It is safe to say that your twenties are some of your most formative and turbulent years. I can definitely confirm that, and I’m just twenty-one. You experience a lot of changes: exciting ones, like meeting new people, going to new places, beginning new chapters, as well as difficult ones, like dealing with losses, hardships, failures, and uncertainties… the list could go on. Your twenties can feel like a never-ending array of one win followed by one thousand other disappointments and failures.
For some time now, I have been trying to grapple with that feeling of how to handle this confusing and transitional part of my life, on how to best manage my anxiety and my stress, and one thing that the internet kept telling me is that I need to be “healed.”
At first, it felt productive, so I took the advice to focus on my hobbies, talk to my friends, keep myself busy with schoolwork, and try to avoid things that provoked my anxiety, like thinking about the future. I even started seeking professional help with my deeper-rooted issues, and it felt good for a while, listening to all of this internet advice. But after some time, I got to thinking, what’s next for me?, and it started to feel like I was in a never-ending, futile cycle of trying to heal while headed in no particular direction.
I started to question whether I will ever be “fully healed.” I found it comforting that Hannah Ewens, writing for The Guardian, had a similar experience. She writes that she became spiritual, joined many recovery groups, and even went to tarot card readings for guidance. While she said these experiences did enlighten her, after that period of enlightenment came a darkness of feeling too comfortable in her state of healing, and ultimately, a feeling of being broken.
She writes: “Then came the subtle backlash. I realised I was doing too much. I knew too much. I had too much awareness. I was letting go of my ego (good?), but was more disconnected than ever from what I wanted (bad—in fact, the opposite of what I wanted).”
That is the paradox of it all. Somewhere along the way, healing has turned into “fixing”. The internet has been marketing that we must always fix what is broken to feel whole again.
The more I tried to heal, like Ewens, I felt that I centred my identity around being someone who needed healing. Every setback I encountered reinforced my inner insecurity that I am maybe not good enough, or that the reason this did not work out for me is that I am not “whole” enough, and these experiences were proof that I needed more healing. I dreamed about the day I would wake up and feel like this “whole” version of me. But life does not work like that, and neither do people.
What I am slowly beginning to realise is that the goal is never to be fully healed in the first place. Maybe the discomfort and confusion are signs of change. Of course, if you are experiencing severe mental health problems, it is important to seek professional help. The University has amazing on-campus resources, like their wonderful student services team, which is always more than happy to help with anything that you are struggling with.
But I guess what I have gathered from my ongoing healing journey is that your twenties are not problems to solve. They are a period defined by constant change, which makes the idea of being fully “healed” feel like you’re meant to reach a fixed endpoint, which goes against your whole experience of your twenties. Maybe it is helpful to see healing not as a destination but as an ongoing process. In that sense, it is okay to accept that you can be growing and still feel lost, and it is actually comforting to see yourself as a work in progress instead of constantly trying to obsessively fix yourself.