There are a few things at play, and they are important.

The first is technology is a moving target. Contrasting it with let's say house painting, or plumbing. Painting today is the same job it was 5 years ago, and the same job it was 10 years ago. If you were great a painting a house then, you'll still be great a painting a house now. If a corporate company hires you to paint their new construction, you'll provide consistent value. No real expectation of growth.

The tech industry on the other hand, is constantly changing. If you're valuable at what you do now, if you learn nothing new, in 5 years without growth you'll be less valuable. Technology will have moved on, your skills will be less relevant. Sometimes it's in important ways (there are new more efficient ways of doing things and you didn't learn them so you're less productive on relative terms), other times in unimportant ways (a new fad came along that is no better than the previous fad, but you don't know it). Unfortunately almost nobody in tech really knows what is a valuable better technology, and what is just a fad until many years have gone by, so the (faulty) assumption is that most are valuable and so people should learn them.

The other part of this problem, is that at most companies (and definitely at FAANGs) someone fresh out of school for their first year at a company is essentially a net negative for the company. The work you do (value you provide) is for the most part worth less than sum of the money you make, the bugs you introduce, the time from other people you need for help. Maybe is 6mos maybe it's 12, but overall it's net negative. Companies know this and accept it because as you learn and gain skills you eventually become "worth" the investment.

The other problem is an issue in the industry. There is a ton of money to be made in it, so there is somewhat of a prolonged gold rush. As a result of the money to be made, and potential . If you're a 10% better plumber, you get the pipes unclogged 10% faster and not much difference. If you're 10% better programmer, you deliver your software sooner, take over the market and the company earns 10x the money. This essentially means people overwork themselves for effectively no reason, but the culture hasn't caught on to it.

But there is a flip side of this. So many people came up in this new industry, in this environment that they don't realize they aren't being rewarded for those extra hours. If every employee works 60hrs per week instead of 40, salaries don't go up by 50%, you just split the same pie, while making the company more money.

Finally, as the industry matures, it will. Because software is such a growing industry, every year more people graduate into it than the year before. So the industry is still very bottom heavy by age ranges. People just out of school, with little obligations and excited spent way more time working long hours and being willing to sacrifice life for work. By the time get some years in he industry, start having family and kids they realize they aren't getting the tradeoff they want and can scale back a bit.

But fundamentally it's this. A career in technology (unlike other professions) requires keeping up with technology. You absolutely can do it, given the fact you've stayed in the tech world now for so many years shows that you're capable of it. The question is do you want to continue with it? It doesn't mean you have to be super-ambitious, but it does mean you need to keep up with the moving landscape.

My advice would be this: let's say you have 10 years experience a freelancing. But overall development you're likely equal with someone who has been developing skills and is mid-career (ex 3-5 years).

Try applying for jobs requiring 3-5 years experience only, and be straightforward. Say you' had been freelancing and stopped focusing on skill development. There were some areas where you feel you haven't developed as well as you'd like to. So for this job you think there are some aspects you'll be overqualified for, others you'll be right on target, but you're ok with that as you want to use it to round out your skillset, and get back to growing and developing.

And then do that. Good luck!