Born Tired: Where Survival Meets Healing

Eirene: [00:00:00] The other day, my daughter and I saw Wicked, and somewhere in the middle of it, I realized I wasn't just watching a story. I was feeling parts of my own. I didn't expect a movie to trigger the part of me that grew up unseen, but watching Wicked reminded me of what it feels like to be the scapegoat in my own family.

I went into the theater thinking I was going to watch a story about friendship, about power, and two women who take different paths. I didn't expect how it would make my nervous system feel. To recognize the look on Elphaba's face, that awareness when you realize you see something no one else is willing to name.

And I definitely didn't expect to feel the ache of being misunderstood again. Because when you grow up as a child who notices everything, the secrets no one acknowledges, the truths that make people uncomfortable, you don't just get labeled. You get positioned as difficult, [00:01:00] as dramatic, and the problem.

The movie made me think about what happens when the person who tells the truth becomes the villain in the story, and I realize something. Sometimes the wicked one isn't the dangerous one. She's just the one who refuses to lie.

This is Born Tired Where Survival Meets Healing, a podcast for those of us who grew up in survival mode, but are ready to heal and speak our truth. I'm Eirene, a cycle breaker learning what peace feels like after years of survival. Every episode is an invitation to rest inside your truth, to feel seen, and to remember you were never alone. This is what it sounds like when silence finally breaks.

Before we begin, I want to share a gentle reminder. Please listen in a way that feels safe for you. If at any point you need to pause or step away, honor that. Your wellbeing matters more than finishing the episode. You are not alone. Take care of yourself while you listen.

I want to share a quick note. This [00:02:00] episode contains spoilers for wicked. If you haven't seen the movie yet and wanna experience it without knowing key moments, you may wanna pause and come back after.

There's a moment in wicked where you realize Elphaba isn't wicked. She's inconvenient. She sees the truth before everyone else does. She questions authority and refuses to go along with what everyone else accepts. And because of that, she becomes the problem.

She didn't cause harm to anyone, but she disrupted comfort. That's the scapegoat archetype. The child who notices what no one wants to acknowledge, names what everyone else tiptoes around, and refuses to pretend. I was that child.

I noticed everything. The shifts in moods, the way the story changed depending on who was in the room, and instead of being protected, I was positioned as too much. Elphaba wasn't wicked. She was honest. And honesty inside dysfunctional system is often punished.

And [00:03:00] there's also something about the dynamic between Elphaba and Glinda that hurt in a very specific way, because every scapegoat has that one person they hoped would choose them and not the family lie. Watching Glinda hesitate and wrestle. Watching her stand there in the safety of belonging, it brought up so many emotions for me.

There was always a part of me that hopes someone would say, "This isn't right. That's not who she is. I see what's happening." The loneliness of being the different one isn't just about rejection, it's about invisibility. Knowing someone sees what's happening and still chooses silence. That scene didn't just make me emotional. It reminded me of the ache of not being defended. And no matter how much healing I do, it doesn't erase that ache.

When Elphaba dies, something in me understood it immediately, because the scapegoat doesn't usually stay in fight. We detach. We disappear. We go no contact. [00:04:00] We have to leave the system and release the role they forced on us, because that's the only way we're gonna get peace. There's a kind of death that happens when you stop participating in the family narrative. You become the villain in the story, you become ungrateful, unstable, and yet you're finally able to breathe. In the movie, Elphaba didn't actually die. Elphaba disappeared.

There's something about stories like Wicked that bypass logic and go straight to the body. You don't just watch them, you feel them. And what stayed with me wasn't the spectacle or even the plot. It was the emotional architecture underneath it. The way systems decide who gets protected and who gets projected onto. The way narratives get constructed around the person who disrupts comfort. As a child, I didn't have language for archetypes. I didn't know the word scapegoat or truth teller.

I just knew that when something fell off in my family and I reacted to it, somehow I became the issue. [00:05:00] If I pointed out inconsistency, I was disrespectful. If I expressed hurt, I was dramatic. If I withdrew to protect myself, I was cold.

There is something destabilizing about growing up in an environment where your accurate perception is treated as distortion. It teaches you to question your instincts, to monitor your tone, and to scan constantly for the moment when reality might shift and you'll be blamed for it. Watching Elphaba, I was struck not just by her isolation, but by the way it gets turned inward.

The way her integrity becomes seen as defiance. Her difference becomes a threat. The way the system preserves itself by labeling her. That's the part people don't talk about enough. There's a functionality to scapegoating.

There's another layer to this that I've been sitting with. The scapegoat isn't just the one who sees the truth. They're often the one who feels everything. [00:06:00] The one who notices energy before anything is said. Who can sense when something is off, even when everyone else is pretending it's not.

And that level of awareness usually comes with a kind of empathy that makes it hard to look away. You don't just see the dysfunction, you feel it. And in systems that don't know how to process their own pain, that kind of sensitivity becomes threatening.

Because when you're that attuned, you become a mirror reflecting what others haven't faced in themselves. The anger that was never acknowledged, the hurt that was never processed. The patterns no one wants to take responsibility for. And instead of sitting in that discomfort, the system finds a place to put it. It gets projected outward, assigned and contained. That's where the scapegoat comes in, because they made it visible. There's something painful about realizing that what was labeled too much in you was often just the capacity to feel what [00:07:00] others were avoiding.

Your empathy exposed the problem. And when a system relies on silence to stay afloat, the person who reflects the truth will always feel like the disruption.

In many families, the scapegoat carries the tension, the system doesn't wanna metabolize. They hold the discomfort. Express what others suppress and become the container for unresolved conflict.

When you're young, you don't realize you're playing a role. You think it's identity. You think, " maybe I am too much. Maybe I am hard to love. Maybe I'm the reason things feel unstable." That internalization is so heavy. It follows you into adulthood in so many ways.

It shows up in how you interpret conflict. How quickly you assume responsibility. How easily you accept being misunderstood because it feels familiar. But here's what I realized watching Wicked. I no longer feel confused about why I was cast in that [00:08:00] role.

I can see it clearly now. It makes sense that the person who refuses to participate in denial becomes inconvenient. That systems built on silence resist disruption. And truth is often received as aggression when people are invested in illusion. Understanding that doesn't erase the grief, but it does remove the shame.

There's a difference between grief and shame. Shame says, "There's something wrong with me. " Grief says "Something important was lost". Watching the film, I felt grief. Not for the role I played, but for the loneliness of it. For the younger version of me who wanted alignment instead of isolation. For the version of me who thought if I explained myself clearly enough, someone would finally understand.

There's a specific kind of heartbreak that comes from being accurate, but unprotected. And I think that's what stories like this surface. They remind you that being misunderstood [00:09:00] doesn't automatically mean you were wrong. There's also something powerful about examining how narratives get constructed. In Wicked, the story the public believes about Elphaba isn't the full truth. It's curated. It's simplified and weaponized.

That felt deeply familiar. Family systems often operate in the same way. They don't tell the whole story. They tell the version that works for them. It's shaped to maintain loyalty and hierarchy. And if you step outside that story, if you refuse to play the role they gave you, you become the outsider. That can feel like exile. But exile isn't the same as erasure. That's what I understand now. There was a time when being misrepresented felt like disappearance. Like my reality didn't count unless it was validated by the group. Now I understand that my reality exists whether or not it's acknowledged. That realization changed everything.

Another layer [00:10:00] that struck me was how often scapegoated children grow into hyper-responsible adults. We learn to anticipate emotional shifts, to regulate rooms, but we often don't learn how to rest inside our own perspective without defending it.

Watching Elphaba stand in her conviction, even when it caused her belonging, ignited something in me. Healing for me hasn't been about rewriting the past. It's been about stabilizing my internal compass. Trusting that if something feels misaligned, I don't have to override it to preserve connection.

Recognizing that not everyone will agree with your version of events and that agreement isn't the same thing as truth. There's also something important about separating identity from role. For a long time, I identified as a strong one, the resilient one.

The one who could endure misunderstanding. But endurance isn't the same thing as peace. Peace comes later. It came when I stopped trying to correct the narrative and I started [00:11:00] building a life outside of it. Watching the movie didn't make me wanna be vindicated.

It made me grateful. Grateful that I don't have to be chosen by the people who couldn't see me. That my integrity no longer feels like a liability. And that the story I'm telling now is mine. There's a confidence that comes from understanding your role without resenting it.

Yes, I was the one who saw things. I was labeled for it. And yes, it hurt. But I'm still here and I'm not here in reaction. I'm here in alignment. And maybe that's the part that moved me most. The recognition that sometimes the wicked woman isn't dangerous. She's grounded in herself. She's no longer negotiating her perception for the comfort of others. And that kind of healing requires self-trust. It reminded me I don't need to be redeemed by the people who misunderstood me. I don't need to be rewritten into their version of acceptable. I only need to remain steady [00:12:00] in my own narrative.

And that steadiness, more than vindication, more than validation, is what feels like freedom. For a long time, I thought healing meant being understood. I thought it meant the narrative eventually correcting itself.

That one day, the people who misread me would look back and say, "We got that wrong." But what I've come to understand is that peace doesn't require agreement. It requires alignment. Agreement is external. It depends on other people. Alignment is internal. It depends on you. Watching Elphaba be cast as something she wasn't, didn't stir up the need to defend myself anymore.

It reminded me that when you grow up being misrepresented, your nervous system gets trained to anticipate correction. To explain, to justify, and soften your edges so you're easier to hold. At some point, that becomes exhausting.

The real shift for me hasn't been proving that I wasn't the villain. It's been [00:13:00] releasing the need to prove anything at all because the truth doesn't become more true when it's validated by the people who denied it.

There was a time when being the scapegoat felt like isolation. Now, it feels like I'm standing in my own truth. It means I saw something. I responded to something. I didn't override myself to maintain harmony. That doesn't make me wicked. It makes me awake.

And awakening inside a system that relies on sleep always creates tension. one of the hardest parts of stepping out of a family role, it's accepting that you may never get the scene where someone stands up and says, "She was right."

You may never get the public correction. The apology that makes everything okay, and that used to hurt. But now, it's more of a recognition of what could have been. A grief that no longer consumes me, but still exists. Grief doesn't mean I wanna go back. It means I'm honest about what I [00:14:00] needed. There's something powerful about being able to say, "That hurt me, " without needing anyone else to confirm it.

Another thing I noticed is that I no longer feel pulled to fight the story. When you spent years being cast in a role, you can become hyper focused on correcting it, on gathering evidence, and proving your perception.

But there comes a point where you realize that fighting the narrative keeps you tied to it. And freedom looks like building something outside of it. That's what this platform has been for me. I created Born Tired, a space for survivors to feel seen, to name the roles, and break the silence. I became the adult I needed when I was young. The one who says, "I believe you. You're not crazy. You're not the problem." They tried to make me small. They tried to make me the villain. Instead, I became visible.

There's a difference between speaking to be heard by the people who [00:15:00] silenced you and speaking because your voice deserves space. I'm no longer trying to enter their story. I'm writing my own. Once you stop trying to be redeemed inside the system, you stop needing to be cast as anything at all. You're not the villain. You're not the misunderstood one waiting to be chosen. You're just yourself. And that feels lighter.

The part of me that wants long to be defended no longer runs the show. Because I understand that self-trust is stronger than validation. I trust my memory, my perception, I trust the way my body felt in those rooms.

There's something about stories like Wicked that reminds you how easy it is for a person to become a symbol, a headline. But human beings are layered. And I think the deepest healing for me has been allowing myself to be layered without needing to be reduced into something clean and simple. I can be strong and still grieve. I can be distant and still wish things had been different. All of that can [00:16:00] exist at once.

When I look at my life now, I don't see someone who escaped a role. I see someone who outgrew it. The scapegoat identity doesn't define me anymore. It doesn't determine who I'm becoming. There's a difference between survival and healing. Survival organizes around threat. Healing organizes around choice.

And today, my life feels organized around choice. I choose who I engage with, I choose what I respond to, and I choose what narratives I participate in. That choice is the real magic. And if there's one thing this story reminded me of, it's that sometimes the most powerful shift isn't in how the world sees you.

It's in how you see yourself when no one is watching. I love stories like this. Stories that stay with you after the credits roll. They don't just stay on the screen, they follow you home. A memory you hadn't thought about in years. A dynamic you suddenly see more [00:17:00] clearly.

Or a role you realize you've been carrying without questioning it. And sometimes what stays with you isn't the story itself. It's the realization that you survived something you were never meant to carry alone. If you were the scapegoat in your family, you probably learned early how to hold complexity, how to live inside contradictions, and how to function in spaces where the truth wasn't welcome.

You learned how to stay grounded while being misread. How to endure being misunderstood, and to keep going without being chosen. That kind of strength doesn't always get acknowledged, but it exists. And maybe what the story reminds you of isn't the pain, but the resilience and the integrity. There is something powerful about looking back at the role you played and realizing you were responding to something real. You weren't dramatic, unstable, or too much.

You were reacting to what your nervous system knew wasn't safe. That awareness can change how you hold yourself now. You don't have to rewrite [00:18:00] history to move forward, or to convince anyone of your version, or to correct every distortion. Sometimes healing looks like stepping out of the courtroom entirely.

No more presenting evidence, no more defending your perception. No more waiting for a verdict. Just living in a way that isn't organized around the people who misunderstood you.

That isn't shaped by proving your innocence. Living in a way that reflects who you are now, not who they said you were. That's the revolution. The freedom to exist outside of the role. To let other people hold their version of you without absorbing it. To stop fighting for a place in a story that never felt true.

If this episode brought something up for you, I hope it also reminded you that you are allowed to outgrow the part you played. You're allowed to release identities that were assigned to you, to live beyond the narrative that shaped you. And if you've ever been cast as difficult, too sensitive, [00:19:00] dramatic, or even wicked, I want you to consider something.

What if those labels were never about your character, but about your refusal to disappear? What if the very thing that made you inconvenient was the same thing that kept you intact? There is strength in being the one who sees clearly. There is dignity in being the one who steps away instead of collapsing.

Peace in no longer negotiating your reality. And maybe that's the real magic, staying present with yourself, aligned with your truth. Steady, even when others misunderstand you. Because in the end, the most powerful shift isn't when the world rewrites your story.

It's when you stop needing it too. And if no one ever stands up and says, "You are right." If no one ever corrects a narrative, if no one ever publicly chooses you, you can still choose yourself, and sometimes that is the ending that heals the most.

If this episode [00:20:00] resonated with you, please share with someone who might need it. And take a moment to leave a review wherever you listen. Your review helps more people find the podcast and reminds others they're not alone. Don't forget to subscribe or follow the shows so you never miss an episode. You can also join me on Substack where I share weekly reflections and gentle reminders to help you feel less alone on your healing journey. You'll find the link in the show notes. If you'd like to connect beyond the podcast, you can find me on Instagram and TikTok @borntired podcast. I'd love to hear what resonated with you. And if you'd like to support the podcast, there's a link there to buy me a coffee. Thank you for being here, for listening with an open heart. Most of all, remember this. Your story matters, your voice matters, and you are not alone.

This episode was written and narrated by Eirene Torres. Audio production by Carlos Torres. Original music composed by Carlos [00:21:00] Torres.