Who Would I Be?
- Kas
- Mar 4
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 13
Trigger Warning: This post discusses suicide, foster care, abandonment, and trauma. Please take care of yourself while reading.
I saw a post the other day. Facebook. Or Instagram. Or one of the other apps I scroll through until my brain feels like static. They all blur together eventually. It said something like, “Who would I be without all the trauma?” And I wish I could say I scrolled past it and went on with my day, but it lodged itself somewhere uncomfortable and stayed there.
And then I remembered this is my blog. I built this space. I write it. I hit publish. So if I want to turn it into a conceptual spiral slash lore dump slash emotional excavation site, I can. Buckle up.
I probably gave this too much thought. But I’m 35 now, and 35 feels like standing in the middle of your life and being able to see both directions at once. There are so many events that didn’t just happen to me. They shaped me. Chipped at me. Rearranged me. Broke pieces off and forced me to grow around the damage. And sometimes I feel like I’m still trying to claw those pieces back, like if I just dig hard enough I’ll find some original version of myself buried underneath all of it.
And I keep wondering.
Who would I be if none of it happened?
Who would I be had my father not taken his own life when I was four?
Four is such a small age to carry something so big. At four, you’re supposed to be worried about crayons and scraped knees and whether your cereal got soggy. Not death. Not absence. Not the kind of silence that sits in a house after something irreversible happens.
I don’t remember him clearly. I remember fragments. Stories told back to me. Photographs that feel more like mythology than memory.
But I do know this: when something like that happens that early, it doesn’t just take a person. It rewrites the blueprint.
Would I be softer? Less afraid of people leaving? Less hyper-aware of every shift in someone’s tone?
Would I have grown up with a steadier sense of safety in my bones?
Or would I still be me, just… lighter?
Sometimes I try to imagine that version of myself. The one who had a dad at school concerts. The one who didn’t have to learn so early that love can disappear without warning.
I picture her laughing more freely. Not scanning the room. Not bracing.
And then I wonder if I romanticize her too much.
Because maybe she would still have struggles. Maybe she’d still be anxious. Maybe trauma would have found her in some other shape.
But it’s hard not to grieve the possibility.
Who would I be had my grandparents not raised me so sheltered that it sometimes felt like I was preserved instead of prepared?
They loved me. I know that. I will always know that.
But love and restriction can sometimes share a face.
What would have happened if I had been allowed to stretch my wings as a kid? To experiment. To figure out who I was without fear of judgment or punishment or quiet disappointment?
Would I have trusted my instincts sooner?
Would I have known who I was before I hit my late twenties and felt like I was assembling a personality from scraps?
There’s a version of me that grew up allowed to explore. Allowed to mess up without feeling like the world would collapse. Allowed to take up space without feeling like she owed everyone perfection.
I wonder what she’s like.
I wonder if she’s less apologetic.
Who would I be had I not listened to my friend at twelve and called mobile crisis on myself?
That sentence still feels surreal to type.
Twelve.
Who would I be if I hadn’t made that call? If I hadn’t stepped into a system that would bounce me between foster homes and group homes throughout my teens?
Who would I be if my sweet sixteen wasn’t spent in a brand new foster home, trying to memorize the layout of yet another unfamiliar bedroom?
There’s a specific loneliness that comes from not knowing where you’ll land next. From carrying your belongings in bags. From learning to read adults quickly. From understanding, at a young age, that stability is a luxury.
I became adaptable. Hyper-independent. Observant.
I also became guarded. Tired. Always half-packed.
There’s a version of me that didn’t have to become that resilient.
And I don’t know whether to envy her or respect the hell out of the one who did survive it.
Because here’s the thing about trauma. It breaks you. And it builds you. Sometimes in the same breath.
And I don’t know how to separate the damage from the strength.
Who would I be had I not been so co-dependent on my “best friend” from high school?
The one who felt like home. The one I poured everything into. The one who eventually walked out right after my partner of six years ghosted me.
That season felt like someone kicked the legs out from under my entire support system.
Who would I be if I had trusted myself more? If I hadn’t clung so tightly to someone who wasn’t meant to stay?
Who would I be if I had listened to my heart instead of my fear of being alone?
There’s a version of me that didn’t tolerate half-love. That didn’t beg for crumbs. That didn’t shrink herself to keep someone comfortable.
I ache for her sometimes.
But I also recognize that I had to lose those people to understand what real love looks like now.
And that realization is bittersweet.
And now I’m here. Thirty-five. In a relationship that feels healthier than anything I’ve known before. And sometimes I catch myself wondering who I could be for her if I wasn’t carrying so much history. Would I be less anxious? Less reactive? Less afraid of losing something good?
Who would I be if I could just unclench?
Lately I’ve felt like I miss myself. And I don’t even know which version I’m missing. I just know there was a time when I felt lighter. More creative. Less weighed down by the accumulation of everything.
Some days it feels like I’m underwater, like the pressure of a thousand oceans is pressing in and I’m kicking toward the surface but the surface keeps moving. I don’t want to be defined by trauma, but I also can’t pretend it didn’t shape me.
And maybe that’s the hardest part of this question. I don’t know how to separate who I am from what happened to me. The resilience, the empathy, the sharp awareness, the independence. Those came from somewhere. They came from surviving.
So who would I be without the trauma?
I don’t know.
Maybe I wouldn’t be this self-aware. Maybe I wouldn’t write like this. Maybe I wouldn’t care so deeply about documenting my life because I wouldn’t have felt it slip through my fingers so many times.
Maybe the question isn’t about erasing the trauma. Maybe it’s about asking who I still get to become in spite of it.
Who would I be if I stopped trying to claw back an old version of myself and instead built a new one on purpose?
I don’t think I can go back and rescue the girl who didn’t get the childhood she deserved. I don’t think I can undo the homes, the losses, the ghosting, the years of learning love the hard way.
But I can decide who I am next.
And maybe that’s the only version that really matters.
If you’ve ever asked yourself this question, I’m sitting with you in it.
Who would you be? And who do you still have time to become?
I don’t need to meet the person I could’ve been to understand the one I am.
talk soon, kas
☕✨
Comments