Why the f*ck can’t I figure out how to dress myself anymore?
That question is rarely just about clothes.
It’s about standing in front of your closet and realizing you can coordinate an outfit for a meeting, a school event, a dinner with in-laws, or a vacation everyone else wanted to take, but when it comes to you, your own taste feels weirdly out of reach. It’s about looking at a row of perfectly acceptable clothes and feeling absolutely nothing. Or worse, hearing a nasty little voice in your head tell you that whatever you actually like is too much, too silly, too old, too impractical, too attention-seeking.
That voice is not proof that you’re shallow, flaky, or broken. That’s the curse talking.
This is what identity loss can feel like in real life. Not some dramatic movie breakdown. Just a thousand tiny moments where you realize you don’t know what you want for dinner, what haircut you like, what music you love now, what kind of work feels meaningful, or what version of yourself would walk into a room and not immediately scan it for who needs her.
If you’re here wondering why you don’t know what you want anymore, I want to say this clearly: the systems did not just exhaust you. They trained you away from yourself.
It’s not just confusion. It’s identity erosion.
A lot of women over 35 think they have a motivation problem, a confidence problem, or a decision-making problem. But often what they actually have is a long history of self-abandonment that’s been rewarded by the world.
You were praised for being easy. Responsible. Flexible. Helpful. Mature. Low-maintenance. Good at taking feedback. Good at not being “too much.” Good at putting your own weirdness, desire, anger, hunger, style, joy, and ambition in a neat little box so everyone else could stay comfortable.
That kind of taming doesn’t happen once. It happens over years. Maybe decades. And eventually it creates what I call a sparkle leak. Not one big collapse. Just a slow drain of color, instinct, appetite, and self-trust.
So now you stand there thinking, Why can’t I just pick a damn sweater like a normal person? But the sweater isn’t the issue. The issue is that somewhere along the line, your wants stopped feeling safe, accessible, or even relevant.
That’s not a personal failure. That’s patriarchy burnout with a side of hustle hex culture burnout and the good woman curse piled on top.
Why women stop knowing what they want
Women are not born disconnected from themselves. We are taught.
The patriarchy teaches you that being wanted matters more than wanting. Capitalism teaches you that your worth lives in productivity, output, and usefulness. Diet culture teaches you to monitor your body like it’s a public relations problem. The good woman curse teaches you that being agreeable is safer than being true.
And if you absorb all that for long enough, you stop asking, What do I want? and start asking:
What would make the least trouble?
What would look normal?
What would be efficient?
What would make other people comfortable?
What would prove I’m still doing a good job at being a woman?
That is not freedom. That is survival dressed up as maturity.
It makes perfect sense that after years of living this way, your own preferences feel blurry. You were pushed into a life that made sense on paper. School. Job. Relationship. Being reliable. Being pleasant. Being impressive. Being exhausted. Meanwhile the fearless teenager in purple combat boots got treated like a phase instead of a person.
But she wasn’t fake. She was data.
The fearless teenager is not gone
I want to say something important here: the vivid version of you is not dead. She is buried under performance.
The girl who wore the weird tights, blasted the angry music, said what she thought, and dressed like she had a pulse did not disappear because she was childish. She disappeared because the world punished spontaneity in girls and rewarded compliance in women.
You learned what got you approval. You learned what got you love. You learned what got you promoted, picked, tolerated, and left alone. And slowly, without even noticing, you started editing yourself before you spoke. Before you dressed. Before you reached for anything joyful.
That’s why reclaiming yourself after 40 or even earlier can feel so emotional. You’re not trying to become someone new. You’re grieving how much of yourself had to go quiet to survive.
This is why feminist life coaching and confidence coaching for women has to go deeper than “just be yourself.” If it were that simple, you would have done it already. The issue isn’t lack of insight. The issue is that your nervous system has been taught that self-expression comes with consequences.
How to start hearing your own wants again
You do not need to have a five-year plan or a complete personality reboot. You need smaller, safer acts of self-return.
Start with low-stakes preference
Before you ask what career you want or what your purpose is, ask smaller questions. What colors are pulling at you lately? What fabrics feel good on your skin? What music makes your shoulders drop? What do you want to eat when nobody else gets a vote?
These are not silly questions. They are rebuild-your-instinct questions.
Notice where the Goblin gets loud
Pay attention to the moments when you feel a spark of desire and then immediately shut it down. That jacket is too loud. Those boots are ridiculous. You’re too old for that. Who do you think you are?
That voice is not wisdom. That’s internalized policing. That’s the system living rent-free in your head and pretending to be practicality.
Sew on sequins
Pick one small act of self-trust this week. Wear the lipstick. Buy the strange earrings. Say no without a paragraph. Put on the outfit that feels a little more like you and a little less like the employee handbook.
Small brave acts count. They teach your body that wanting something does not equal danger.
You do not hate yourself because you failed
Sometimes the deepest pain here is not confusion. It’s self-contempt.
How did I let this happen?
Why did I become so boring?
Why can’t I just get it together?
Listen to me, fellow FU: you did not wake up one day and randomly decide to abandon yourself. You adapted to systems that were never designed for your freedom. You learned how to survive in a culture that benefits when women are insecure, overworked, visually acceptable, emotionally available, and too disconnected from themselves to revolt.
So yes, f*ck the systems.
Because they didn’t just sell you impossible standards. They sold you the lie that failing to meet them was your fault. They made you hate yourself for wounds they helped create.
That is why this work matters. Not just women’s empowerment coach language for Instagram. Real reclamation. Real women over 35 coaching. Real embodied practice in saying: this is what I like, this is what I need, this is what I will no longer apologize for.
A reframe you can use today
If you don’t know what you want anymore, stop asking, What is wrong with me?
Ask instead, What have I been taught to ignore?
That one question changes the whole thing.
It moves you out of shame and into investigation. It reminds you that your wants may not be gone. They may just be buried under years of being sensible, useful, and nice.
And here’s a second reframe: you do not need to trust all your desires at once. You only need to get curious about one honest preference today.
That is how a feral woman comes back. Not in one dramatic blaze. In moments. In choices. In sequins. In the quiet decision to raise the unicorn horn and stop making yourself smaller for a world that was never going to hand you freedom out of kindness.
If this hit something tender, Coaching is my 12-session coaching program for women ready to reconnect with themselves, rebuild self-trust, and stop disappearing inside their own lives. You do not need more advice. You need a place to come back to yourself.
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