I’m Literally Just A Girl

Oh nothing, just experiencing arrested development...

We’re all experiencing a collective arrested development and I think I’d like to call attention to it.

So, every planet is retroFADE throughout this month–making our already nutty reality even nutter. Mercury, of course, being one of the main planets in retrograde brings about extreme reflection. Basically, Mercury loves to bring up old shit. This time, it’s bringing up big feelings about my teenage years.

To say the least–it’s a move of God that I’m still here after those trauma-filled years. The shit I got from my family, school, “friends,” and general adolescence really changed my young psyche and I began to take on a lot of the disrespect and harm that was being inflicted upon me. It created a budding young woman who was deeply insecure and had no knowledge of her self-worth. As you can imagine, that snowballed into bigger issues down the line.

Even though I’ve been in therapy for years now–as we know–healing isn’t linear. Sometimes new revelations about old trauma and patterns resurface because we’ve received more information. The information I’ve received: I’ve always been a star and I should’ve blinded everyone who tried to dim my light.

Now, how did I come to such a conclusion–besides therapy? Shadow work. I’ve had to re-engage my inner teenager and ask her what she needed. Hindsight is 20/20 and I’m grateful to use it to continue to peel back the layers of that era. And while this post is mostly about me and what I’m currently addressing in therapy and my personal life, I feel like this is a collective endeavor.

“I’m just a girl” has literally gone from an early No Doubt song to a way of life. Women and girls from millennials on down have adopted this “mantra” as a way to revert back to childhood despite our big ages. It’s found on t-shirts, memes, marketing and I have to wonder why we’re all so obsessed with girlhood? My theory–we all wanna go back to our younger days, real bad.

I’ve seen this phrase used most among women who are in their early 40s and younger. We’re not girls anymore by a longshot–sorry sisters. However, something I think most of us have in common, we didn’t get a fair chance and girlhood.

In an era where mental health is becoming less taboo and we’re able to have psychologists at our fingertips, we’ve learned quite a bit about not only childhood trauma but also of the parentified child–particularly the “eldest daughter” phenomenon. The eldest daughter is characterized as being the child who has been given the role of surrogate mother/parent. This doesn’t have to apply to girls or children who are eldest in birth order. Parentification can be exhibited in single-family homes and homes where substance abuse is present.

I think that on top of a rapidly-changing social landscape for women, this knowledge and the desire to reclaim and heal our childhoods have led us to an unexpected “movement.”

For me, I need to reclaim my girlhood to make sure that I’m living as authentically as I can. While I understand that some of my desires and goals may not align as I’ve gotten older, I owe it to myself to be the truest version of myself before I started letting what other people think affect me. I am just a girl. A girl that has grown into a woman but wouldn’t dare leave her little self behind. I needed to know that I was okay–not who I tried to be for other people’s approval. So, my shadow work is to present myself as I am. To unapologetically be me and not try to contort myself into boxes for the comfort of others.

I hope that instead of a cutesy quote, “I’m just a girl” can be your jumpstart for repairing your inner child. Stay close to this space as I do my own inner work and help you do yours with prompts and long-form content.

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