Episode #040 · Jessica Graham
Why You Feel Like You Have To Hide Who You Really Are
What happens when you learn—early or slowly—that being fully yourself isn’t always safe?
Jessica Graham shares her experience with codependency, 12-step programs, and what she calls “honest rooms.” Together, they explore how the stories we tell ourselves aren’t always chosen—they’re shaped by what once felt necessary for acceptance, safety, or belonging.
But at some point, those same stories start to feel limiting.
This conversation is about what it takes to recognize that shift and begin rewriting the narrative in a way that actually reflects who you are now.
Understanding Codependency as Outsourcing Your Emotional Well-Being
When Jessica first heard the word codependency, she resisted it. She had always thought of herself as independent and stubborn. When she knew what she wanted, she went after it. Codependency sounded weak to her, and weakness wasn't how she understood herself.
As Jessica learned more, she found language that better described her experience: “outsourcing your emotional well-being.”
In her relationships, that could look like if you're not okay, I'm not okay. Her sense of security depended heavily on what was happening around her and how other people were responding to her.
Therapy and 12-step programs gave Jessica a way to examine her own role in those dynamics. She had spent years feeling like a victim of what other people had done. Recovery asked her to look at the choices she had made inside those relationships, too.
“I could have stood up for myself. I could have walked out.”
Jessica could also recognize ways she'd tried to manipulate situations to get her needs met. Looking at those patterns was uncomfortable. It gave her a way to begin understanding how she'd been participating in the very situations she desperately wanted to change.
What Really Happens Inside a 12-Step Program
Jessica remembers her earliest Al-Anon meetings in Santa Fe as some of the best she's ever attended. She sought out women-only rooms and found an experience very different from the version of recovery meetings she'd seen portrayed in popular culture.
One phrase in particular stayed with her: experience, strength, and hope.
People could talk about what had happened or what they were currently struggling with, while also sharing where they were finding strength and what gave them hope.
Jessica also describes 12-step recovery as a spiritual practice. When she notices herself obsessing about work, an outcome, or something else she wants to control, that's often her signal that she needs a meeting.
The room helps her sort through what she can control, what she can't, and what she needs to surrender.
What struck me during our conversation was how accepting Jessica found environments that carry so much stigma from the outside. Some of the spaces we're taught to associate with shame became the places where she could be most honest about who she was and what she was struggling with.
Hiding the Parts of Your Story You Think People Will Judge
Jessica experienced that contrast in another part of her life.
During the period when she first entered therapy and recovery, she was bartending in neighborhood bars and strip clubs. At the same time, she was beginning to ask what meaningful work might look like for her.
She volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters and worked with a nonprofit supporting children with behavioral challenges in classrooms. Jessica describes it as living a double life.
The bartending world had started to feel less aligned with who she was becoming, but the people there weren't judging her for trying to change.
Later, after marrying into a religious family, she received a very different message. Her first husband told her not to mention that part of her past to his family. Jessica carried it as a shameful secret for years.
Eventually, she reached a point where she could look back at those experiences without needing to erase them from her story.
“This is part of my life,” she says. “It didn't damage anybody. If it damaged anybody, it was myself, and I learned a lot from it.”
That process of revisiting experiences she'd once carried with shame would eventually become central to the work Jessica does today.
Rewriting the Stories We Tell About Ourselves
Jessica has always used reflection to make sense of her experiences. Journaling became one way to return to difficult periods in her life and examine the stories she'd attached to them.
When she eventually started her business, she began as a copywriter and moved into brand messaging and storytelling. As she helped clients identify the experiences and turning points that shaped their businesses, she kept encountering the same resistance. People would recognize an important part of their story and immediately tell her they couldn't share it. It might make them look weak. It didn't support the image of an expert. Their spouse wouldn't want them talking about it publicly.
Jessica recognized those fears because she'd spent years working through her own. She began helping clients examine the stories they felt uncomfortable claiming and found herself increasingly drawn to that part of the work.
“I think this is where the work that matters for me lies.”
That doesn't mean Jessica has eliminated her own discomfort with being seen. Entrepreneurship continues to bring her back to one recurring issue: worthiness.
“Not enough. Not good enough. Not smart enough. Not whatever enough.”
She describes entrepreneurship as a “house of mirrors,” constantly reflecting another belief or insecurity back at her.
Do You Have to Hit Rock Bottom to Change?
Jessica has experienced enough major turning points that she jokes rock bottom may simply be part of her design. She can look back and see moments when she'd been getting signals that something needed to change and continued moving forward anyway.
“The universe is like, girl, I've been trying to nudge you and you have not been listening.”
For Jessica, those moments eventually became disruptive enough that she had to respond. Her relationships changed. Her work changed. Her understanding of herself changed.
She has also spent years looking for external solutions when something felt wrong internally: a new state, a different job, another relationship, another environment. Her experience has made her pay much closer attention to what she is bringing with her when she makes a change.
At the end of our conversation, I ask Jessica what open question she's living inside today.
“Will you ever get out of a messy middle?” she admits to wondering.
She used to think of the messy middle as a temporary state. Now she sees areas of her life where old triggers have lost their power at the same time that another layer is asking for her attention.
“There's still always simultaneously something else that I'm still working through.”
For Jessica, the messy middle keeps changing shape.
“I think that's part of the journey. Like, this is life.”
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Jessica Graham
Jessica Graham is a narrative advisor and story coach working at the intersection of inner-personal growth and entrepreneurship. She helps women get honest about the stories they’ve been telling themselves and rewrite the narratives keeping them anchored to outdated identities. Through her Beyond The Story Method and signature program, Rewritten, Jessica guides women to make sense of their lived experiences, clarify their voice, and bring coherence to how they lead, decide, and show up in both business and life.
