Let’s discuss the unexpected emotional kick to the gonads that happens when your past randomly pops up, like one of those meerkats coming up for air out of its burrow, right when you’re starting to feel the tiniest flicker of pride about how far you’ve come.

Maybe someone brings it up in conversation, casually or maybe not so casually. Maybe it’s family. Or an old friend. Or a version of you that still lives in someone else’s memory. Maybe it’s not even someone else. Maybe it’s just you, lying awake at night, doing the greatest hits of regret.

We have all been there.

Change Is Hard Enough Without Extra Commentary

The thing is: change is hard enough without constantly having to defend your progress to the ghost of who you used to be.

I’ve been there. In fact, I’m there way more often than I’d like to admit. Attempting to grow and holding around a past that sometimes feels more in step than your present? It’s draining. And when you live with CPTSD, your past isn’t exactly in the rear view mirror. It has been embedded into the way your nervous system works, how you trust, how you respond, and ultimately how you protect yourself.

It’s complicated. Really complicated.

What I’m Learning About Growth (The Hard Way)

But here’s what I’m learning:

You don’t owe anyone a performance. And you don’t have to prove your healing to a jury.

Your past is part of your story, but it doesn’t get to be the whole story. Not anymore.

People might still see you through their purview of who you were when you were struggling the most. That’s okay. That’s human. People freeze-frame. They don’t always see the ongoing work you’re doing, the uncomfortable conversations, the therapy, the accountability, or the learning to sit with your own feelings without spiralling into shame.

And you might not get acknowledgment for any of that. You might even get judged for the fact that you’re still not perfect.

Hell, none of us are.

This Is What Real Change Looks Like

But change isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being in process.

It’s about showing up differently, even when nobody’s paying attention. And answering shame with self-compassion. It’s about knowing that regret doesn’t mean you’ve to live in a glass cage, it means you give a damn. And that’s not something to be ashamed of. That’s what growth looks like.

So if your past gets brought up, especially when you’re doing your best to change, here’s what I hope you’ll remember:

Yes, that was you.
But it’s not all of you.
And it’s definitely not who you’re working so hard to become.

You’re Allowed to Outgrow Who You Were

Self-growth doesn’t erase the past; It enables you to live alongside that version of you, but in a way that is healthier. The fact that you are looking to change puts distance between now and that version of you that once was. People will mention it out of habit, pain, or because they don’t know who you’re becoming.

Let them.

Your job isn’t to erase your past. It’s to own it and outgrow it.

If someone brings it up to shame you, that’s say’s more about their comfort level with your evolution, not your worth. Or if someone brings it up because they’re scared to trust the new you, that’s human. Trust takes time.

And if you bring it up to beat yourself down, pause.

You’re allowed to acknowledge who you were without canceling who you are.

Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash