On Dying While Still Alive

Today feels like a good day to start writing publicly.

Not because things are clear.

Not because I’ve arrived somewhere.

But because today feels like the day I’m finally dying...

Not physically, but on a soul level.

For the last 37 years of my life, there have been parts of me I believed were me: my personality, my way of loving others, my way of belonging with friends and in social groups and my way of surviving in this world.

These where parts I trusted, parts I relied on and parts of me I defended fiercely when they felt challenged, because I truly believed these parts where part of who I was as a person, as a man.

Yet in the last six months, since the ending of my 14-year long relationship, something fundamental has happened ... and is still happening:

Those parts started to feel… untrustworthy.

I feel them shake.

I feel them loosen.

and then later, I feel them tighten again in panic, and trying to take control like before, as if they are fighting for survival.

When I say parts, I’m not speaking metaphorically. I mean very real inner structures, ways of being that I developed because I had to. For example, saying yes when I wasn't really, putting on a smile and saying instead of setting a loving boundary, being submissive instead of speaking my truth, being afraid of what other may think and therefore following the crowd instead of following my heart.

Because at some point in my life, being fully myself wasn’t safe. Being too alive wasn’t welcomed. Being too sensitive, too intense, too emotional, too honest came with consequences.

So I adapted.

I learned how to be acceptable.

How to be liked.

How to be “nice.”

How to stay small enough to be loved.

Those parts became my guardians, and like all good guardians, they did their job well:

They kept me safe.

They kept me connected.

They helped me survive.

But they also came with a devastating side effect.

They taught me that life is mediocre, that life is “fine,” but not magical, that I wasn’t meant for something bigger, that I shouldn’t want too much and that I wasn’t "special", at least not that special.

The deeper truth is this: these guardians didn’t only teach me how to survive, they taught me how to love. Not the pure, spacious kind of love, but the kind rooted in early wounds. The kind of love that forms around fear of abandonment, around earning affection, around staying small enough to be chosen. What we now call "trauma bonding".

For a long time, that kind of love made sense. It was familiar. It was recognizable. It fit the internal logic of who I believed myself to be. As long as my life followed that script, these guardians had a job.

But now something essential is shifting.

The love that sustained those guardians has ended. And without it, they no longer know how to orient me. They can’t guide me forward, because their entire logic is built on scarcity, compromise, and self-abandonment. If I let them remain in charge now, life becomes unbearable, either painfully constricted or completely meaningless.

Not because they are bad.

But because they were never designed to lead a full life , only to survive one.

If these guardians stay at the helm, I’m left with two impossible options: to keep shrinking myself until I disappear, or to keep suffering in relationships that mirror old wounds rather than meet my truth. Either way, life stops making sense. Desire turns into shame. Love turns into negotiation. Aliveness turns into exhaustion.

And so these guardians are dying.

Not because they want to.

Not because I reject them.

But because life itself can no longer move through me if they remain in control.

Their death is not a failure , it’s a necessity!

That’s what this grief is about.

Not just the personal heartbreak.

Not just loss.

Not just sadness.

This is the grief of individuation.

The grief of outgrowing the structures that once kept you alive.

Letting go of these parts feels like saying goodbye to myself.

Like burying old versions of who I was.

Like standing at a grave where something familiar is being laid to rest.

And it hurts, it hurts more than words can express...

It hurts in ways I don’t hear people talk about.

Because this kind of grief doesn’t just ask you to feel pain, it asks you to let go of identities. Of relationships. Of friendships. Of ways of being that were built on subtle self-abandonment.

It asks you to give up:

friendliness that wasn’t sincere,

connection that came at the cost of your truth,

belonging that required you to stay small.

And yes, that includes relationships, friendships, ways of communicating and of being, entire worlds.

There are moments where this process feels agonizing.

Where the loneliness is unbearable.

Where the fear feels existential.

Where everything in me screams to go back, to be smaller, softer, easier, more pleasing, if only to give my system some relief...

But underneath this grief, something else is happening, slowly, sometimes hardly recognisable...

Liberation.

I’m starting to see how magical life actually is.

How much love I can carry.

How much creativity, depth, stability, and presence I can bring, not by performing, but by being.

I’m starting to see how great I already am, not in an egoic sense, but in a deeply human one.

And that’s terrifying.

Because it means I can no longer hide behind the old excuses.

I can no longer outsource the protection of my heart.

I can no longer abandon myself to be chosen.

This death is asking me to become a man who:

stands for his own heart,

protects his own heart,

tells the truth even when it costs him connection,

loves himself before asking to be loved.

Even if that means walking alone for a while.

Even if it hurts.

Even if it dismantles everything I thought I knew.

This is not a romantic death.

It’s not poetic.

It’s not Instagrammable.

It’s slow.

It’s raw.

It’s confusing.

It’s often lonely.

And yet ... it feels absolutely necessary.

So let this be my first journal entry to the world.

Not to teach.

Not to convince.

Not to inspire.

But to share.

Because I believe something deeply:

"Every heart needs to be protected by the human that carries it.

That is our primary responsibility."

And maybe , just maybe , if more of us were willing to let old selves die in order to live more truthfully, this world would change from the inside out.

Not through perfection.

But through honesty.

Not through bypassing pain.

But through walking straight through it.

This is me, dying while still alive.

Written by Ruben, cleaned up with AI (in all honesty)