Defying Gravity, Again
A story of defiance, loss, and choosing truth over belonging.
In the lead up to watching Wicked: For Good (expect that one in your emails, next Friday), I thought I would do a longer reflection on my recent post over on IG.
The reality is, I’ve always felt a strange, stubborn, almost embarrassing level of devotion to Wicked. Like… the soundtrack has basically been a personality trait for me.
But watching the movie this time last year, watching Cynthia Erivo step into Elphaba’s skin with that quiet rage and aching vulnerability, something in my chest cracked open all over again.
She didn’t just perform Elphaba. She was her. Raw. Misunderstood. Too powerful for the world that demanded she shrink. Too honest for the people who preferred a pretty lie. Too unwilling to twist herself into whatever shape made everyone else comfortable. I watched her and thought, “Oh. Right. That’s the part of me the church tried so hard to kill.”
And Glinda? Her heartbreak landed harder than I expected. The way she clung to the system that rewarded her obedience, even when it cost her relationships. Even when it cost her integrity. I’ve known so many people like her, some I’ve loved deeply. And honestly? I’ve been her too.
Every time I watch Wicked, I’m taken straight back into the heart of my own story. Not because the show is subtle, but because it captures something that is so hard to articulate: the internal split between who you’re told to be and who you actually are. And the impossible grief that rises when you finally choose yourself.
It’s not just a fantasy musical. It’s a mirror.
Elphaba as the queer child who finally snaps the spell
One of the most haunting things about Elphaba’s character is that she didn’t start out defiant. She started out desperate to belong. Desperate to be seen as worthy. Desperate to be accepted by the very system that would one day exile her.
Honestly? Same.
Growing up queer in the church, I spent years bending myself into shapes that hurt. Shapes that made me palatable. Shapes that earned approval. My queerness was the problem I tried to discipline out of myself. My doubts were “spiritual attacks.” My sensitivity was “rebellion.” My anger was “sin.”
Elphaba’s early attempts to be good, obedient, grateful, the girl who’s just thankful to be there feels painfully familiar. You can practically hear the internal monologue: If I just get it right, maybe they’ll finally accept me.
But of course, that acceptance never comes. Not really. Not for people like us.
So when Elphaba finally breaks, when she says “I’m through accepting limits,” when she steps into the storm and lets herself become who she was always told was monstrous - that’s not rebellion. That’s survival.
That’s the moment so many of us recognise: the day we stop begging the system to love us and finally love ourselves enough to leave it.
Glinda as every person who loved me but couldn’t follow me out
Glinda’s storyline hurts in a different way. She is the embodiment of the “good Christian woman” role: well-liked, warm, glittering with the kind of goodness that’s only ever measured by compliance. She wants freedom, but only the kind that doesn’t cost her anything.
Her internal conflict is stay safe or stand with the person who is being cast out, is one I watched unfold in real time with people I thought would be in my life forever.
She loves Elphaba. She admires her bravery. She envies her honesty. But in the end, she stays with the very system that harms them both, because that system is the only place she feels she belongs.
I’ve lived that.
When I came out and eventually left, some people vanished in polite silence. Some stayed long enough to say, “We still love you, but…” Some cried while still choosing obedience over relationship.
And here’s the thing that’s complicated to admit out loud: I don’t think some of them stopped loving me. I think they were and are too trapped to follow me and stand by me.
Just like Glinda.
And that’s the grief that never fully dissolves, you don’t just lose people. You lose the version of them you hoped they could be. The version that would choose you. The version that didn’t need permission to love you.
The price of defying gravity isn’t flight, it’s loss
Everyone quotes Defying Gravity like it’s a girlboss anthem. And yes, the song slaps. But it’s not only a triumph and empowering moment, it’s a grief song.
It’s the sound of someone realising:
I can’t keep shrinking.
I can’t keep performing.
I can’t keep betraying myself to belong to a place that punishes me for existing.
It’s the moment many of us know intimately: standing in the doorway between who we were and who we’re becoming, realising that stepping into our truth means losing people who will never understand the cost of the lie we were living.
The church taught me that authenticity was selfish.
That courage was rebellion.
That trusting my instincts was sinful.
That wanting to be seen was prideful.
So leaving wasn’t noble. It wasn’t empowered. It was terrifying. It was lonely. And it came with a grief I still feel eight years later.
But it was also the first time I felt something like air.
Wicked helps me hold two truths at once
This, I think, is why Wicked hits so hard for those of us who’ve left high-control systems.
You see the cost of authenticity and the cost of conformity.
You grieve for Elphaba and Glinda.
You recognise the courage it takes to leave and the fear that keeps people staying.
You understand, painfully, that becoming yourself often requires becoming someone’s villain.
And maybe that’s why this story keeps orbiting back into my life. It gives language to a journey I’m still making sense of. It reminds me that choosing freedom doesn’t erase the longing for belonging.
That finding your voice doesn’t undo the ache of losing the people who can’t bear to hear it. That living in your truth doesn’t mean you stop wishing the world could’ve made space for you without demanding your obedience.
Wicked is a story about trying, hurting, leaving, grieving… and surviving
Every time Elphaba rises into the air, terrified, furious, heartbroken, and done something in me rises too. Because I know what it costs to stop asking for permission.
I know what it feels like to lose an entire community because existing honestly was too threatening for them to bear. I know the weight of becoming the “wicked” one simply because you refused to keep pretending.
And I know the fierce kind of love that grows on the other side, the kind built not on fear, but on truth.
So yes, Wicked is fantasy. Magic. Spectacle. But it’s also one of the closest mirrors to my story of leaving church, claiming queerness, and stepping into a life that didn’t require me to shrink to be loved.
And every time I watch it, I’m reminded of this:
Becoming yourself will cost you.
It always does.
But losing yourself costs more.
Which part of you still feels like it’s trying to choose between belonging and becoming?
Looking for more?
I offer therapy for those holding religious trauma, queer folk, and cult survivors in person at my Goulburn, NSW location and online Australia & New Zealand wide. Reach out here.
I also host a podcast called Beyond the Surface, where I get to chat to the most wonderful humans about their own stories of religious trauma, faith deconstruction and leaving a cult. Its available on all major podcast platforms.
I am also a co-founder of The Religious Trauma Collective (Aus/NZ), a space where you can find support, resources and community.
For a one stop shop for me and my work head here → Anchored Counselling Services