence. I'd had peers who I knew had influence, that people wanted to go to their parties. People wanted to hang out with them, be seen, just have the perception of being around them. And I wasn't that girl. I remember when I auditioned to host our school's talent show, I knew I wasn't going to get it in hindsight. I thought I had the personality for it but I wasn't someone that had influence at that time and so it's really it's just cool I think it really tugs at some inner child work to see where I am right now as someone who is pretty visible online who does share their story who does connect with people and feel like I've created a space and feel like I belong in other spaces that people want me in and that's a really healing feeling and so fast forward to college undergrad I definitely belonged I think that's where I started to experience some belonging but not in a healthy way so I was definitely the party girl fast forward to college I definitely wanted to experience that traditional college belonging experience like I was definitely at parties I was definitely drinking a little bit and by a little bit I was never the DD for my friends toxic trait maybe but they still loved me yeah I was everywhere I was not worried to being a part of clubs it was actually the complete opposite I was like I want to be a part of the least amount of things as possible and as I say that out loud I will also tell you that I worked in sexual assault prevention with a group at my school and I also was an RA so I did want to have some influence I wanted to be the cool RA though like I'm not a regular RA I'm a cool RA so I knew when folks had alcohol this was a dry campus but I would just say keep it down keep it low key I was also a writing center tutor and a lot of people also knew I was an RA and they would come in and while I'm reading their paper they would be like okay so Jasmine I have this issue like I have this secret cat in my room what do I do and I love that they felt so safe and comfortable to tell me that knowing that I could have very much written them up but I was just reading their paper I was like look get rid of the cat by tomorrow we have we're doing room checks at this time on this day figure it out so yeah I loved having that behind the scenes so that I could help some folks out and while I was an RA I was still very much going to parties I actually think I started partying more when I became an RA that's my discomfort with responsibilities and being perceived as one that stands out and so I would see my residents at parties I would get addresses from them and a really she's one of the most important people in my life she was our dean and she would always say Jasmine you are not cut out to be an RA and I used to be so offended because I was really good at community building but not in the way an RA is probably probably meant to so my senior year I was not an RA anymore needless to say my mental health definitely took a big hit right before then and so it just became unsustainable and I could not maintain it I think I was just really struggling with identity I think I was with my first girlfriend at the time I was drinking a lot and partying and just trying so hard to not have responsibility not be seen as someone with a position or someone that can make a difference to the point I basically was running from leadership and I just am running I'm sprinting because I'm like I cannot have this responsibility where people are looking to me for an answer for anything when I look back and think about that time and realize what I was running from and I still I think sometimes run from it because it feels like a lot of pressure sometimes to show up because the internet is not a very forgiving space and I always want to make sure that I am showing up thoughtfully and where people feel like they can be themselves and I think as I reflect on all of my experiences yes running from leadership running from even having I think potential because then I didn't know what to do with it at the time so I definitely would have just self-sabotaged like I think in my mind there was no sense in me having or maintaining good things because I could not hold on to them which that in and of itself is its own limiting belief which absolutely fueled the self-sabotaging narrative and so I didn't know what to do and I think even more I did not believe I deserved good things I did not believe that I deserved to accomplish anything and much more than that anything after the age of 17 felt like a fluke because I didn't imagine that I would be around to see it I didn't think that my life would turn out to be anything after that And so thinking about stepping into any space of... importance of being seen of being relied on being accountable to people it just didn't it didn't make sense to me because it everything just felt like chance basically that I got lucky that I it just landed in my lap and yeah I didn't expect to go in that direction but that's the truth of it I I have struggled with SI for a bit starting in high school and I would say up until maybe two three years ago after getting a diagnosis of OCD of getting on the right medication it's something that I have been able to manage a lot better but it's very passive it's very much I wonder if I like didn't wake up this morning I wonder what it'd be like if I I just slept for a week like I wanted to escape my life so much and so god forbid being seen because if I want to escape it I don't want anyone to see me I don't want anyone to recognize that I'm hurting so much I want to hide and so I lived my life in a way that allowed me to hide while also giving myself permission to step into into these spaces that required me to be seen and show up for other people and so now I'm very visible and I'm learning that I have put in the hard work and get to receive that something I like to say when I think about therapy when I think about working with people is that people deserve better and part of the shift for me is I am also people and so I deserve better and I deserve to be be happy and I deserve to give myself credit for the work that I put into maintaining my life and I'm so impressed that I haven't escaped just yet I want people to be themselves because I know what it's like to not even be accepted for being myself and I know what it's like to want to be someone different to be something different something more palatable something that resonates more, that offers a false sense of belonging. And so my platform's all about showing up and authenticity because it's what saved my life. I believe it's what's given me so much freedom to be. And as I've learned to accept myself more for everything that I am better at accepting other people and allowing other people to love and accept me. And that has been the biggest journey in and of itself. And I'll talk about it another time. But part of showing up is knowing I already know what it's like to hate myself. I already know what that feels like And so I'm trying something different and I'm seeing how it goes. And so far, I like how it feels. So keep doing the cringe thing. Keep showing up every time you give yourself permission to show up and be cringe. You are giving yourself permission to be accepted for who you are. That's all I've got today. I'm excited for my guest episode this week. I am talking with Nina Badson about friendship. And I was on her podcast during the conversation about friendship. And so I'm so excited to be sharing our conversation together on Friday. Like, rate the show. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can find me at Healing with Jasmine. But I'll see you all soon.