I still pretend to be asleep when my cat walks on me at 5am because I dont want to hurt his feelings

This has been going on for like three years now. Every morning around 5 or 5:30 my cat walks across my chest and sits on my shoulder for a few minutes before he goes to his food bowl. I know hes awake and I know he knows Im awake because I can feel my breathing change and I sometimes flinch a little. But I just lie there with my eyes closed pretending to be asleep because I feel like if I acknowledge him or move hell think Im rejecting him or something. Like what if he thinks I dont want him near me. So I fake sleep through the whole thing and then when he leaves I get up like normal. The weird part is I started doing this without even thinking about it and now I cant stop. Its become this routine where I have to play dead for my cat every single morning. Sometimes he steps on my neck or my face and it actually hurts but I still dont move. I just accept it. I never told anyone this because it sounds insane when I say it out loud. But I genuinely worry that if I break the tradition now after all this time it will mess with his little cat brain and hell stop trusting me. So I guess Im committed to this forever.