The Courage to Leave

Not to demand a fixed ending, but to have the courage to leave.

Since I was a little girl, I knew what I wanted to be.

A sister.

Growing up under the influence of two sisters a decade older than me, I did not just look up to them, I wanted to be them.

That longing shaped me in ways I did not understand at the time. I was angry with my mother for giving birth to me so late that I began rushing toward adulthood before I had even learned how to stay a child. I started walking early, not out of strength, but urgency. While I was trying to catch up to them, I ended up hushing the little girl before she had enough time to play.

The pressure was dual-sided, reinforced by my sisters expecting me to pick up grown-up skills at a very young age. In contrast to the large age gap I had with them, they were only two years apart from each other, which created constant friction.

Close-age siblings are rivals by default.

Lacking perspective-taking skills while experiencing emotional immaturity at the same time, they often compete over toys, approval, and later on, identity itself.

My sisters felt threatened by each other’s presence due to a recurring question that kept whispering in their ears:

Who am I if you are like me?

When identity is not yet secure, a sibling becomes a mirror that feels threatening rather than comforting.

Growing up, I never had a reason to fight with my sisters. With larger age gaps, hierarchy is obvious. Yet my experience carried its own kind of existential struggle. In every conflict, I had to show up for both of them equally, acting as though I never took sides while still being present for each when they were not speaking.

My sisters shared the same desire to be chosen, but they did not choose me when I refused to reflect their loyalty on their terms. Still, they were my primary role models, the first proof of who I could become, a living bridge between my childhood and the world. They were the witnesses of my becoming, the place where my inner world anchored itself.

I learned how to ‘be’ by watching them.

That’s why I didn’t experience their withdrawal as distance, but as the loss of reality itself, as if my universe were folding inward.

Without being aware of it, the environment I grew up in forced me to become an adult at a very young age by equipping me with skills of mediating and being political. It taught me perspective-taking, and showed me how to hold space long before I knew how to occupy my own.

Although the pressure was far too much for a child younger than seven, it strengthened my hand in social interactions. In every conversation, I knew how to meet the other person. It came naturally to me.

In the end, my existential battle became the root of the career I set out for myself.

At every graduation, I was asked the same question:

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” Unmistakably.

Some struggle to find their calling, experiencing career choice as a process of loss, where committing to one path feels like abandoning another. I experienced that struggle for everything else but the choice of career.

My childhood gave me a practical understanding of the human mind. Empathy was not a choice but a necessity, a language I had to learn in order to survive. Fixated on becoming a psychologist, I built my life accordingly.

Following my graduation from my master’s in clinical psychology, I threw myself into an abundance of trainings, driven by a sense of inadequacy. I became my own terrain, once again treating myself as though I were a machine. Forsaking my limits led me to nothing but a detrimental burnout.

I stopped trying all at once until I saw my ex-boyfriend get hired for a new job on LinkedIn. Immature or not, I became depressed for a week, convinced that he had won the game of life.

I began applying to every position I came across and eventually got hired for a support worker role. Believing it would be a stepping stone in my career in mental health, I began working forty hours a week in a position that didn’t align with my learning goals, curiosity, or sense of direction. What drained me was not the difficulty of the work, but the absence of meaning. It felt heavy because it did not stretch or sharpen me. Not so slowly, I realised that it wasn’t aligned with the person I was becoming.

The idea of staying didn’t bring reassurance or stability, but instead sent panic into my nervous system, slowly hijacking everything within. Some told me to push through, to at least give it a month, but even the idea of continuing felt suffocating, while the thought of leaving brought immediate relief.

Still, the decision did not arrive easily because of the fear-based narratives I layered on top of it.

What if leaving makes me weak?
Am I irresponsible for leaving so early?

I tried to push through because I thought I was trying to prove myself to my father. In truth, my war had always been with myself. Within a few days, I noticed myself dimming, becoming less present. I was not unsure. My body had already answered. Doing something half-heartedly felt like a quiet form of self-betrayal, turning devotion into self-erosion.

What I was afraid of losing was not the job.
It was the image of being someone who “sticks it out.”

But who did I want to be someone who sticks it out for?
A system? A role?

Having declared a quiet war against the system long ago, the truth surfaced when I turned inward. I was forcing myself to stay in a job that pulled me into a system I had already learned to survive as a child, driven by expectations I had been carrying since I first learned how to be chosen.
When I compared my understanding of the meaning of life to five years ago, a truth far more important than any realisation surfaced:

I was not even the same person I had been five minutes ago.

Yet, I kept torturing myself for the sake of a single way of living, dreaming, and meaning-making that belonged to a self that no longer existed.

I learnt the grace of letting go, the courage of change, and the quiet rebellion of questioning everything I was taught to accept. I understood that nothing and no one is meant to stay; even my former self.

Later, I found myself thinking about this guy I met about ten years ago, who was studying philosophy. When I asked him why he chose that major, his answer stayed with me:

“I knew my mind had not yet grown into its purpose. I will change and evolve over time. That is why my first choice would not be my last, so I chose to study what truly interested me.”

It was there that I recognised my all-or-nothing thinking for what it was, a product of perfectionism that had convinced me life allowed only a single choice, and kept me lingering in paths that no longer served me.

The truth is we can always change our minds and return to the baseline.

As someone who often gaslights her own intuition, I cannot think of another moment where I made a decision with this much precision and clarity as the morning I sent my resignation email.

When something is existentially misaligned, the body responds with numbness, self-doubt, and a sudden questioning of your entire life.

Earlier in my life, I never picked up on the messages my body was trying to give me. Yet, the relief I felt following my resignation revealed a truth that felt quietly groundbreaking.

The body is the site of truth. It reacts not to expectations, but to reality. Listening to it was the first act of congruence I allowed myself.

As purposeless drifting can easily become second nature, all it takes is a moment of realisation to stop and ask the right questions.

Do not be afraid to interrogate whether your current self feels congruent. Exposing that gap out in the open would be far less destructive now than in the future.

To live is not to demand a fixed ending, but to have the courage to keep writing in the dark.

In truth, darkness is where the light shines the brightest.

In time, the dimming will come on its own, in the natural order of things. In the meantime, I choose to let my path be led by the desire and passion still burning within.

Author’s note:

This is for my community.

For the support, the guidance, and the insights you shared while I found my way through this journey.

I couldn’t have made this decision without you.

My