There is usually a phase where a person knows enough to be uneasy but not enough to stop. He keeps editing what he sees just enough to stay functional. He calls it uncertainty. Sometimes it is uncertainty. Sometimes it is a subtler form of avoidance.

Then the pattern spreads. It reaches into work, desire, standards, relationships, tone. At that point the truth stops being abstract. It begins shaping the whole atmosphere of a life.

I pay attention to that moment because it says more than the later confession. What finally made the pattern visible enough that you could no longer work around it?