“The Day I Stopped Asking Permission to Exist”
Written by : One Bad Maa
There’s a day in every woman’s life where she wakes up and realizes she’s been living on mute.
Not because she didn’t have a voice.
Not because she didn’t have fire.
But because somewhere along the line, she started asking for permission just to breathe.
To speak.
To wear what she liked.
To chase what she wanted.
To be too much, too loud, too alive.
And she didn’t even notice she was doing it.
Not until one very specific day when something snaps, not in a broken way, but in that “I’m done shrinking for anybody” way.
This is the story of that day.
🤫THE QUIET LIFE THAT NEVER FIT ME
People look at the loudest version of me now, the bikes, the skates, the tattoos, the grit , and think that’s who I’ve always been.
Let me tell you something:
I didn’t start out loud.
No that’s a lie, because, I definitely did.
And, then they tried to contain me.
By telling me what I was supposed to.
Then doing what I thought I was supposed to do, based on the situation.
Making myself smaller so other people wouldn’t call me intense.
Dimming my edges so no one would feel threatened, because that was always a problem.
Trying to be “easy” for people who didn’t even know what to do with me.
Quiet was never natural, it was a costume, and a constant form of acting.
And they thought it was the only one I knew how to wear.
Until it wasn’t. And, I brought out the real me.
>>> Read More From One Bad Maa- Walking Back Into My Own Life – One Loud Step at A Time<<<
🤡 THE SHIFT — THE EXACT MOMENT EVERYTHING CHANGED
There wasn’t a dramatic breakdown.
No big life explosion.
No screaming, crying, throwing things.
It was smaller than that.
More precise.
Sharper.
I caught myself waiting , waiting for someone to embrace the real me.
Not the Mom me, not the worker me, but the real me and who I am.
Waiting for someone to tell me I could change jobs.
Waiting to lose weight before wearing the clothes I wanted.
Waiting to feel “ready” to start the Realm.
Waiting to “have time” to create.
Waiting to be less tired, less stressed, less broken.
Waiting to be allowed.
And when I realized how much of my life I’d spent waiting?
Something inside me stood up.
Not softly.
Not gracefully.
Not politely.
It stood up like a woman walking into a room she already owns the whole damn place, people and all.
That was the day I stopped asking permission to exist.
☠️ STANDING OUT WAS NEVER REBELLION — IT WAS SURVIVAL
I used to think that wearing black and blue holy jeans, bold makeup, tattoos, riding a Harley, lifting heavy, skating fast, all of that was rebellion.
But now I understand it differently:
It wasn’t rebellion.
It was oxygen.
When the world tells you to be quiet, your soul will suffocate unless you turn up the volume.
Some people shrink to survive.
I had to expand.
Some people stay small to stay safe.
I had to get bigger to stay alive.
That’s the difference between who I used to be and who I am now:
I’m not loud because I want attention.
I’m loud because silence started killing me.
>>>>Read Consistency Is The Real Rebellion <<<<
🛠️ CONFIDENCE IS BUILT — NOT GIFTED
People love to talk about confidence like it’s something you either have or you don’t.
Like it’s a gift only certain people get.
But confidence isn’t magic.
It’s a side effect.
You build it by making choices that scare you.
By showing up when you don’t feel ready.
By getting up after falling flat.
By deciding you don’t care if someone else “gets it.”
By doing the thing anyway.
Confidence is trusting yourself more than you trust other people’s opinions.
And that part?
That doesn’t come from speaking softly.
It comes from learning to roar.
THE REALM OF CHAOS — THE OTHER VERSIONS OF ME
When I created Rebel, Rage, Lawless, Vex, I didn’t make characters.
I made mirrors.
Rebel is the version of me that smokes a cigarette in the dark and doesn’t apologize for it.
Rage is the fire that kept me moving even when life felt impossible.
Lawless is the freedom I lost and fought to get back.
Vex is the creativity that survived every storm.
I didn’t invent them.
I uncovered them.
They weren’t built from fantasy, they were built from my identity.
The parts of me that were always loud, always alive, always waiting to come out.
The day I stopped asking permission to exist was the day those voices finally got to breathe.
And once they came out?
They weren’t going back.
🤔 WHY THIS MATTERS — FOR ME AND FOR YOU
If you’re reading this, you probably feel the pull too.
That quiet ache in your chest.
That exhaustion from trying to be “appropriate.”
That feeling of being stuck between the life you have and the life you want.
That internal scream of:
“I know I’m meant for more than this.”
Let me say it clearly:
You don’t need permission to change your life.
You don’t need permission to be loud.
You don’t need permission to start over.
You don’t need permission to take up space.
You don’t need permission to be the version of yourself you’ve been afraid to show.
Step into it.
You don’t need a dramatic moment.
Just a decision.
👍 THE CHOICE THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
The day I stopped asking permission wasn’t cosmic.
No thunderbolt.
No sign from the universe.
It was a whisper:
“I’m done being small.”
And then I acted on it.
I dusted the old skates off and took them for a spin.
I pulled that old broken down bike of mine completely apart.
I lifted the weights.
I built the Realm.
I started writing again.
I made characters that matched the parts of me I used to hide.
I made noise.
And once I started, that was a wrap.
You don’t go back to quiet after you hear your own roar.
🎙️FINAL WORD: THIS IS YOUR SIGN
If you’ve been waiting for something , this is the moment.
Choose you.
Choose loud.
Choose messy.
Choose existence.
Stop shrinking.
Stop waiting.
Stop asking.
This is your life.
Take it back.
The day you stop asking permission to exist is the day everything starts.