demonizing the past
At times, it’s been tiring me out witnessing people going from demonizing (not just criticising) what they used to do and glorifying the next thing and being stuck in that cycle. I know it’s part of growing and finding yourself and what works for you, but many people do that in a more measured, private, playful and gradual way, and I think that’s the healthy way to do so.
The people I mean always do it in such a fervor, like they’re in a rush, and like anyone expects them to disavow their past interests and attempts publicly. Everything is a grand announcement where they cut something off. “I’m no longer doing x! It was stupid and toxic anyway! claps from the audience I will now do this other thing that is so much better until I disavow it just as intensely!”
There’s always a common denominator (them). The old gets blamed as the thing that held them back, the thing that misled them, something they bought into at a time of great distress. But now, now everything’s different with this new thing. That’s now actually who they are and it will unleash their power and support them better. Until in a few months, when this thing was also something they only did because of peer pressure or trauma or something else and also sucked.
I really get it and I used to be similar years ago; it’s very easy and understandable to blame something external all the time, and maybe aspects of these habits, things, identities really were not helpful. But in the grand scheme of things, this identifier, the way you tidy up your home, what app you use, the design of your website or the way you journal doesn’t have as much impact on your life as you might think. These are just the things you can most easily change with almost no risk and no effect, instead of the true reasons that can be very hard or impossible to change - financial status, education, social skills, support network, mental health and the like.
I think what specifically hurts to witness is how much it repeats and how much there is this need to publicly reinvent yourself. The need for a clear cut, a position, the start of a better life, a clean slate. Every revelation is treated as this grand absolute knowledge that people need to be informed about, lest they also fall for the great danger of… I don’t know, bullet journaling or something.
I think this desire and way to handle complex emotions is also what makes people susceptible to cults, MLMs, and specific very intense ideologies that are supposed to take up your entire personality.
If you ever find yourself in a cycle like that, I hope you can get out of it and extend more grace to yourself. You’re dealing with hard stuff on low energy and need easy solutions and a lot is presenting as one. You’re not an idiot for falling for it, but you can do better. Allow yourself not to rush into everything so hard and fast. Don’t feel like you owe everyone an explanation or have to announce everything. Understand your life as more gradual instead of hard chapters. Be thankful for what that thing or habit did for you in the past and acknowledge that while you used to need it, you’ve outgrown it now, and that doesn’t make it bad, just unfitting. Leave the door open to take from it what you need or to return to it in the future if need be. Understand that it might not have led you on, but that instead it’s you who changed and has stopped idealizing it now. It’s understandable to ride that high of a clean new slate, but it’s not something that’s great to do over and over again impulsively.