You Don't Have to Pretend You Have Your Shit Together
The performance is exhausting and nobody's buying it anyway
Last night I ate cereal for dinner. Standing at the kitchen counter. Scrolling on my phone. At 8 pm.
And you know what? I’m a licensed therapist. I literally help people get their lives together for a living.
I know how that sounds.
But here’s what I’ve figured out after 20 years of sitting across from women who look like they have it all figured out: we’re all performing. Some of us are just better actors than others.
And honestly? I’m tired of the show.
Not having your shit together isn’t a character flaw. It’s not evidence that you’re failing at life. And it’s definitely not something you need to fix before you’re allowed to be happy.
The myth of “together”
We’ve bought into this idea that by midlife, we should have it all figured out. Career path locked in. Relationships stable. Retirement plan on track. Kids launched successfully.
But here’s the thing nobody tells you: that version of “together” doesn’t exist.
I’ve sat across from hundreds of women who look completely put together from the outside. Good jobs. Nice homes. The whole package. And you know what they tell me? They feel like frauds. Like they’re one bad day away from the whole facade crumbling.
The truth? Most of us are making it up as we go. We’re figuring out our second (or third) act in real time. We’re rebuilding identities that don’t fit anymore. We’re navigating relationships that shifted when we weren’t looking.
What “not together” actually looks like
Maybe your kitchen table is covered in unopened mail from three weeks ago.
Maybe you started that business plan or novel or grad school application and it’s been sitting untouched for months.
Maybe you’re divorced and living in a smaller place and still don’t know how to be single at 47.
Maybe your kid moved out and you cried for a week, then felt relieved, then felt guilty for feeling relieved.
Maybe you changed careers and now you’re the oldest person in the room, wondering if you made a huge mistake.
That’s not failure. That’s life in transition.
The paradox nobody mentions
The pressure to have everything together actually keeps us stuck.
When we believe we’re supposed to have all the answers, we stop asking questions. When we think we should know better by now, we stop learning. When we’re ashamed of our mess, we hide instead of reaching out.
Think about it this way. A caterpillar doesn’t apologize for the messy cocoon stage. It doesn’t look at other caterpillars and think, “Everyone else seems to be handling metamorphosis better than me.”
You’re in metamorphosis. It’s supposed to be messy.
What if the point isn’t having it together?
I spent years thinking my job was to help women get their lives “under control.” To fix what was broken. To achieve some idealized version of balanced, successful, thriving womanhood.
But I’ve learned something. The women who seem most alive, most authentic, most at peace? They’re not the ones who have it all together. They’re the ones who stopped pretending they did.
They’re the ones who can say “I don’t know” without shame.
They’re the ones who ask for help without a three-paragraph apology.
They’re the ones who admit they’re figuring it out and give themselves permission to be in process.
Your mess is not the problem
The problem is thinking you’re not allowed to have one.
The problem is comparing your behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s edited version.
The problem is believing that uncertainty equals inadequacy.
You can be a complete mess and still be exactly where you need to be. You can be confused about your next chapter and still be doing great. You can have more questions than answers and still be moving forward.
What you actually need
You don’t need to have your shit together.
You need self-compassion when things feel hard. You need people who get it. You need permission to be a work in progress. You need to believe that growth isn’t linear and change isn’t tidy.
You need to know that starting over in midlife isn’t starting from scratch. You’re starting from experience.
You know that thing where someone asks, “How are you?” and you automatically say “good, busy!” even though you’re barely holding it together?
Or when you clean the visible parts of your house before people come over, but shove everything else into closets and hope nobody opens the wrong door?
That. That’s the performance.
And by midlife, most of us have perfected it. We’ve got the highlights reel ready. Career on track (or at least looks like it). Relationships stable (or stable-ish). Kids doing okay (we think). Everything fine. Totally fine. Why do you ask?
Except we’re so busy maintaining the appearance of fine that we forget it’s okay to not be fine.
A client recently sent me this text: “I’m wearing my husband’s socks to a client meeting because I haven’t done laundry in two weeks, but sure, I’ll present this marketing strategy like I have my life together.”
This is what I mean. We’re all just really good liars.
What pretending costs you
Last week, I met with one of my clients who always looks put together. Nicely dressed, with makeup, looking like she was getting ready for a Saturday night dinner. She sat down and said, “I need you to fix me before anyone finds out I’m falling apart.”
Falling apart meant she’d started crying in her car before work. She’d been sleeping badly for months. She’d stopped calling her friends because she was too ashamed to admit things weren’t great. She’d put off going to therapy for a year because she thought she should be able to handle it herself.
All that energy she was using to maintain the illusion? It was making everything worse.
Because here’s the thing about pretending. It takes up space in your brain that could be used for actually dealing with your life. And it keeps you isolated when what you really need is connection.
Nobody’s buying it anyway
Here's the reality.
Everyone already knows you don’t have it all together. Because nobody does. The performance isn’t fooling anyone. We’re all just too polite to say it out loud.
The only person who thinks you’re successfully hiding the mess? You.
So what are you protecting? What’s the worst thing that happens if you stop pretending?
Maybe people see you’re human. Maybe they like you better for it. Maybe they feel relieved they can stop pretending too.
What it looks like to stop
I stopped pretending around the time my marriage ended. Not because I wanted to. I just ran out of energy for the act.
Suddenly, I was 50, divorced, living in a smaller place, building a new career, and very publicly not having my shit together.
And you know what happened?
Nothing terrible. Some people didn’t know what to do with my honesty, and they faded away. That was fine. But other people showed up. They said, “Me too.” They shared their own mess. We helped each other.
Stopping the performance didn’t make me weaker. It made me more real.
Now I say things like “I don’t know” without apologizing for it. I ask for help without a twenty-minute explanation of why I need it. I admit when I’m confused or scared or have no idea what I’m doing next.
And the freedom in that? It’s incredible.
It’s time to drop the act
You don’t have to be an inspiration. You don’t have to have it figured out. You don’t have to pretend you’re crushing it when you’re barely surviving it.
You can just be where you are.
You can say, “This is fucking hard.”
You can admit you’re rebuilding your life at 47 or 53 or 61, but you don’t have a roadmap.
You can let people see that you’re figuring it out as you go.
Because pretending doesn’t protect you. It just makes you lonely.
What changes when you stop
Not everything. Your problems don’t magically disappear. Your house still needs cleaning. Those emails still need answering. Life is still life.
But something shifts.
You stop using all that energy to maintain the illusion, and you can actually use it to deal with what’s in front of you.
You stop thinking there’s something wrong with you for struggling, and you start seeing struggle as part of the process.
Part of growth that isn’t linear or tidy.
The truth nobody’s telling you
You’re not fooling anyone. The performance isn’t working. And you don’t need it anymore.
What you need is to let yourself be human. Confused sometimes. Uncertain about what’s next. Making it up as you go. Doing your best with what you’ve got on any given day.
I’m sitting here on a Sunday afternoon writing this post in my pajamas. I wore the same sweatpants every day this week. My kitchen sink needs cleaning. I have emails from last week still sitting unread. My life is not a Pinterest board, and I’m not trying to make it one.
And I’m okay. Better than okay, actually.
And so are you.
Even if your shit isn’t together. Even if you don’t know what’s next. Even if you’re figuring it out one messy day at a time.
You’re allowed to not have it all figured out. You’re allowed to be rebuilding. You’re allowed to feel lost sometimes. You’re allowed to change your mind about what you want. You’re allowed to take longer than you thought you would.
Your worth isn’t determined by how organized your life looks, or how seamless your transition appears, or how quickly you bounce back.
I’m done pretending
Done performing. Done acting like I have it all figured out when nobody actually does.
You can be done too.
You can just be a real person in the middle of a real life that’s sometimes messy and confusing and nothing like you planned.
You’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re not too much or not enough.
You’re just human. In the middle of your story. Doing your best with what you’ve got right now.
And that’s more than okay.
What part of the performance are you ready to drop?
I’m reading every word here. I can’t get to everyone, but thank you for sharing.
I recently read that a significant contributor to the female instinct to be empathetic, supportive, self-sacrificing, and all that stuff that makes one's own needs secondary to everyone else's, is the drop off in estrogen. The chemical change shifts the endless capacity to neglect one's self in deference to everyone/ anyone else. Its not just reaching the end of your rope or being "fed up". Its chemical. And its ok; in fact, its about time! So the need to present a fabulous facade becomes way too much work, your identification changes, and you feel like you are bobbing in an ocean of uncertainty. Right now, im trying to separate "grumpy old lady" from "not interested in playing society's stupid games". Its liberating but scarey. And sometimes it's hard to accept the newer aspects of my personality because I am still a caring, giving person. Its just that my bs tolerance has dropped so much.
By the way, I love to eat cereal any time of day. If that's weird, I dont care. If not for harmless excentricities, it would be a monochromatic world.
Thank you for your words, they're like a warm cup of tea on a cold December day.
I left my job at 45, at the peak of my career, because I was getting sick and felt it no longer had any meaning for me. I went back to studying again and now I work as a freelancer illustrator in a country (Spain) where it's not easy for those of us who want to do things differently. And here I am, at 49, feeling quite lost, but trying. Because staying the way I was would have been a thousand times worse. Sometimes I forget that I'm on a journey, that not everything has to be perfect, that I'm trying and that's enough for today.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your words; they encourage me to keep going and to see that we're not alone, and we certainly haven't gone crazy.