Honestly, Sandie

There was a season of my life where I paid $175 a month to be emotionally dismantled in the name of spiritual growth.

Which honestly feels rude now that I say it out loud.

Like imagine handing over your debit card every month just to sit in a folding chair while someone with a headset tells you suffering is leadership. Incredible business model. No notes.

And before anyone gets defensive, relax. I’m not even angry anymore. That’s the weird part. I actually look back at that version of me with so much tenderness because she really believed becoming smaller was the same thing as becoming good.

That girl was trying so hard.

I found old notes from 2019 this week from an internship I was in. An internship I was absolutely convinced God told me to quit. Which should have probably been my first clue.

But I stayed.

Oh, I stayed HARD.

Because if there’s one thing women like me know how to do, it’s turn our suffering into a personality trait and call it integrity.

And the notes are honestly heartbreaking now because you can literally watch me trying to negotiate with myself in real time.

One entry says:
“It is now completely not for me.”

Baby.
Sweet little exhausted me.
Who told you that was noble?

Another one:
“It’s a season of not shining. No spotlight. No glory. No reason. Just obedience.”

And THAT one took me out.

Because why were we all applauding women most when they were disappearing?

Why did exhaustion become proof of character?

Why did we call self abandonment maturity?

I mean honestly, women will be out here having a full nervous system collapse in a church parking lot and somebody will walk by like:
“Wow. Look at her servant’s heart.”

No Susan, that woman needs a nap and probably boundaries.

The wild thing is I can see now that I wasn’t even trying to convince God to let me stay. I was trying to convince myself.

Because deep down I already knew.

I knew I was tired.
I knew I felt trapped.
I knew something inside me was shrinking.

But I had been taught that quitting meant failure. That obedience meant enduring. That if something hurt badly enough, it probably meant it was holy.

Which is SUCH a dangerous thing to teach people.

Especially women.
Especially mothers.
Especially the deeply empathetic ones.

You know the kind of women I’m talking about.
The “strong ones.”
The “safe ones.”
The women everyone calls when life catches on fire because they know she’ll show up carrying water and granola bars and emotional support and somehow still apologize for being five minutes late.

Those women.

The women who learned their value came from how much pain they could absorb without becoming inconvenient.

And listen… I still believe people can grow through hard things.
I still believe purpose matters.
I still believe there are seasons where we push through discomfort.

But I no longer believe disappearing is the price of being good.

That’s the difference.

One of the entries says:
“I owe it to them to keep going.”

And whew.
There it is.

The entire generation of women summarized in one sentence.

I owe it to them.
The church.
The mission.
The marriage.
The workplace.
The family.
The people who believe in me.
The people counting on me.
The people who might be disappointed.

Everybody except ourselves.

And somewhere along the way, I became a woman who could sense everyone else’s needs before my own body even realized it was exhausted.

Which sounds very compassionate and spiritual until your jaw starts locking at night and your nervous system thinks answering emails is a survival threat.

Funny how the body eventually tells the truth the mouth keeps trying to spiritualize.

And maybe that’s what this whole season of my life has been about.

Not becoming harder.
Not becoming selfish.
Not “losing my faith.”

Just finally realizing that maybe wisdom is not always staying.

Maybe sometimes wisdom is leaving before you abandon yourself completely trying to prove you’re loyal.

Maybe sometimes the holiest thing a woman can do is tell the truth about how tired she’s been.

And maybe the version of me everyone loved most was the one slowly disappearing in front of them.

But I’m here now.

Louder.
Wiser.
A little inappropriate.
Deeply emotional.
Suspicious of any environment that praises women most when they’re exhausted.

And honestly?

I think that girl from 2019 would be relieved to know we finally stopped calling our suffering a personality.

And yes… before anyone asks, the song choice is intentional.

Fire In These Hills by Imagine Dragons found me at exactly the right moment because there’s something deeply haunting about the line:

“I’m so tired, can I please come home?”

And I think a lot of us have mistaken survival for home for a very long time.

There’s also something wildly specific about being the kind of woman who keeps trying harder while quietly wondering if she’s disappearing in the process. The kind who keeps calling the fire “purpose” because admitting you’re burned out feels too much like failure.

Anyway. If listening to this song while reading this piece causes sudden emotional awareness, unresolved identity questions, or the overwhelming urge to reevaluate every environment that praised you most while you were exhausted… that sounds like a conversation for you and your therapist.

Respectfully.