‘When Will I Be, If Ever I Am?’: Navigating the stereotype of figuring out who you are in your twenties.
CW: Sexual Assault
Sometimes, to avoid people, I tell them I write poetry so that they get grossed out and leave me alone. Here is a poem I wrote last year in the throes of asking myself, “What the hell am I doing?”
I want to be strong.I want to consume strength.Instead, I am consumedby the hunger of others, universal inner aches.Who can I be with your permission?Is it my turn to be someone? Just tell me, please. For I cannot wait to breathe. Yet, I know waiting well. I can and I will. In the shade, my place of birth. I’m not ungrateful, though you want me to be. I do love the trees, they keep me cool and safe as I remain unseen. But if I am safe in the shade, why are my knees blistered and sore? As I drop down again, I cannot help from begging. I must ask once more not what but when, When will I be, if ever I am?Is anyone else in their flop era? Until recently, I had been telling everyone that to avoid questions about where my life is going. Hell, if I had a map, I would share the way. I also just couldn’t take being told that now is the time to “figure out who you are” by another friend’s parent who uses Pickleball as an excuse for a personality. Bored and unmotivated, I often sleep too late and scroll through tiktok for too long. I mostly blame the lisdexamfetamine shortage (which has gotten a bit better, as you might be able to tell by the fact that I am writing again…), but I know part of it is me taking my sweet time planning what’s next. In my flop-era stupor, I woke up one morning last month to a text. As a connoisseur of Instagram and WhatsApp, I hadn't received an SMS text since the last Ice Age, so it felt like a pretty big deal. In excitement, I wondered who my admirer was… an old flame? A hot date? A writing agent? Paul Mescal!? Please, universe, somehow let this be Paul…
I opened my phone and read the message:
NHSGP: YOU ARE DUE FOR A SMEAR TEST APRIL 2024. PLEASE USE THE NHS WEBSITE TO BOOK ONE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Ahh, yes, my favourite ex: the speculum.
My mouth filled up with water, and my stomach decided to book a holiday in my throat. I had done the procedure once before, and it ended with a panic attack and tears- which doesn’t do any favours to a hospital gown outfit. The automated message I received on that morning a couple of months ago spiraled me back to that procedure when I was twenty-two, devoid of colour and hope, in a near-constant state of nausea, getting through each day with three trazodone and a Diet Dr Pepper.
Anna Degnbol
No one necessarily wets themselves with excitement when they are scheduled for a Gyno appointment. Yet somehow, I had it in my head that no one hated it as much as I did because of my specific life experiences. Me! Me! Me! Fear can make us unintentionally selfish more often than we would like to admit. It didn’t take long for me to come to my senses. I knew it was almost April, and April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. As a survivor myself, I wasn’t blind to the fact that awareness means being aware of more than just your own personal experiences. After a week of ignoring the message (and a good in-person therapy session), I came to. I knew I wasn’t alone in my detestment of smear tests, and more importantly, I knew a truth I hate more than anything: what I have been through is far more common than anyone acknowledges, even now.
Is my fear of the smear relevant to notions of a true self and identity conflicts in your twenties? Well..
When I was first set aback by the NHS text, I was annoyed at my reaction. I thought, Come on dude you are a completely different person than when everything happened, and you’re a completely different person from when you got your first smear test too! You’re being dramatic for no reason.
I think my reaction makes it relevant. I had lots of trauma therapy, time, and healing on my side. Why did I feel like that exact version of myself again? Yes, trauma and triggers are the direct answers, but this anger I felt towards acting like an old version of myself brought up this idea thrown around by society that whoever you are before your twenties doesn’t count because you haven’t discovered your true self yet.
It’s not just random parents. Social media, self-help books, influencers, and desperate-to-be-relevant Netflix rom-coms are always saying that phrase that drives me insane:
“Your twenties are about figuring out who you are.”
Absolutely. Yes. Truth. Period. On the surface level, I one hundred percent agree with that statement. This decade of our lives allows many of us the opportunities to explore our gender, sexuality, career, relationships, mental health recovery, etc. All of these are important factors that help us curate the ways in which we identify ourselves and the spaces in which we belong.
One thing about this statement I struggle with is the way it assumes we are not whole people before this period of our lives. Are we not fully fledged beings with hopes and fears at seven and seventeen? Just because we lack information or experience at certain periods of early development doesn't mean we are less “us.” I get that a lot of people don’t have access to who they fully are at a young age in terms of gender expression and things like that outside of our control. I am not ignoring that at all. I am trying to say that it is vital to acknowledge each particular version of our past selves because they have led us into our present and inform our walk towards the future. I also think putting pressure on this specific decade of life is harmful. Not everyone is ready to explore these vast aspects of identity at the same time. Every flower sprouts on its own terms. The beauty lies in the bloom alone. That’s what we celebrate.
Anna Degnbol
Maybe I feel strongly about this because I have a strange underlying feeling that I have always known exactly who I am at different stages in my life so far, and that scares me to death. My struggle is not in searching for her but instead in allowing her to occupy space. The decision is whether to let the light shine on her gently or hide her away in favour of portraying something else I feign recognition towards.
Trauma—a word I know my generation overuses—is a big part of this. My fellow mid-twenties pals and I are at a loss about who we are because we want to run far away from who we have been. I know I’ve done it. As a survivor of Sexual Assault, I know it’s good to recognise that even as time goes on, I was a victim at one point, and I have to acknowledge that part of my life as real. It’s hard, especially now that I have come such a long way from it. There is a great temptation to never speak about it again and pretend it never happened. How could something like that happen to anyone? Yet it does. I don’t really write about it or make art related to it because there is a part of me that feels like I don’t deserve to recognise something from so long ago. Does that “me” matter? I am not her anymore. I think there is even a small part of me that feels embarrassed. I haven't talked about it in so long, but now I am reflecting again. How am I not over it? How could I ever be?
I think it’s relevant to this obsession of figuring out who you are because when you are violently robbed of your body autonomy, a death-like experience occurs. In the process of becoming undone, you cling to whatever bits of self you can find. The building blocks of piecing yourself back together are made of those lingering parts. You want to be anyone but who you were, as if you might escape a fate that has already occurred. When I had to start over, I didn’t see the parts of me that stayed at first. I had no idea who I was. I know they stuck somehow though, because eventually, I found the courage to look at myself in the mirror again, and looking back at me, I saw a friendly stranger I somehow recognised. She rejoiced: “Oh, there you are. I missed you.”
Like most human beings, the parts of myself that make me who I am change depending on age, experience, and hardship. However, the heart that beats within me, that longs to learn, love, and persevere, stands tall with its back against the constant turning of the clock.
Anna Degnbol
The truth is that we are all forced to change and adapt to survive. It’s legit science! Still, maybe our willingness to withstand the stagnant definition of personhood, the ability to transform over and over again in our own unique ways, reveals the key to understanding who we are. Maybe that connects us to some pure form of self if that can exist. More so, the withstanding of constant change alongside some type of lasting self allows us to continue to find ways of connecting with one another in a world that seemingly wants us torn apart.
Your twenties are about finding the courage to be who you have always been and connecting that to who you strive to be against all the odds.
People keep asking me what I want to do with my life. I don’t know. I want to be happy and comfortable while accepting the nature of the global state of things. I want to keep writing in some way until I stop breathing. I want to spend as much time laughing and making others laugh as possible. Whatever my answer is on a given day, people still chime in with the “figuring out who you are” chatter.
I silently apologise to the women and girls I have already been. They were just figuring out how to exist without consequence. I am seasoned enough in the game of life now to know there is no such thing. I do, however, think I know who I am: a person who continues to build her life around curiosity and love.
So if you’re in your mid-twenties, or any age for that matter, and you feel like you have no idea who you are and what you want to do with your life, don’t panic. You don’t need to know who you are all the time, and you don’t necessarily have to do a bunch of random jobs and activities to find out. I know the world is a pretty gross place a lot of the time, and it feels that way, especially right now. All I can say is take things day by day. Take the flop era and go all out with it- make it a belly flop! Think of the things that make you smile. Think about the things in the world you wish you could change. Think about what makes you hopeful.
If you can, get the smear test or whatever thing you’ve been avoiding because of past triggers - it’s important, and I know it’s super hard, but you can do it. I believe in you. Fill the spaces that lack compassion and understanding with your own. Be kind to the people you once were, and make space for incoming versions of yourself. You cannot change the past; you cannot take the blame for things that aren’t your fault; you can only accept the fact that you are a human being who is trying their best, and trying, my friends, is the best we can do.
(and please- believe survivors.)
Artwork by Anna Degnbol