When Vulnerability Costs You the Room

I didn’t go into the course to tick boxes.
I went in to grow. To unfold. To bring the parts of myself I’ve hidden in every other space — and see if they could survive being visible.

And for a while, I believed that was what this was all about.

So I was honest.
Not brutally. Not performatively.
Just… deeply.
I shared my fears, my history, my patterns. I spoke openly in the interview about not having a traditional support system — because the people who were supposed to support me were actually the ones I had to protect myself from.

I thought honesty would be seen as strength.
Instead, I suspect it was seen as instability.

Because I didn’t give the neat version.
I didn’t pretend I had everything together.
I didn’t hide behind the mask of “appropriate professionalism.”
I brought myself — not the polished, curated candidate, but the real, evolving human.

And the room got quiet.
And the door closed.
And I still haven’t heard back.

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My therapist said something that stuck with me.
She said that most people go under the radar. They do just enough. They keep their mess quiet, their doubts hidden. They play the game. And they get through.

But I didn’t want to just get through.
I wanted to be seen.
And I was — just not in the way I hoped.

It hurts.
Because this wasn’t just an application.
It was me.

---

And yet… something soft remains.

Because my therapist does see me.
She sees the sparkle, the edge, the exuberance I usually keep in check.
She doesn’t flinch at the parts of me that are still figuring it out.
And in our sessions, I don’t have to explain myself into acceptability. I just get to be.

That matters.

Right now, I feel most myself with her — and with my son.
And that’s not nothing. That’s the start of something real.

So maybe this door closing isn’t rejection.
Maybe it’s redirection.
Maybe the system didn’t know how to hold someone like me — someone who’s not here to impress, but to become.

And maybe the next room I walk into will be built for exactly that.