How Long Are You Going to Keep Asking for Permission to Live Your Own Life?

I'm a grown ass woman who still has to remind herself that she's grown. Dead ass. There are moments when I catch myself worrying about what someone might think of a decision I've made. Wondering whether they'll approve. Whether they'll be disappointed. Whether they'll judge me. Whether they'll look at me differently. And sometimes I have to stop and ask myself... Who tf am I waiting to give me permission???

Nobody is standing over me telling me I can't live my life. Nobody is grounding me. Nobody is taking away my privileges. Nobody is sending me to my room... Yet, there are still moments when my body responds as though somebody is. As though somewhere, someone is keeping score. And if I make the wrong decision, if I step too far outside the lines, if I become a little too much of myself, there will be consequences. Most of the time, there aren't even any consequences coming. Just the ones I've spent years anticipating. And that's what I've been learning about myself lately. You can become an adult, build an entire life of your own, and still be waiting for permission from people who no longer have authority over you.

I Spent Years Living Two Lives

I've worked in adult entertainment for over twenty years. And for most of those years I kept that part of my life hidden from many of the people I loved most. Not because I was necessarily ashamed of the work itself but because I understood what being publicly known as a sex worker could cost me. And let's be clear... those fears weren't imaginary. Being outed as a sex worker can have very real consequences. People have lost housing. Faced custody disputes. Experienced harassment, doxxing, discrimination, and social isolation. Children can be bullied or ostracized. So when I talk about hiding, I'm not talking about some cute little secret I was keeping because I was worried somebody might gossip about me. I'm talking about having to calculate what honesty could cost me. Could I lose my home? Could someone use my work against me as a mother? Would my daughter be bullied? Would the people I loved still love me the same? For years, those questions shaped how much of myself I allowed people to see. I was living my life, making my own decisions, supporting myself, and doing what I needed to do. But I was also editing myself. Deciding who could know what. Which parts of my story were safe to share. Which rooms I could be fully myself in and which ones required a version of me that wouldn't make anybody uncomfortable. And I got really fucking good at it. But being good at hiding doesn't mean hiding feels good.

Sometimes the Danger Changes Before the Fear Does

I've been publicly out as a sex worker for about two years now. And even after all those years of knowing who I was and what I did, I still found myself feeling anxious about how people would receive me. Would they judge me? Would they be disappointed? Would they suddenly question everything they thought they knew about me? Would the people who had known me for decades decide they didn't know me at all? And here's what I've found particularly interesting. Even after I made the decision to stop hiding, part of me was still waiting for somebody to tell me it was okay. As though I needed an elder, a family member, or someone whose opinion I'd spent years valuing to look at me and say: It's okay, Brittany. You can be yourself. But what happens when that permission never comes? What happens when the people whose approval you're waiting for don't understand your choices, don't agree with them, or don't have the capacity to celebrate the life you're choosing? Do you go back to hiding? Do you make yourself smaller? Do you keep explaining yourself until they finally understand? Or do you eventually decide that their understanding isn't a prerequisite for your existence? Because I've already spent enough time hiding in other people's shame and fear and that place is damp, cold, and starting to get fucking moldy... I'm not going back in there!

Some of the Rules We Follow Aren't Even Ours

I grew up around people who had some very strong ideas about what was right, what was wrong, what was acceptable, and what wasn't. And like most children I absorbed a whole lot of those ideas before I ever had the opportunity to question them. Some were useful. Some were protective. Some came from love. And some came from other people's fears, insecurities, experiences, and limitations. But when you're young, you don't always know the difference. You just learn the rules. You learn what gets praised. What gets criticized. What gets you affection. What gets you yelled at. What makes people proud of you. What makes them disappointed. And before you know it you're carrying around a whole collection of expectations that feel like your own moral compass. Except nobody ever asked you whether you agreed with them. And sometimes the people who taught you those rules weren't necessarily living lives you wanted for yourself. Let that sit for a minute.

How many decisions are you making today based on the fears of people whose lives you don't even want to replicate? That question has been doing a number on me. I've had to teach myself that everything isn't black and white. That something being unfamiliar doesn't automatically make it wrong. That playing it safe isn't always the safest thing for your happiness. And that someone else's discomfort with my choices doesn't automatically mean I've made a bad one. I can respect where someone else's beliefs came from without adopting them as my own. I can love people without living according to their expectations. And I can acknowledge that someone genuinely wants what's best for me while also recognizing that their version of what's best for me might not be mine.

The Body Doesn't Always Know You're Grown

This is one of the things my somatic training has helped me understand about myself. Sometimes I know something intellectually long before my body catches up. I know I'm an adult. I know I have free will. I know I don't need everybody to agree with my choices. But knowing that doesn't automatically stop the tightness in my chest when I anticipate somebody's disapproval. It doesn't always stop me from rehearsing conversations that haven't happened or imagining how someone might react. Or feeling that little urge to explain myself before anybody has even asked for an explanation. Because for some of us approval wasn't just something that felt nice. It was connected to belonging. Safety. Acceptance. Love. The ability to avoid conflict. And when your body has spent years learning that disappointing people might threaten those things, choosing yourself can feel a whole lot more dangerous than it actually is in the moment. That doesn't mean every fear is irrational. Sometimes there are real consequences to our choices, and those deserve consideration. But I've had to learn to ask myself: Am I responding to something that's actually happening right now, or am I responding to something I've spent my life being afraid might happen? Those are two very different conversations and sometimes the answer isn't immediately obvious.

I Was So Busy Worrying About Everybody Else's Comfort

There's something else I've had to confront. A lot of my approval seeking wasn't just about wanting people to like me. It was about not wanting them to be uncomfortable with me. Not wanting them to worry. Not wanting them to feel embarrassed. Not wanting them to have to explain me. Not wanting to disappoint the people who raised me, loved me, or believed they knew who I was supposed to become. And somewhere in all of that, I started treating other people's emotional comfort like it was my responsibility. Even when maintaining it meant abandoning parts of myself. I think about how much of my life I've spent anticipating people's reactions before they've even had them. Trying to soften the truth. Make it easier to digest. Make myself easier to understand. And I keep coming back to this image of being afraid of the deep end. Not because I didn't know how to swim. But because I was too busy trying to save everybody around me who couldn't. And eventually I had to ask myself: Why am I making my life smaller to protect people from feelings they may need to learn how to navigate themselves? Their feelings matter. Of course they do. But so do mine. And caring about how my decisions affect other people is not the same thing as giving them authority over my decisions.

Who Told You That You Couldn't?

Here's something I've started doing when I catch myself hesitating over something I genuinely want. I ask myself: Who told me I couldn't do this? And then I get a little more specific. Is this an actual restriction? Is this something I believe is wrong? Is this something that could genuinely harm me or someone else? Or is this something I learned to avoid because somebody, somewhere, once made me feel like I shouldn't want it? Because there's a difference between having values and inheriting shame. Between considering consequences and living in anticipation of punishment. Between making a responsible decision and making the decision most likely to keep everybody else comfortable. And sometimes when I really sit with those questions, I realize I don't even agree with the rule I've been following. I just never thought to challenge it. How wild is that? To spend years restricting yourself according to a rule you wouldn't choose if someone presented it to you today. And I'm not suggesting we should throw out every belief we inherited simply because somebody else taught it to us. Some of those beliefs may serve us beautifully. But shouldn't we at least know why we're following them? Shouldn't we get to decide which rules belong in the lives we're actually trying to build?

You Can Be Scared and Still Choose Yourself

I think people sometimes imagine that living authentically means reaching a point where you stop caring what anybody thinks. I haven't reached that point. And I'm not sure that's even my goal. I love people. I care about my relationships. I care about how I affect others. I don't want to become so committed to my own freedom that I lose my capacity for empathy or accountability. But I also don't want to spend the rest of my life confusing someone's disapproval with evidence that I've done something wrong. So I'm learning to let those things exist together. I can be afraid of judgment and still tell the truth. I can feel anxious about how someone perceives me and still refuse to hide. I can love my family and disagree with the values they tried to pass down. I can acknowledge the real risks of being publicly known as a sex worker and still decide that being visible is important to me. I can be considerate without being obedient. And I can experience fear without making it the person in charge of my life. Fear can come along for the ride. It just doesn't get to drive anymore.

Some days I'm better at that than others. There are still moments when I catch myself seeking reassurance. Wanting someone to tell me I'm making the right decision. Hoping someone whose approval matters to me will finally say the thing I've been waiting to hear. But I'm learning to recognize those moments for what they are. And instead of immediately reaching outside myself for permission I'm practicing turning inward. What do EYE think? What do EYE want? What feels aligned with the person I'm becoming? What are the actual consequences, and which ones are stories I'm telling myself? If nobody were watching, would you still choose this? Sometimes the answers surprise me. Sometimes they scare me. And sometimes they remind me just how much of my life I've spent asking the wrong people for permission.

Maybe Permission Was Never the Problem

I used to think freedom meant no longer needing permission. But I'm starting to see it a little differently. Because I don't necessarily mind asking for permission. I just want to be more intentional about who I'm asking. I want to give myself permission to change my mind. To question what I was taught. To enjoy things other people don't understand. To have a relationship with my body, my sexuality, my work, and my identity that doesn't require everybody else's approval. To be wrong sometimes. To learn. To disappoint people without automatically assuming I've failed them. To make choices that reflect the life I actually want instead of the life somebody else finds easiest to accept. And I want to give myself permission to acknowledge that sometimes I'm still scared. Because after spending so much of my life learning how to survive inside other people's expectations, learning to live outside of them isn't something I accomplish once and never think about again. It's practice. It's catching myself. It's noticing when I've started shrinking. It's asking whether the voice telling me I shouldn't do something is actually mine. And sometimes it's reminding myself, out loud if necessary: Girl, you are grown. Nobody is coming to ground you. Nobody gets to decide whether your happiness is acceptable simply because it looks different from theirs. And the people who love you are allowed to have feelings about the life you choose. They're just not automatically entitled to choose it for you. I spent a long time waiting for someone to tell me that the person I already was had permission to exist. And maybe that's what makes this stage of my life feel so unfamiliar. I'm no longer asking whether everybody else is comfortable with me being me. I'm learning to ask whether I'm comfortable with the parts of myself I've been hiding to make everybody else comfortable. Because I'm still learning how to live in my truth. Some days it's liberating. Some days it's terrifying. Some days it's both. But I'd rather keep learning how to live out here, in the open, than go back to that cold, damp place where I spent so many years waiting for somebody to tell me it was safe to come out. And if there's one thing I've realized, it's this: I don't mind asking for permission anymore. As long as the person I'm asking is me.

-Brittany A. Moore xoxo

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