Who Am I Outside of Love and Work?
Lately, I’ve been asking myself a question I don’t quite know how to answer:
Who am I when I’m not working or in a relationship?
It’s easy to define myself by those roles. I’m a full-time social worker — that’s a title that keeps me busy, purposeful, and needed. I’m in a relationship — a role that gives me connection, closeness, and another place to pour myself into. And when I’m not working or engaging with my partner, I still have people who love me: my friends, my family. I’m not alone in the literal sense. But I often feel adrift when I’m just... with myself.
There are these stretches of time — the after-work hours when there are no plans, no obligations — and instead of feeling restful, they feel empty. Sometimes scary. Sometimes heavy. So I sleep. Not because I’m tired in the usual sense, but because sleeping gets me to the next thing. The next task. The next distraction. The next moment when I can feel productive or needed again.
I try to fill the in-between: I scroll TikTok until the algorithm numbs my brain. I binge trashy reality TV that feels so far from my own life it’s almost comforting. I read books to escape into someone else’s world. I write when I can. But I can’t sit still. Stillness makes too much room for the things I’m not ready to feel. Or maybe the things I can’t even name yet.
Maybe it’s part of my BPD — that need for constant stimulation, that fear of stillness, that uncertainty of who I even am when there’s no one reflecting me back to myself.
Yesterday was a blur. I came home from work, immediately took a nap, woke up, ate dinner, worked on my website for a bit, and was back in bed by 9 p.m. Today? I can already feel it shaping into the same pattern. I know how to be “on,” how to perform and please and show up for others. But when it’s just me — stripped of all the roles and labels — I feel like I disappear.
So here I am, writing it down. Not with answers, but with honesty. Maybe that’s a start. Maybe writing is one of the few places I can meet myself without needing to perform.
Maybe figuring out who I am starts with naming that I don’t know — and letting that be okay for now.
If you’ve ever felt this way too — like you only exist in relation to others or your work — just know you’re not the only one. We’re all trying to come home to ourselves, piece by piece.
— Devon
