A Prisoner of My Own Mind

For years, I lived braced. Braced for what might happen. Braced against the fear that I wasn’t enough.

From the outside, I was rising in my career. I led teams. I shaped cultures. I achieved my goal of becoming a CHRO. I carried responsibility with confidence. But internally I was often scanning and anticipating what could go wrong. I did not know how to fully exhale. I could not turn my mind off.

It took me many years to realize something important. I was in prison.

The prison was not my family.

It was not my job.

It was not my circumstances.

It was the voice in my head that said, “If you just do more, fix more, achieve more, love more, maybe then you will finally be enough.”

The Early Years

That voice didn’t start in the boardroom. It started in elementary school.

At four years old, I was diagnosed with a lazy eye and had to wear a patch over my good eye. When I started kindergarten I had glasses, something that was not very common then. Being called four eyes became a regular occurrence.

Like many kids who feel different, I longed to fit in. I wanted to look like everyone else. I wanted to belong.

One moment from elementary school is burned into my memory. On the last day of sixth grade we were all lined up waiting for the bell to ring when a popular kid looked at me and said, “You’re getting kind of chubby.”

It was a small moment, but moments like that have a way of planting seeds that grow into beliefs, emotions, and behaviors that impact how we work and live.

The Prison Walls Take Shape

The summer before middle school I decided that if I lost weight everything would get better. I would fit in. I would be happier. I would belong.

I began restricting my food. I became good at hiding it, or so I thought.

Back then we didn’t talk about mental health the way we do today. By the time middle school approached I had become a shadow of the child I once was. I isolated myself and the hiding intensified. My family was confused and terrified by the person I was becoming.

By seventh grade I had lost so much weight that people barely recognized me. Instead of helping me fit in it made others uncomfortable. The loneliness only deepened.

My family pleaded with me to eat. They were afraid they were losing me. It was hard for me to see them in so much pain, so I began eating more, but the voice in my head remained.

If It’s to Be, It’s Up to Me

Eventually life seemed to move forward in the ways people expect it to. I graduated from college, started my first HR job, and at 22 married my high school sweetheart.

At 24 I became a mom to a beautiful baby girl.

From the outside everything looked perfect. That would soon change.

Three months after my daughter was born, I became a single mom.

Suddenly I was responsible for another person’s entire world. I loved her with everything I had, which meant I had to fight hard. Hypervigilance and over-responsibility took center stage and at the time, they didn’t feel like flaws. They felt like survival.

My parents were lifesavers during that time. But the fear of losing them or failing my daughter was paralyzing. For the first time in my life I asked for help.

It would not be the last time.

The Lingering Question

Over the years I have received many blessings. I watched my daughter grow. I experienced success in my career. I was able to provide a comfortable life for us. I met my soulmate, got remarried and gained two wonderful stepdaughters.

But quiet questions followed me everywhere.

Was I balancing it well enough?

Was I doing enough?

Was I enough?

The bars of the prison were not visible, but they were real: perfectionism, comparison, hyper-responsibility, fear of loss.

I believed that if I stayed vigilant enough maybe I could prevent the next heartbreak. If someone I loved was struggling, I must not be doing enough. If something fell apart, I should have prevented it.

When fear lives that close to love, the mind rarely rests.

I learned to perform. I over-prepared. I over-carried. I compartmentalized. I led publicly while feeling internally overwhelmed.

I was both capable and exhausted and the voice in my head was unrelenting.

Perhaps you know this feeling. The constant hum of not enough that follows you even into your best moments.

Living Braced Comes at a Cost

Living this way cost me presence. It cost me energy. It cost me peace.

My nervous system was constantly on alert. Even during seasons that looked successful from the outside, I was fighting an internal battle that very few people could see.

Eventually the cost became too high and in my early 40s I crashed.

The best way I can describe it is like opening too many programs on a computer until the system shuts down. I had stopped recognizing myself, and that scared me.

So, I did something that felt both terrifying and courageous. I admitted myself into a mental health facility for a week of intensive treatment for anxiety and depression.

At the time I worried about what people would think. Over time I grew proud of that decision. It was not weakness. It was honesty.

That decision changed my life. If you are carrying something too heavy to hold alone, please know that asking for help is not the end of your story. It is the beginning of a better one.

A Different Relationship With the Voice

Finding freedom from the thoughts that don't serve me is a daily practice. Writing, reading, and connecting with others plays a critical role. Leaning into my faith is a priority.

The voice still shows up. There are still days when I feel the old bracing begin. But I understand it now. I know where it came from. I recognize when it is speaking. And I no longer let it confine me.

That longing to belong and the fear of not being enough shaped the way I see others. And it’s helped me be a better, more compassionate leader.

I know what armor looks like. I know how many strong, capable people suffer silently while appearing steady on the outside. I know what it feels like to believe you do not matter or belong. I know how easy it is to think you are the only one carrying those thoughts.

If you live braced for what might happen.

If you carry the quiet fear that you are not enough.

If you cannot turn your mind off.

You are not alone. More people are living braced than you realize. And you do not have to carry it silently.

The bravest shift may not be trying to fix everything. It may be taking a single step. Reach out to a loved one, a friend, a pastor, a therapist, or a mentor and say, “I am struggling.”

Connection weakens the prison walls.

And the mind that once held you captive can learn a new story.

You are enough exactly as you are.

You always have been.

Now it is time to believe it and live like it.