I Realized My Stats Were All Wrong: Rebuilding Myself in Real Time

As the family scapegoat and life’s black sheep, I saw myself as a tank. (In RPGs, the tank is the one with thick armor, built to take the brunt of the damage for the party.) 

So when life forced me to choose how I’d survive (my stats, if you will), I did what I thought made sense for me. I stacked armor and I taught myself to endure anything. I mustered the courage to speak the hard truths first, and to be the rock in the relationship no matter what. 

I put every stat point into being unshakable, because I thought that was the only way to be safe. It’s what I thought a tank should be like.

The realization that maybe I wasn’t a tank came during my early hours playing the JRPG Metaphor: ReFantazio. 

I was deepening the connection with the character named Maria in the game, and at the same time, I was thinking about Dee’s request to reflect on the DWA and how I had changed throughout the container. Then came the moment I unlocked Maria’s archetype: The Healer. When I saw the character design, a mix of joy and resistance washed over me. 

“I’m not a healer,” I thought. But then it clicked. This was the essence of my journey through the DWA, I had gone from someone who avoided themselves, to someone finally gazing into herself with curiosity. To be able to look at myself with a realistic but more compassionate lens. The universe could not have spoken any clearer, even the character design is very me (see below).

I think others could see I was a healer long before I was ready to believe it. 

Because from where I stood, I felt far more destructive than restorative. I spent so much of my life stepping in. Patching up broken things, overworking to meet impossible standards, smoothing over family conflicts, making myself small just to keep the peace. No matter how hard I worked, a part of me always felt like I was adding to the chaos instead of calming it. And that I was never enough.

The painful paradox of wanting to care for others, yet fearing it would cost me my own peace resurfaced as I braced for conflict in the month of March. I was triggered, overtaken by an anxiety I hadn’t felt in years. Becoming overwhelmed by the intensity of my feelings, I expected myself to shut down and eventually numb myself just to cope.

But this time, I channeled all that nervous energy into movement: cleaning, organizing, tending to chores I had been putting off for weeks. It was an act of showing up for myself even when I wanted to dissociate. This time, showing up for myself looked like folding laundry through tears and wiping down countertops while quietly unpacking old pain.

After I had taken care of myself, the horrifying thought came in: This used to be me. Every. Single. Day. This used to be my baseline – a nervous wreck. 

And it makes sense. Imagine putting tank armor on a healer and ordering them to hold the front line without the training, the support, or the constitution for it. Of course they’d be terrified. Of course I was terrified.

That moment revealed just how constant my state of defensiveness had been for most of my life. I was always armoring up. Guarded, immovable, just trying to survive the emotional battlefield of my early years.

The weight of other people’s narratives about me—judgment, criticism, dismissal—pressed down like a wound that never had the chance to scab over, let alone heal. Even days meant to be soft, like Mother’s Day, were punctuated by shame and tears due to adults taking their emotions out on me. Reminding me of how small I was. How little space I was given to simply exist as I am. 

Over time, I began speaking to myself in those same voices. Without realizing it, I internalized the very harshness that once wounded me. I started asking: Why am I like this? What’s wrong with me?

I had absorbed their voices because I was too young to ask the question that could have set me free: What if there’s nothing wrong with me?

But no one ever taught me how to ask that. In practice or through guidance. It took a long time  to realize it was even an option. Learning to ask that question unlocked a softer, more curious version of myself. A version willing to sit with discomfort, to meet my pain with compassion instead of shame. One that gently reminds me: Your feelings don’t define you. It’s okay to feel.

And now, for the first time, I’m giving myself the space I was never offered. To feel fully  and to show up as who I truly am underneath all the armor.

I’m proud of how far I’ve come. But being this new version of me—this new Maria—is tender. It’s raw. It’s unfamiliar. And honestly, it makes me shake like a tiny chihuahua..

Some days, I look at myself and feel like I’m staring at a character screen in a video game where none of the stats quite fit. But unlike a game, there’s no quick reset, no magic button to redistribute everything neatly. I have to work with what’s here and learn to trust the process. 

Even amid this uncertainty, I’m learning to be gentle with myself. I’m realizing that not being where I want to be doesn’t mean I won’t get there. I can build towards it, step by step, and become who I know I’m meant to be.

In retrospect, perhaps destruction has its own kind of grace. Maybe it’s about clearing space, the way you clear out a full inventory. Saying goodbye to broken and useless gear to make room for better gear that would actually be beneficial.

Looking back, it’s clear how far I’ve come. And with that realization, I can’t help but ask: How many congratulations do I owe myself? 

There’s so much I should have celebrated. Like the courage it took to move away from home, the strength I found in releasing the trauma that once made resting feel like a luxury I didn’t deserve. The way I learned to forgive—not just others, but myself, too. But most of all, I should’ve celebrated the fact that, even on the darkest days, I cried and still got up the next morning. Even when I felt like giving up, I kept moving forward in my own story.

I had been holding on to old, broken gear—stories, patterns, relationships—that I believed I needed to survive. But letting them go, opened up space and It made room for something new to grow. A kind of liveliness, joy, and happiness that doesn’t rely on anyone else’s approval. Something unshakeable and all my own.

This version of Maria—the softer, louder, truer one—was nurtured in the heart of the DWA. That space cracked me open in the best way. It gave me permission to be fully myself without apology. To vent about the little things and be met with laughter instead of eye rolls. To cry from the depths of my soul and still be held with tenderness. It was there that I practiced vulnerability, and in doing so, I learned something big: being open doesn’t scare the right people away. It draws them in. It lets them love you more, not less.

I’m not hardened by what I’ve been through. If anything, I’ve softened and I did it on purpose. Not the kind of soft that shatters, but the kind that bends with the wind and still finds the sun and blooms. 

I thought healing would mean shrinking down. Being quieter, more toned down, easier to handle. But it didn’t. It made me luminous, loud, messier, and vividly me.

Being a healer, for me, doesn’t look like serene wisdom or spotless calm. It looks like Sailor Moon-level feelings. Big, chaotic, sparkly, sincere. It’s crying mid-battle and still showing up. It’s leading with heart, trusting my gut, and knowing I don’t have to be invincible to be powerful.

I’m not finished. I’m in progress. And I’ve never felt more glitter in my bones.