The Moment I Stopped Hiding

Fear taught me to stay quiet. Loss taught me to speak.

This morning, I woke up thinking about fear.

Not the obvious kind. Not the kind that shows up when something dangerous is happening.

But the quieter kind.

The kind that lives underneath your life without you fully realizing it. The kind that quietly shapes how much of yourself you allow the world to see. And I found myself asking a question I had never really sat with before.

Why was I so afraid to simply be who I already was?

Not the version of myself that built businesses, or led teams, or held rooms full of people. I had done those things for years.

But the deeper version.

The one who had feelings, she kept to herself. Thoughts she edited before saying out loud. The needs she tucked away so they wouldn’t create tension. 

Underneath all that confidence was a pattern that started very early.

Because somewhere along the way, I learned to hide parts of myself. I learned not to advocate. And the truth is, that lesson started early.

My father loved me fiercely. I learned after he died that I was the love of his life, and in many ways, that explained much about my childhood.

He protected me in the ways that made sense to him; no dating or concerts before sixteen, and no parties he didn’t approve of. His love was real, but it was also protective in ways that created rules around what was acceptable.

And my mother navigated that protection in the only way she knew how. She didn’t challenge him. She didn’t advocate for me but mostly for herself.

Instead, she quietly bent the truth. She would tell him I was somewhere safe when I was somewhere else. She would smooth things over rather than say something simple and honest, like, “Susan can be trusted.”

What I absorbed from that wasn’t dishonesty. It was something more subtle. I learned that the way to move through the world was by not advocating for yourself.

It was by adjusting yourself.

By keeping things quiet, not pushing too hard. By hiding parts of yourself that might create discomfort. And when you learn that lesson young, it becomes a pattern you carry with you long after childhood ends.

There were moments throughout my adult life when that pattern revealed itself.

Moments when someone quite literally shushed me. One that still lives in my body happened after my first cancer diagnosis in 2016.

Mitch and I were struggling. Financially. Emotionally. Spiritually. And my sibling was “trying” to be supportive. 

We were sitting around their kitchen table. Their family was everywhere. Noise. Conversation. People talking over one another, the way families do. Someone was telling a story, and I asked a question. Curious. Engaged. The way I have always been.

And my sibling looked at me and said, shhh.

Not loudly. Not angrily. Yet glaring and what seemed like a small gesture.

But I remember the physical feeling of it, the way the room seemed to tighten for a moment. The way my body instinctively pulled inward. That quiet dismissal carried a message I had heard before.

Don’t speak.
Don’t interrupt.
Be invisible.

At the time, I didn’t have language for what I felt. But my body recognized it immediately. It was an old story repeating itself. And for years after that, and even before that, I continued allowing people into my life who echoed that same pattern.

Friends. Colleagues. People who valued what I could build or create, but not always the fullness of who I was. And when the moment came to speak, I often retreated. I went quiet. I hid again.

The last time it happened was different. This time it was professional.

I had been brought in to build something new. An initiative that required strategy, creativity, leadership, and trust. I showed up fully. I advocated. I spoke clearly. I offered ideas, solutions, and perspectives.

Not aggressively. Not emotionally. But thoughtfully, professionally, and sincerely. And still, my voice was not being heard. Not because I wasn’t speaking. But because the system around me was not built to hear it.

That moment became the defining one. Because for the first time in my life, I did not shrink. I did not become passive-aggressive. I did not silence myself to keep the peace.

I simply chose myself. And I walked away.

Quietly. Clearly. Without anger. Without needing anyone else to validate the decision. It was the first time I truly understood what self-respect felt like.

Interestingly, I could not have done that if the fire had not happened. Losing everything stripped away more than our house. It stripped away the hiding.

For the first time in our marriage, I stopped protecting Mitch from my feelings. I started saying what I needed, what I felt, and what I wanted.

Not dramatically, but honestly.

For years, I had convinced myself that keeping certain feelings to myself was the way to protect the relationship. But hiding does not create closeness.

Truth does.

And when I finally began speaking openly, something unexpected happened.

He listened. Not defensively. Not dismissively.

He heard me.

And somewhere in those conversations, after decades together, I realized something profound. The relationship I had always longed for had been possible all along. Not because Mitch changed overnight. But because I stopped hiding.

Fear had been the thing keeping me silent. And once the fear loosened its grip, the truth finally had somewhere to go.

My therapist often reminds me that the people in our lives are our teachers.

Some teach us through love. Some teach us through contrast. And when I look back now, I can see how many of the people who could not give me the love, kindness, or grace I needed were still part of my learning.

They helped me see myself more clearly. They pushed me toward a deeper relationship with myself. One that took a very long time to arrive.

But I am here now.

Tonight, the Jewish month of Nissan begins.

I am not a scholar of Jewish text or tradition. My connection to Judaism has always been more spiritual than academic, woven through family, ritual, and the quiet rhythms of a life lived inside the culture of it.

But there is something about this month that feels deeply aligned with what I have been reflecting on. Nissan is the month of spring. The month that marks the story of the Exodus.

In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitzrayim. It literally means narrow places.

And the story of Passover is not only about a people leaving slavery. It is about the moment they were finally willing to walk out of the narrow place.

Freedom did not begin when the sea parted. Freedom began the moment they decided they were no longer willing to stay where they had been.

This year, as Nissan begins again, that idea feels different to me. Because I now understand something I did not understand before. 

Sometimes the narrow place is not outside of us. Sometimes it is the version of ourselves we learned to become to feel safe.

The quiet one. The agreeable one. The one who hides parts of herself so others remain comfortable. And sometimes freedom begins the moment we stop doing that. For me, that shift has happened slowly.

Through loss. Through reflection. Through moments that forced me to see myself more clearly than I ever had before.

But somewhere along the way, the fear that once kept me quiet loosened its grip. Not completely. But enough.

Enough for me to say what I feel. Enough for me to trust my instincts. Enough for me to choose myself when something no longer fits.

And that, I have come to realize, is its own kind of miracle.

So tonight, as the month of Nissan begins again, the month of renewal, redemption, and possibility, I find myself sitting with a different question than I used to.

Not: Why did all of this happen?

But: What kind of life am I willing to live now that I know I am allowed to leave the narrow place?

And maybe the question is not only mine. Maybe it belongs to all of us.

Where in your life are you still hiding?

With love and compassion,
Susan

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