Productivity Is Not a Personality

I used to think being constantly busy meant I was winning.

Turns out, I was just dissociating in plain sight.

I wasn’t falling apart I told myself. I was top of the class, MVP of the team, model employee. I could build a budget, plan a technology launch, meet deliverables, and still send the follow-up email before midnight. What no one saw was the exhaustion, the panic cycles, the chronic tension I mistook for drive.

When you grow up in trauma, especially in a high-functioning, high-achieving body, "doing" becomes your identity. You don’t just perform—you become the performance. And the more kudos you get, the harder it becomes to stop.

But here’s the gag: productivity is not a personality...

It won’t save you from collapse. It won’t earn you the safety you never had. It won’t fill the gaps where connection should live.

Healing isn’t hustle. It’s not shiny. It’s slow, awkward, uncomfortable. And it often looks like “doing nothing”—which scared the hell out of me.

Now, I measure success by how rested I feel. By how long I go without apologizing for existing. By how gently I can speak to myself.

You don’t have to prove your worth through output. You already are whole.

Rest isn’t weakness. Rest is your birthright. Rest is revolutionary.

Lay it down, love. You can exhale NOW.