Some people escape expectations only to build an identity around resisting them.

Getting free of what others wanted for you is one thing; making the resistance itself your identity is another. Then the expectations are still setting the terms, since every choice has to be checked against them, and you are as constrained as you were before, just in the opposite direction. The escape is not complete until the question stops coming up.

Ask what you would do if nobody had ever expected anything of you. If you cannot answer without reference to what you are refusing, the resistance has become the structure. Try choosing something purely on its own merits and notice how unfamiliar that feels.