The subtle habit of shrinking yourself for others

At forty-six, I thought I’d be done with this. 

Done smoothing things over. Done editing myself for the comfort of people I barely care about. Done shrinking myself for others.

Forty-six feels like it should be peak take me as I am or kindly move along. A golden age of not contorting myself into shapes that don’t fit. A time when confidence arrives quietly and stays put.

And yet … here I am.

Still making these tiny, almost invisible adjustments. Not the big, dramatic compromises – the small, sneaky ones. A softened opinion. A laugh that comes a second too late. Saying yes before I’ve even checked whether my body agrees.

I rarely catch it in the moment. It usually lands later – walking back to my car, replaying a conversation in my head – that familiar flicker of discomfort.

Why did I say that? Who was I just then?

Which is how I know it’s happening again. The smoothing. The ironing of my personality, like I’m heading into an interview for a job I don’t even want.

Sometimes it’s a tone of voice that isn’t quite mine. Sometimes it’s downplaying something I’m proud of, because enthusiasm feels too loud. Sometimes it’s prioritising harmony over honesty – not because I’m noble, but because I don’t want to deal with the awkwardness.

And sometimes (my personal favourite) it’s apologising for things that absolutely did not require an apology. (If I ever write a memoir, Chapter One will be called Sorry.)

The other morning I was driving when Missy Higgins’ Scar came on. I hadn’t heard it in ages, and it hit me much harder than it did in my twenties. Back then, it was all angst and sing-along catharsis. Drama of youth with a cracking chorus.

Now? Now it feels uncomfortably familiar.

A triangle trying to squeeze through a circle.
He tried to cut me so I’d fit.
She tried to blunt me so I’d fit.

It was like the song had aged with me. Or maybe I’d finally caught up to it.

Because that’s the thing about so many of the “faults” we carry … they weren’t born in us. They were acquired. Picked up through years of adjusting, accommodating, minimising. Tiny, repeated edits made so we could belong in rooms we didn’t even like that much.

No one moment did the damage. It was the accumulation. The slow learning that being easy, agreeable, smaller made life smoother. Less friction. Fewer raised eyebrows.

But also … less me.

Lately, there’s been this quiet, slightly annoyed voice piping up whenever I catch myself doing it. Not dramatic. Not rage-filled. Just tired.

Enough with the shrinking.
Enough with the polite reframing.
Enough with pretending it doesn’t cost anything.

I’m not planning a bold personality reinvention. I’m not swearing off apologies altogether … that would be wildly unrealistic. But I am trying to notice the micro-bends.

And when I do, I ask myself … gently, without turning it into a character assessment: Who am I trying to fit in with right now? And why do I think I need to?

Some days the answer surprises me. Some days there isn’t one at all.

But even asking seems to loosen something. Like the first knot giving way in a too-tight ponytail. Relief without fanfare.

Maybe midlife isn’t about becoming someone new. Maybe it’s about unbending. Letting ourselves take up our actual shape again, edges and all.

And maybe, just maybe,  we can stop squeezing our triangle selves into circles we were never meant for.

Or at the very least, only bend for things that genuinely matter.

Like reaching for the Tim Tams in the freezer drawer.