Season One-Episode Nine: I was Still There/ Losing Myself While Still Showing Up

 You can be there… and still feel gone.
 This episode of Wonderland Rewritten with Kristen Elizabeth dives into the silent disconnection so many people live with, and the moment she realized she was still there. 

Transcript

Elizabeth 0:01

Some songs don't begin with music. They begin with silence, the kind that lingers longer than it should, the kind you sit inside of until you forget what it feels like to hear anything, because sometimes the loudest thing in your life is the quiet inside of you. Some rabbit holes don't pull you under all at once. They close in slowly, layer by layer, moment by moment until one day you look around and realize you don't know how to get back out of it. Welcome to Wonderland Rewritten. I'm Kristin Elizabeth, and this is where we take the stories we've lived, the ones that shaped us, stretched us, and sometimes quietly took pieces of us and we began finding our way back. Because today's episode isn't about losing myself, it's about the moment I realized I was still there. Now let's begin. This wasn't overnight. There wasn't a moment where everything changed. The signs were there for as long as I can remember, a voice, quiet, consistent pulling at me, urging me to follow something deeper, something different, but I didn't listen. There were moments where everything around me looked normal, sitting in a room full of people nodding, responding, saying the right things, but inside it felt like I was one step behind myself, like my body was there, but something in me hadn't caught up yet. Because I thought I was on my own and I moved through life believing people would fail me, that circumstances would shift, that nothing was ever fully safe. And somewhere along the way, that belief turned inward and I started to think maybe I'm the one who failed. And that's where it deepened because when you start believing you failed yourself, you don't just feel lost, you start disconnecting and slowly, day by day, I went deeper into the rabbit hole. And the hardest part was what it felt like to live there because I wasn't gone. I was still there in rooms in the conversations. And the moments that were supposed to feel alive, but inside I was frozen and. My chest would feel tight, like I couldn't take a full breath in. My thoughts would loop, but never land anywhere and time. It either moved too fast or not at all. Like I was watching my life from somewhere far below it and down there, Kristen was still there too, at the bottom of the rabbit hole fighting, trying to get out, screaming, but no one could hear her, not even me. And on the outside, I learned how to hide it. My mom used to call it the Kristen Smile. And I wore it well. I used to make people believe everything was okay, but it wasn't for a very long time, I wasn't okay, and I didn't feel like I had anyone I could let into that space because how do you explain that you're there, but not really there? There were moments that should have been full of joy, music playing, people laughing, life happening all around me, and I would sit there. Still telling people. I preferred to watch that. I liked being the observer, but that wasn't true I remember sitting there, hearing the music in the background, watching people move, watching them feel it and wondering, why can't I reach that? Why does it feel like there's a glass between me and everything that's happening? because inside I was desperate to feel it, to move, to let the music run through me again, to be present, to be alive in those moments, but I couldn't reach it. And maybe you felt that too, where everything around you looks full of life, but inside you feel stuck, disconnected, like you're missing something. Everyone else seems to have access to. Now I want you to pause for a second. Think about the last time you felt fully present. Not just there, but there in your body in the moment, connected. Now think about the last time you weren't, when something felt off, but you couldn't explain why. When you were there, but not really there, what changed? I. What's interesting is when I was trapped inside the rabbit hole, it showed up in my relationships, in the quiet moments, in the spaces between conversations, being in the same room, but feeling miles apart, passing each other like strangers. And inside I could feel it, that urge to reach out, to connect, to say something, to be present, to grab his hand, to kiss him, to say, I love you. I would think about doing it, play it out in my mind, reaching over, choosing connection, and then nothing like there was a delay between what I felt and what I could actually do. And it felt like there was a version of me at the bottom of the rabbit hole pleading with me to do it, but I couldn't reach her. And then there was a moment, something happened that didn't just shake me. It woke me up. Everything got quiet. Not the kind of silence I was used to. This was different. It was clear, almost like for the first time I could hear myself again and it was like being pulled out of the rabbit hole. Not gently, not slowly, but suddenly. And for the first time, I could see clearly not just my life but myself, and something in me shifted because in that moment I didn't wanna stay there anymore, didn't wanna keep watching my life from the outside. I wanted to live it. And that was the first time in a long time that I fought for myself. And in that fight I realized something that changed everything. I was never alone, not in the beginning, not in the middle, not even at my lowest point, because that voice, that quiet pool I had felt my entire life was always there and I just didn't understand it. God was there in the moments. I thought I was completely alone when I couldn't feel anything. Somehow I was still being held. And healing didn't happen overnight. It didn't suddenly all make sense. It started small. It looked like noticing when I was disconnecting instead of ignoring it, it looked like choosing to stay in a moment, even when it felt uncomfortable, even when I wanted to disappear again. A shift in awareness, a willingness to see a decision to not go back to that place. Maybe you felt this sitting in a room where everyone else seems present and you're wondering what's wrong with you. You are not alone. I thought I had lost myself, but the truth is I was still there waiting, fighting, trying to be heard. And maybe that's what healing is, not becoming someone new, But finding your way back to who you've always been. Thank you for being here with me. If this episode met you somewhere real, I hope you'll come back next time as we continue rewriting this story together. And if this story or any of my episodes has resonated with you, if you've ever listened and thought, this sounds like my story, I want you to reach out. Whether it's Facebook, Instagram, I wanna hear from you because what I've learned through this journey is that telling my story. Rewriting it week after week has been a part of my healing, and I'm still in that process, still walking it every day, but I don't wanna do it alone, and I don't want you to either. So to my listeners, my friends, even those I haven't met yet, I wanna hear your story too. Until next time, this is Wonderland rewritten.