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Making Peace with Your 20s: Embracing Your Past Self Without Cutting Her Off

Writer's picture: Helen MooresHelen Moores



 

If I could describe my 20s in one word, it would be: painful.


Painful in that aching, deep, gnawing way that creeps into your bones and makes you question if life is meant to feel this hard.


But if you had asked me at the time, I probably would have said: wild.


20-something me would have flashed you an assured grin and said she was living her best life. After all, I was a self-proclaimed hedonist - a word I chose with the gusto of someone who desperately wanted to believe their own narrative.


The truth?


My 20s were a smokescreen.


 

Addiction, trauma, massive attachment wounds, and a total loss of self were the uninvited guests at the party I called my life.


Looking back, it’s clear that my so-called hedonism was just a glorified label for running - running from pain, running from the truth, and running from myself.


Psychological defence mechanisms like denial and rationalisation were working overtime.


 

In hindsight, it’s clear I was stuck in what Carl Jung might call the shadow - the accumulation of the unacknowledged, messy, and shameful parts of ourselves that we shove into the basement of our psyche.


Ones that we've either banished there ourselves or that other people have told us (either directly or more subtly) that those parts are not acceptable and should not be seen.


My shadow 'party' was in full swing, complete with strobe lights and questionable choices and, because I wasn’t ready to face it, I used every distraction and unhealthy coping mechanism available to avoid the confrontation.


 

Cue my 30s, a decade I’d sum up as transformative.


But not the Instagrammable, softly-lit 'journey' kind of transformation.


Oh no, this was the kind of transformation that felt like spiritual warfare.


Imagine the universe - or God, or whatever force you believe in - saying, “Right, we’ve been patient, but you're not listening, so now you're going to have to look at this."


The heat was cranked up, and the only way out was through.


 

Psychologically, what was happening here aligns with Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development.


My 30s felt like an extended identity crisis - a developmental milestone Erikson would associate with early adulthood but, let’s be honest, many of us don’t tackle it until much

later.


I was in a battle between stagnation and generativity, between clinging to old, maladaptive patterns and creating a life that aligned with my authentic self.


And the gut puncher?


I had to face all the lessons I’d ignored in my 20s.


Spoiler alert: It was excruciating.


 

Trauma has this tricky way of embedding itself in our nervous systems.


For much of my 20s, I lived in survival mode, cycling between hyperarousal (fight-or-flight) and hypoarousal (shutdown).


My 30s demanded I regulate - to learn what it felt like to stay present even when everything in me wanted to numb or flee.


It was in this decade that I began to understand the concept of post-traumatic growth - the idea that we can not only survive trauma but transform through it.


But transformation is no picnic.


It’s messy, nonlinear, and, at times, outright ugly.


 

And now, here I am in my 40s, tentatively calling this phase awakening.


I’m only 18 months in, so the jury’s still out, but there’s a clarity now that feels almost foreign.


It’s as if the fog of decades past has lifted, and I can finally see the terrain for what it is.


Yet, there’s a bittersweetness to it all - a longing for the younger version of myself, for the woman who lived so messily, so wildly, and so painfully.


As if she has been short-changed and can't be left behind.


 

Integration is the word that comes to mind here.


In psychology, we talk a lot about integrating the self - the process of bringing together fragmented parts into a cohesive whole.


My 20s self, as chaotic as she was, isn’t gone.


She’s a part of me, woven into the fabric of who I am today.


Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS) theory would call her an 'exile,' a part carrying unprocessed pain and burdens.


The work of my 40s is to welcome her back, not as the driver of my life but as an honoured passenger.


 

And let’s not forget self-compassion - a cornerstone of healing.


Being kind to ourselves, especially to the parts we’d rather forget or even cut out, is essential.


I often think of my 20s self as a wounded child - acting out, desperate for love and safety.


It’s my job to offer her that love and safety.


 

Looking back, I still experience discomfort at the drama I left in my wake.


Because it wasn't just about what others had done to me.


I’ve hurt people too - not maliciously - but in the way that wounded people inevitably do.


Repairing those wounds has been part of the reckoning.


And where repair hasn't been possible, I’ve had to learn to forgive, myself and others - a tall order - but one I’m slowly meeting.


 

If you’re reading this and it resonates, know this:


You’re not alone.


The messy, painful, beautiful process of becoming is something we all share.


The road is rarely linear, and the milestones often come disguised as 'breakdowns'.


But as someone who’s walked - no, crawled—through that fire, I can tell you this:


It’s worth it.


 

So here’s to the 20s me, the 30s me, and the 40s me.


Each version of myself has taught me something invaluable and together they’ve brought me here.


The past isn’t something to erase or run from.


It’s something to integrate, honour, and, dare I say, love. And the memories that you can't love? Forgive.


Even if it's just for yourself. Especially then.


That's love too.


Because in the end, no matter the label you attribute to your past, and who you've been, every painful and wild chapter is part of the story - and what a story it’s turning out to be.


Mess and all.

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