The depletion of constantly showing up as your "best version"
Some days move like wet cement: slow, heavy, clinging to everything. Then you look at the calendar and realize it’s been… what, only 48 hours? Maybe less? Time feels less like a straight line and more like a badly edited montage. Too slow in the wrong places, too fast where you actually wanted to feel something.
Lately, I’ve been stuck in that in-between place. The part where I’m watching myself go through the motions while also thinking, I cannot keep being whoever I’m performing as right now. It’s unsettling to be both spectator and actor in your own life.
And yet, here we are, again? still? Did we ever leave? Or will this feeling keep recurring?
There’s a particular kind of tiredness that doesn’t show up in your body first. It shows up in the gap between who you think you should be and who you actually are. I kept trying to outrun that gap. I distracted myself. I filled my day with sound, movement, and tasks. I tried to “be productive,” which is millennial for “please don’t make me feel my feelings yet.”
But the thing about emotional debt? Interest compounds. And silence and emptiness, especially that tiny sliver of unstructured time, become the loudest place in the world.
One afternoon, I decided to sit with the hollowness instead of dodging it. Was this a bad idea? Or a good one. Hard to tell. But necessary. This is why mindfulness sessions exist, I thought. Followed immediately by the thought of the mindfulness session at work, I avoided it because I felt guilty for not hanging out with colleagues. Nothing says “zen” like trying to meditate while worrying people think you’re antisocial. Ugh, such a people-pleaser or perhaps just conflict-averse?
Eventually, I took a lunch break for myself: part escape, part self-preservation, part if I keep trying to act normal, I might explode.
On the way to eat, I ran into someone I know from my train rides. She’s the kind of person you instinctively trust with quiet. We ended up eating together, not trying too hard, and I felt something I hadn’t rarely do: relief.
With her, I didn’t have to perform the upgraded version of myself: the one who’s thoughtful but not overwhelming, articulate but not “too much,” emotionally aware but not messy. I could just… exist. Be a little raw around the edges. Not apologize for every emotional spill.
We talked about things I usually avoid putting into spoken language: how people close to me once told me I was “too much,” and how, even though I’ve outgrown the belief on paper, it still quietly informs how restrained I am around others. It’s like trying to grow in a too-small pot: you learn to bend inward.
She reminded me, in her quiet way, that not everyone needs me in bonsai form.
Then a pattern revealed itself. I realized I’ve spent years showing up as the version of myself I assumed people signed up for:
the composed friend,
the agreeable colleague with emotional range set to “appropriate,”
the person who makes sure not to inconvenience anyone with their internal weather.
It’s a sustainable act, but only for a while. You get validated for being easy, pleasant, and self-contained. Validation feels good until it feels depleting.
Then one day, you’re dry… existentially. And you start avoiding the exact people you were trying to impress because you’re afraid they’ll notice the battery light blinking.
There was one moment that cracked something open: I went back to the Philippines some years back without telling anyone, partly out of exhaustion, partly out of shame that my answers to “How are you?” weren’t inspirational enough. My college friends found out anyway and insisted I come see them. I thought they would resent me for not saying I was home. But they were just happy to see me. After our usual banter, they looked at me and asked, Why did you think you needed to be impressive to show up? We’re your friends. You should be able to be who you are, whatever you’re feeling, whatever season you’re in.
Two things friends have said over the years keep echoing, both dropped casually, not during deep heart-to-hearts:
“You don’t have to hold yourself together with your people, the right people.”
“When you’re not yourself, it doesn’t feel authentic.”
At first, they sounded like aspirations. Then I realized they were invitations.
I’ve spent so much time in environments where my “best self” was required that I forgot some people don’t need polish; they need your presence. They don’t want the version optimized for likability or acceptability. They want the me who feels things deeply, speaks with passion, sometimes spirals, sometimes shines.
The surprising part? That person exists. And she’s tired of waiting for permission.
I wish I could offer a neat resolution here, but the truth is less cinematic and more human: I’m still figuring out how to show up as myself consistently without fearing I’m “too much.”
But here’s what I know:
Pay attention to the people around whom your nervous system naturally relaxes without asking.
The ones who don’t require your curated version.
The ones who make silence feel like company, not punishment.
The ones who make honesty feel like relief.
Collect them. Even if they’re in different cities, different chapters, different corners of your life. They’re your grounding points, your proof that you don’t have to fracture yourself to be loved or understood.
And whenever you forget who you are, go back to the places and the people where you breathe differently. That’s where the real you lives.