Didion identifies something most self-help platitudes miss: self-respect isn't primarily about feeling good about yourself, but about achieving a kind of merciful indifference to others' judgments. The word "back" is crucial—she's not describing self-invention but *recovery*, as though you've been stolen from and must reclaim what was always yours. When you stop performing for an imagined audience (the colleague whose approval you've been chasing, the parent whose disappointment still stings), you suddenly have mental space for actual thought instead of perpetual translation. It's the difference between confidence, which still glances sideways at others, and that rarer thing: the ability to disappoint people without feeling like you've failed at being human.