Becoming, Lucy

I don’t think anyone under the age of 25 should be able to make life changing decisions.

Hear me out before you jump either way. Sit on the fence. Get comfortable.

Unfortunately, I was under 25 when I made most of my life changing decisions. I have lived as the girl making life altering decisions and the woman looking back at them just wanting to give younger me a hug.

I moved out at 17 with my ex, I was responsible for bills at 18, I was pregnant at 20, I was in charge of a whole human two months before my 21st, then I experienced two miscarriages and fell pregnant with my youngest at 23. And in between all that are life-altering decisions like moving home, changing jobs (too many times), making a relationship work, choosing a damn car (why is that so hard?) and decisions around money. And not once did I feel like an adult during any of it. I felt like a fraud. A child playing dress up.

But recently—finally—I have been having a lot more clarity on who I am as a person. I have been trusting myself and my own boundaries a lot more. As well as my capabilities as a woman living in this world and raising two young children alone. But with this clarity comes reflection on past decisions. With the reflection there is a lot of anger and sadness felt towards myself, the situations I was in, and sometimes even the other people involved.

As I have dived deeper into my feelings surrounding different situations and things that I have made conscious choices on, I have realised the version of myself I am now feels unrecognisable to those Lucys when I was 16 – 25… There wasn’t just one Lucy back then, there was two. Present Lucy is the third.

Before I continue, I really do want to reiterate that I am in no way saying any of my decisions were a mistake or that I regret some of the things I chose. I only wish I had the tools I have now.

I think we should probably start at the end? (Or just anywhere, Luce, just start.) I had a therapy session a few weeks ago where I was talking about my relationship with my ex, how I stuck it out even when I knew it wasn’t working. I felt a lot of resentment towards myself because of it but that’s not actually what we were talking about. We were discussing what part of me was making those decisions to stay as long as I did. Was it the part of me that hoped for the future we had planned? Was it the part of me that thought love looked like that? Was it the part of me thinking that was as much as I deserved?

I didn’t come to a clear answer. I know it isn’t as straightforward as picking one and saying ‘yep, that’s the answer’. But as part of our discussion we discussed the transactional analysis model (it’s a regular theme in my therapy). For anyone unfamiliar, this is a psychological theory used in therapy that refers to a person as having three ego-states: parent, adult and child. The ego-states are present in everyday interactions and situations, and decide how we react/behave. The ‘parent’ is where thoughts, behaviours and feelings are copied from our parents/authority figures. The ‘child’ is where we replay thoughts, feelings and behaviours from childhood. And the ‘adult’ is the one that’s present in situations but each state feeds information to the other.

My therapist and I don’t stick aggressively to this model but it has helped me understand my thought process a lot better and recognise who/what is leading me. I keep referring to the woman that shows up when I’m being capable, setting boundaries and feeling sure of myself as the adult. And when I look back at my life between the ages of 16-25, I feel like all I see is the parent and child states leading my life.

My parent-state had internalised this idea of what I thought love should look like and my child-state was simply seeking love and acceptance. But then I have to bring into question that maybe adult-state Lucy was making decisions based on who she was and what I valued.

Because that’s the thing about the Transactional Analysis model — it isn’t saying that the adult is good and the parent and child are bad. Healthy functioning involves all three of them. Without all of those learned behaviours and feelings, the adult wouldn’t be able to make decisions or set boundaries and feel sure of them. Sometimes, of course, one state rules over the others or sways a decision one way because that feeling or thought process is stronger and more prominent than the others. So then I have to sit there with myself and think that I consciously made these decisions based on… what? My perception of love? My perception of myself?

All of this to say I can’t be arsed anymore and just argue amongst yourselves x

Anyway, during reflection I have of course spiralled into trying to find a straightforward answer (because why would I not?) and that has inevitably led to some questions about myself and where to place the blame. Which I know isn’t healthy. It’s not about blame, it’s about what I do with whatever comes up. There was a moment when I was trying to make myself believe that I wasn’t in charge of my own decisions so it sat better with me – that the parent and child ego-states led me. That the adult-state was sleeping and has been kept hidden away. But that isn’t true.

I recognised my adult was making the decisions back then, but she wasn’t working with neutral information. I didn’t make decisions on positive beliefs about myself. I didn’t apply boundaries. I didn’t allow myself to receive anything better than what I thought I deserved. Which based on the information I had back then about myself, it makes sense as to why I stayed so long in a place where certain situations kept reinforcing these ideas about myself.

The adult grows and learns with us. The adult makes decisions based on what it knows. Everything comes into play. Adult Lucy was there at 17. Adult Lucy was there at 20. Adult Lucy was there at 23. She was just working from completely different data.

Which leads me to now. Why am I only learning these things about myself at twenty-fucking-six? Why am I only just learning how to fucking think when I’ve been doing adult shit for nearly a decade? It pisses me the hell off and that’s why one of my first thoughts was “who let me make life altering decisions before I knew myself?”

Still, can we really put a timeline on when someone’s adult develops? Can we even determine that “yes, you know yourself well enough to make informed adult decisions.” I don’t think we can because we are learning and gathering information everyday and changing constantly.

And I have just ended up doing one big circle and I want to cry with frustration. Brb x

At the beginning I said there were three Lucys. I did that to reduce the blame on myself. And I was right to reduce the blame on myself but I shouldn’t have done that by splitting myself into three. I am one woman and each version of me made decisions based on what she knew. Of course I made some of the decisions I did. I wasn’t stupid. I just couldn’t make decisions based on what I hadn’t learned yet. 17-year-old me couldn’t set a boundary based on self-worth I hadn’t learned. 20-year-old me couldn’t use 26-year-olds me’s understanding of relationships. I only had myself. I only have myself now too. And I trust myself. I have to trust that I am unfinished and not hold anything against myself… Would I even have this knowledge now if I didn’t make a decision whilst I was still unfinished?

So basically, I have spent the last 1000+ words telling you how being an adult works and that none of us have any fucking clue what we’re doing, no matter our age, no matter how much we know ourselves. That the woman writing this today will not be the same adult in 5, 10, 15 years. I will have changed many more times with each life lesson that gets thrown my way.

Unfortunately, nobody has figured out how to live a life without making decisions before knowing how they’ll feel about them later.

Unfortunately, that’s adulthood.

Great. How fun x