Okay. Let me try again.
I can do this.
That’s always how it starts.
A breath in. A small resolve. The familiar tightening in my chest that says focus, try harder, get it together. For a moment, or a day, or a week…I believe it. I line things up in my head: the tasks, the expectations, the version of myself I’m supposed to be.
And then—almost immediately—I’m drowning.
I can’t do this.
Life is just harder for me. I’ve tried to say it a hundred softer ways, but it always comes back to that. I wish it weren’t true. I’m not proud of it. I’m not asking for special treatment or sympathy. I’m not making it up. I’m not a victim.
I’m just telling the truth.
And I know the cost of that honesty. I know how it sounds. I know the judgment that comes with it—the raised eyebrows, the quiet calculations, the unspoken verdict. Everyone struggles. You’re fine. Why is this so hard for you? Whats the problem?
But the more I try to pretend it isn’t true, the more I sink.
Life feels like quicksand. The harder I fight, the deeper I go. Effort doesn’t lift me—it pulls me under. And there’s a strange resignation that comes with that realization. This is my bed. I must lie in it. That’s what I’ve been told. That’s what I tell myself.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier if I just stopped complying.
I try it on, briefly. Rebellion. Opposition. I voice my opinion. I dig my heels in. I let myself imagine a life where I don’t automatically bend, don’t soften my edges, don’t apologize for needing space or rest or time.
But it never lasts.
People are harsh with me. They get angry. They judge. They accuse. And something in me collapses under that pressure. I back down. I fall back in line. I do what’s expected. I smooth things over. I survive on the outside but I die on the inside, over and over again.
there are moments—quiet, piercing moments—when I know the truth with absolute clarity: being controlled is killing me.
Not always in obvious ways. Not with cruelty or force. But through constraints. Through rules that don’t bend. Through expectations that leave no room for how my mind works, how my nervous system responds, how deeply I feel everything.
The boxes are everywhere.
This is how it’s always been done.
This is the right way.
This is what works.
This is what a good, faithful, responsible person does.
And I keep trying to fit myself into those shapes, even though they bruise me. Even though they exhaust me. Even though they slowly drain the joy out of my life.
I wonder—quietly, almost fearfully—what might happen if I could break free from that rigid, neurotypical way of living and thinking. If I could stop forcing myself to move at a pace and in a pattern that was never designed for me.
I don’t imagine a life without responsibility. I imagine a life with breath in it.
Space. Flexibility. Autonomy.
I imagine joy that doesn’t come from achievement. Success that isn’t measured by endurance. A version of myself that isn’t constantly behind, constantly catching up, constantly apologizing for needing more rest, more quiet, more time.
Instead, I feel held back by other people’s hard lines and outdated ideas—about productivity, faith, strength, resilience, worth. Ideas that leave no room for difference. No room for softness. No room for me.
And still, I try again.
Because trying is what I’ve always done.
Because compliance is more acceptable than freedom.
Because sinking slowly can feel less terrifying than standing alone.
But somewhere beneath the quicksand, beneath the effort and the fear, there is a quieter truth forming:
Maybe the problem isn’t that I’m failing at life.
Maybe the problem is that I’ve been trying to live one that I wasn’t built for.
Kim Blenkhorn
My Faith Place 