Different from who I appeared to be. Different from how I looked. Different from how people saw me. Even different from how I saw myself.
I'm writing this in present tense, but thankfully it's past tense now. I couldn't put my finger on how this happened. I can only see it, now that I've gone back in reverse mode through time.

When I was young, I genuinely didn't care what others thought of me. Where most people my age wanted to blend in with the crowd, I wanted the opposite. To be different from everyone else. So in seventh grade, I wore a hot pink suit, pants and jacket, with a neon green blouse. I always had self-braided headbands around my forehead that nobody else wore. Absolutely perfect, I thought.

High school was my "Mag & Maggie era." (Mag & Maggie was a Dutch clothing brand that stood for stood for individuality and creative independence, designing clothing that empowered women to express their unique identity rather than conform to mainstream fashion trends)

I bought all my clothes at Mag & Maggie, and it was so much more than a clothing brand to me. It was tangible proof that being different wasn't a defect, but a conscious and visible choice to be myself. To deliberately want to be different. I pimped my jeans with comic strip fabric prints and white lace. Made my own little hats. And when it started pouring rain on a summer day and everyone ran for cover, I walked straight into the warm rain.

Looking back, this changed the moment I started working in a life that wasn't my life. In high school, I had to choose what I wanted to become, and I didn't know. The only thing I knew for sure was that I never wanted to work in an office. Only to end up at an office through a temp agency where I stayed for almost 20 years. I was in a long-time relationship that didn't fit and lived in a world I didn't want to live in. Gradually losing more and more of myself.

The trigger to start 'feeling' that I was different from who I was, different from how others saw me, and different from how I saw myself, came during a performance review with my male manager. Where in previous reviews he'd always said, "everything's going well and I'm very happy with you," and we'd chat pleasantly for an hour, this time he took a different approach.

He started with: "When I ask people, who is Noëlle? They don't know who you are because you're a grey mouse."
He couldn't have been further from the truth, if there's one thing I'm not, it's a grey mouse. But I also didn't know what to do with this feedback at the time.

Much later, I realized I wasn't a grey mouse. I had turned into a chameleon blending into my surroundings. Just to hold my own in a job that didn't fit, a marriage that didn't fit, a world that didn't fit.

Beliefs like: "If I speak up, I'll be too much." "If I show who I really am, people will leave." "Being successful means sacrificing yourself." "Wanting something different is selfish."

None of these thoughts were mine. They were collected over years, from that manager who wanted me smaller, from a culture that rewarded fitting in, from relationships where I learned that my needs came last. I had absorbed them so completely that I thought they were true. That they were me.

But they weren't me. They were the filters I had applied to survive.

Every time I felt that familiar contraction, that "I shouldn't," "I can't," "I'm too much," "I'm not enough", I stopped. I asked: Is this actually true? Or is this something I learned to keep myself safe? To keep myself small? To keep myself loved?

Layer by layer, I peeled them off. The belief that my worth was tied to productivity. The idea that I needed to be palatable to be accepted. The conviction that my desires were somehow wrong or selfish.

Some layers came off easily. Others I had to work at, sitting with the discomfort, feeling the fear of who I'd be without them. Would people still like me if I stopped performing? Would I still be safe if I stopped adapting?

But with each layer I removed, I felt lighter. More spacious. More... me.

To now be completely myself again. No longer a chameleon, and certainly not a grey mouse. But the colorful person I am and have always been.

And this is why I started Be Your True Color. I now help other women do the same. And that makes me incredibly happy.

If you recognized yourself in the chameleon who lost her colors, if you feel that gap between who you are and who you show to the world,  you're not alone.

Those beliefs I mentioned, "I'm too much," "I need to sacrifice myself," "my needs come last", they don't appear out of nowhere. They form in moments when you learned it wasn't safe to be fully you. When being different meant being rejected. When your needs were dismissed.

And once they're there, they run quietly in the background, shaping every decision. Making you smaller. Dimmer. Less you.