The Ages I've Been, But Never Experienced.

I recently saw someone online saying the collective delay in experience and intelligence so many of us seem to be experiencing is due to COVID-19 taking away several years of our lives. This idea leads to the assumption that this feeling of “being behind” or “trailing everyone else” should be attributed to the fact that we are mentally the age we were when the pandemic hit. Lockdown in North Carolina officially started 8 days after my 25th birthday and I am now closer to 30 than I am to 25. Even though the pandemic has been declared officially over, we are still experiencing changes in our world as a result of a page in our history books. To some degree, I relate to the delay. I understand I am experiencing my own struggles in several areas of my life. However, I also recognize the difference I’m experiencing in consciousness. I have always acted older than I chronologically am, but only this year do I feel mentally younger than what is physically expected of me. The last time I felt this way was at the height of the pandemic.

The funny thing about having no choice but to stay home and do nothing is that for me, a person who has always lived with anxiety and overwhelming concern about what’s going on around her and how she plays a part in it, I felt my age. I felt 25. Emotionally I understood my responsibilities and what would be expected of me on the other side of all of it. But I was able to sit down with myself in an uninterrupted atmosphere. I did things like exercise twice a day, spend half of my waking hours walking in the spring breeze while the pending summer taste took over my senses, meditate, create, witness my friends create, witness people concerned about one another, witness what it felt like to be a human being. Everything else was muddied, everything that was a “should be” or “I expect you to…” was secondary to simply just living.

I was in therapy during the start of the pandemic and though I believe my previous therapist is what I needed at that time, I seldom had the breakthroughs I do with the therapist I’ve had on the latter end of this world-altering experience. There always seems to be one nugget of gold that glimmers through my daily life, fortnight to fortnight, but one, in particular, seems to fully encapsulate my recent ability to act and react in situations.

I had spent 30 minutes of a 60-minute session unraveling a world of hurt that had transpired in just a few days. It is standard for my therapist to write quickly as I’m talking because I speak quickly and more often quicker than I process, but I hadn’t even noticed her clear her clipboard for a new piece of paper during my tizzy. The hurt in my body was so vivid, that I could perfectly recall how it became tangible. By the time I stopped and took a deep breath, I glanced at the clock, then back to my therapist; her gaze soft and her energy preparing to share what she had found.

She handed me a piece of paper she had drawn a sort-of graph on. One side broadcasting the traits of my child-like self and the other side declaring the traits of my protective self. In the middle sat the word “authentic” boxed in a rectangle, waiting for me to put a bow on it like a present. I had always spoken about the back and forth of the two “voices” inside of me but could never properly describe what it was they were fighting for. I would often preface the descriptions as ‘one part of me.. *fill in the blank* while another part of me…. *fill in the blank with an opposition*.’

What she was able to identify was that one side of me is not getting my needs met and the other side is trying to protect that part of me not getting my needs met. In her explanation, my therapist made it clear that the two pieces of me always at war were the pieces of me that have been ignored, not catered to, not coddled, and not spoken to directly. These were the figments always at odds. These were the ages I’ve always been, but never experienced. On this piece of paper, she divides the two so clearly that I became ashamed of myself: someone who had made a craft of overanalyzing everything couldn’t even reach this conclusion. It was explained to me that between the two is where I will likely find a concept that has continued to be so elusive. The “Authentic Self.”

One piece of me is the “protective self.” The one who overanalyzes to avoid surprise, who is an avid people-pleaser, someone who needs control over things and situations in her life to feel whole. This self is what has grown as a result of my childlike self, who we will discuss with and about next, is sort of the “parent” figment, the one shutting down any “big feelings” or telling that childlike self“you cannot throw a temper tantrum you are TWENTY EIGHT YEARS OLD.” Remember when I said I’ve always acted older than I am? That’s where this comes into play. I’ve always been “the little mom” or “the mom friend” and have always assumed the role of a good example being the oldest everything in a family dynamic. Oldest sister, oldest child, oldest cousin, oldest granddaughter, oldest soul… should I keep going? My “protective self” is the age I have emotionally been, but not physically. At least, that’s what my mental affiliation to “protective” translates this version to.

This “childlike self,” is the age I have physically been, but not emotionally. I have been a child but seldom remember a memory where I acted like one. This just means when I become vehemently upset or off-kilter, my child-like self takes my adult body and shuts it down so my insides can go to war. Mentally I feel out of control, scared, like I want to throw a temper tantrum. This thing that upset me enough to have to talk in therapy about it made me want to open the office window and toss my phone off the second floor. I wanted to throw a punch (as a relatively mild-mannered person, this version that shows up always scares the shit out of me), I slammed a heavy book down on my couch unprovoked, and when I talked, my eyebrows couldn’t have gotten any higher up my forehead without becoming part of my hairline. This is the part of myself I have been given the task of learning how to care for.

Learning how to care for both is where my authentic self lies. So I’ve been told. The concept is still foreign to me.

When my therapist and I began the discovery of my “authentic self,” the only thing I could confidently say was that I was creative. That is, always has been, and always will be the part of myself I can declare as factual. As we’ve continued this process, I’ve also begun to uncover pieces of me that are seemingly authentic but I have always been self-conscious of, so I know that even in this discovery, this is still a part of me that must be tended to. I am helpful, resulting in the neglect of my own regard. I am loyal, but often to burnout. I am responsible, but this comes as the resort of sitting with the adults, listening to their conversations, and finding it difficult to relate to people my age. I know these things are true, but they’re pieces of myself I’ve spent so much time negotiating with that I don’t know how to accept them as they are.

The concept of the “authentic self” is not good for someone possessing subjective patience. In my case, I feel like I’ve spent so much time “doing the work” and “peeling back layers” that it often feels frustrating when I haven’t “figured it out” yet. I want to “be there” already. Deep down I understand that I have committed myself to an always-evolving, never-ending journey of working on myself. I have an inkling that the piece of me that understands that this is all a process is truly part of my authentic self. And sometimes I think she’s repulsive. Who even has that much patience? (Me. I do.) At my core, I know this kind of work takes time, and that not a lot of people devote their intentions to it. Not a lot of people have the capacity to devote their intentions to it. I’m grateful that I can wallow in the glimpses I catch of the age I am and be able to spend the rest of my time rectifying the age I was. I think regardless of how difficult working on yourself comes to be, situations like this are what make it feel “worth it.” It feels like the veil between these two metaphorical worlds is slowly getting thinner.

Identifying the piece of me that has that patience looks a lot like a protector, and where at the start of this, I had an idea that the midway between the child-like self and the protective self is where my authentic self hangs out, I’m starting to think that maybe my authentic self has no choice but to have pieces of each one of those sides always at odds with each other. Like how green and red are vastly different, but when paired, you know it's Christmas.