The Reckoning: You Didn’t Survive Just to Stay Stuck or Play Small!

There’s a moment in every healing journey when the truth smacked me in the face so hard, I couldn’t ignore it anymore:

Survival isn’t the finish line!

I didn’t claw my way out of hell just to sit at the edge of it, staring back at the flames.

I didn’t survive everything I’ve been through with narcissistic abuse just to spend the rest of my life identifying as the person who made it out.

I recently asked myself:

Am I done just surviving? Or am I ready to actually LIVE?

For years, I called myself a survivor.

It felt like power!

It felt like proof that I had endured, that I had made it through!

I connected being a survivor to the ending of what I survived: maternal narcissistic abuse.

I was very proud of myself for surviving everything I did!

And for a while, it was power.

Until one day it wasn’t.

One day, I looked at myself—at my life—and realized that calling myself a survivor wasn’t lifting me up anymore.

It was keeping me tethered to the very thing I was trying to escape.

That was my reckoning.

And if you’re reading this, maybe it’s yours, too.

Survival isn’t the endgame—it’s the launch pad

Let’s be real: survival mode is a brutal place to live.

It serves a purpose when you’re in the thick of it.

It keeps you breathing.

It keeps you functioning.

But at some point, it becomes a cage.

Survival mode will trick you into believing that just because you’re no longer drowning, you’re free.

You’re not.

Freedom happens when you decide that survival isn’t enough.

Freedom happens when you stop identifying as the person who made it through and start becoming the person you were always meant to be.

And that’s where most people get stuck—because the moment you let go of survival, you step into the unknown.

And the unknown?

That’s terrifying.

That’s uncomfortable.

That’s where you actually have to decide who the hell you are when the past isn’t defining you anymore (this is exactly what I had to do!).

But that’s also where the real transformation happens.

The reckoning: when you decide you’re done being owned by your past

Reckoning.

Confrontation.

A line drawn in the sand.

Call it what you want, but the moment will come when you’re faced with one simple, inescapable truth:

You don’t get to move forward if you’re still gripping onto the identity of who you were.

That moment—the reckoning—isn’t gentle.

It doesn’t whisper.

It doesn’t ask nicely.

It kicks down the door, gets in your face, and demands an answer:

Are you going to keep circling the drain of your old story? Or are you going to burn that identity to the ground and rebuild something new?

Here’s what my reckoning looked like:

• I was DONE identifying as a survivor. I had survived. But who was I beyond that? The cool thing about this is that I get to be whoever the hell I want to be and I get to do the things I truly love whenever I want to do them!

• I was DONE tiptoeing through my healing. The work wasn’t going to do itself—I had to step into it with active confrontation of my feelings and memories; rinse and repeat.

• I was DONE believing that healing meant suffering. It didn’t have to be a lifelong battle. It could be a choice. It was MY CHOICE (and yes, sometimes I felt like a rebel).

And the second I made that choice?

The second I stopped waiting to feel ready and just decided?

Everything changed.

Burn it down, build it better

I need you to hear this:

Your past will keep owning you for as long as you let it.

And the hardest part?

Letting it go.

Because when you let go of survival, when you let go of the trauma-driven identity that kept you safe for so long…

Who are you?

That’s the terrifying question, isn’t it?

But here’s the answer:

YOU ARE WHOEVER THE HELL YOU DECIDE TO BE!

And THAT is where the real freedom is.

You don’t need another coping strategy.

You don’t need another self-help book telling you how to work through your past.

What you need is a reckoning.

What you need is to decide—right now—that you are DONE being weighed down by the identity of survival.

BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T FIGHT THIS HARD JUST TO STAY IN THE SAME DAMN PLACE AND TO PLAY SMALL!

Your next move: letting go of survival

🔥 If this post hit you in the gut, that’s not by accident.

That’s your reckoning knocking on the door.

The real question is—what are you going to do with it?

Letting go of survival isn’t a single moment.

It’s a process.

And it starts with one question:

“Who am I beyond what I’ve survived?”

You might not have an answer yet (I didn’t have an answer right away).

That’s okay.

But here’s the truth: you’ll never find it if you’re still gripping onto the past like it’s your identity.

So what does letting go even look like?

Grab a journal—here are some options to consider. These are not instructions, not rules, just doors waiting for you to walk through:

• Start observing the language you use about yourself. Are you still calling yourself a survivor first? What happens if you remove that word?

• Write down the beliefs that survival mode gave you. Then ask: Are these beliefs still serving me? Do they match the person I want to become?

• Explore the difference between safety and freedom. Survival mode kept you safe, but is it keeping you from freedom? What does freedom look like for you in this moment? Does the thought of freedom scare you (it did me!)

• Look at your daily choices. Are they made from a place of avoiding pain or creating the life you actually want? Most of my answers showed me I was avoiding pain or acting from the conditioned responses from my past.

• Find something that makes you feel powerful NOW. Not just strong because of what you’ve been through, but powerful because of who you are becoming. Your power wasn’t taken away from you—it’s still there inside you!

Be sure to date the pages in your journal when you initially write this stuff down and be sure to revisit this journal each time you feel yourself evolving over time (trust me, this is a great exercise and very valuable to look back on throughout your healing journey).

Maybe one of the bullet points above speaks to you.

Maybe none of them do.

That’s the point.

Your path is yours to define.

But one thing is certain: you didn’t fight this hard to stay the same.

The reckoning is here.

What will you do with it?

Final thoughts: your move

This is the part where most people nod, feel inspired, and then keep doing the same things they’ve always done because it’s safe.

Don’t be that person.

If this post hit a nerve, there’s a reason.

It’s because your reckoning is already here.

It’s waiting for you to step up, to stop clinging to the past, and to finally claim what’s yours:

Power. Freedom. A life that isn’t defined by what happened to you.

So what’s it gonna be?

Stay in survival?

Or burn it down and build something better, step by step by step?

The choice is yours.

Your friend in self-reconstruction, 

Carole