Twenty-Something Rants: The Unmasking - What I Lost and Found in My Twenties
An image by BBB - inspired by Lizzie Mcguire
It’s the end.
Back in my early 20s, when I first started blogging, I wrote like my life depended on it.
I was painting the world the way I saw it, raw, detailed, and honest. My words were often emotional dumps wrapped in short stories, a mix of heartbreak, hope, and frustration with the world around me. Like, the mini series #TWENTYSOMETHINGRANTS Sometimes they were written as rants. Sometimes, as letters to a love that didn’t exist. Sometimes as conversations I wish someone would have conversations with me.
I was a little pick-meisha back then, and I can be honest . The kind of young woman who craved her first experiences as a rite of passage. I couldn’t wait to know what it felt like to be chosen, to be adored, to be seen as worthy in someone’s eyes. That urgency, that hunger, came from being a sheltered girl, from growing up in a home where I was emotionally overlooked, where experiences were missing, and affection felt like a prize you had to earn.
I spent the first half of my 20s in this cycle of wanting. Wanting to be loved, to feel important, and to belong somewhere. I was always giving, stretching myself to be likable, to be palatable, to be what people needed, even when I was empty, especially when I was empty.
And while I was pouring out, I wasn’t being poured into. I didn’t yet understand the cost of that.
I became a version of myself that was timid around confrontation. I was afraid of stepping on toes, always more concerned about losing people than about losing myself. I avoided discomfort, even when it meant letting others harm me just a little bit, just enough to keep the peace. It’s funny, because I was often told I was “a lot,” that I had fire, that I could be too direct, but I still picked and chose where and when I could show up loud. I was passionate about politics, about justice, but I didn’t yet know how to stand up for myself with that same conviction.
In so many ways, I was a doormat in my early 20s. A scapegoat in my family. The disposable one. The one who was supposed to absorb everyone else’s mess and never make a sound. I entered the world determined not to experience those dynamics, but they found me anyway. I found myself being preyed on in new forms, and the harm was often minimized because people didn’t think it was “that bad.” But it was.
And even when it wasn’t “that bad,” it was still enough to scar.
I spent years trying to hold onto people who weren’t safe, trying to maintain friendships and relationships that weren’t fully mutual, giving my last to folks who wouldn’t have given me a drop of water in a drought. I thought that made me a good person. I thought that was love. But I was just reenacting a cycle of self-neglect. A cycle I inherited.
Eventually, I had to ask myself: Why are you performing?
I would take time to acknowledge that I️ grew up in a broken family system where love was performance-based. Where people wore masks to survive. Where I learned that caretaking was the fastest route to feeling seen. Where I didn’t feel safe to say, “I’m not okay.” So I never did. I just kept pushing, performing, producing.
My inner child? She was not protected. She was left behind in rooms where the adults were emotionally unavailable, where abuse was present, and nobody talked about it. Where secrets were swept under the rug and the show went on. I had to be the one to finally stop the performance.
And let me tell you, that unmasking was ugly at first.
I had to learn how to sit with myself. How to not run. How to not reach for a new project or person to pour into. I had to ask myself what it meant to truly be well, not just appear to be. I started therapy. I started naming the harm. I started pulling back my energy from places that didn’t replenish me.
I stopped explaining myself to people who were committed to misunderstanding me. I reclaimed my boundaries like my life depended on them, because it did.
I began to notice how much I had learned to perform safety. I knew how to make people feel at ease. I knew how to be the helper, the fixer, the nurturer. But I didn’t know what it felt like to be safe with people. Not truly. I was too accessible. Too available. Too kind, even when I was crumbling inside.
And I realized this isn’t kindness. This is conditioning. This is trauma. This is self-erasure dressed up as “care.”
In the process of breaking down, I started building something new. I began to turn that energy inward. I began to love myself the way I had loved others. I began to grieve the time I lost, not knowing I deserved more. And I began to redefine what love, friendship, and community meant.
Let’s talk about the professional journey, too, because whew, that was another area where I lost myself.
I thought that my value was in my job title, in my paycheck, in the name of the organization I worked for. I shrank myself in jobs where I wasn’t valued. I was told I wasn’t good enough. I was told what I couldn’t do. And I believed them. Because when the people around you speak with confidence, even their lies sound like gospel.
But that was a lie. All of it. My creativity was never meant to be boxed in. My passion was never meant to be muted. And their inability to see me had nothing to do with my light. It just wasn’t for them to hold.
In the final stretch of my 20s, I got louder. Not in volume, but in truth. I stopped proving. I stopped auditioning. I stopped bending. And I started walking away from tables where love and respect weren’t being served.
Here’s 30 things that I’ve learned in the final seasons of my twenties:
There is a difference between being kind and being conditioned. Real kindness comes from choice, not from trauma responses that make you over-give to feel safe.
Boundaries aren't walls, they're lifelines - I reclaimed my boundaries like my life depended on them, because it did.
Healing doesn't mean you'll never hurt again. It means you know how to come back to yourself every single time.
It’s okay to say: “I'm NOT okay!"
Walk away from tables where love and respect aren't being served. Your presence is a gift, not a given.
Trauma dressed up as love is still trauma!
Your creativity was never meant to be muted.
Your job title isn't your identity.
Your inner child is still waiting for protection.
You can bloom in the rubble. The rain that soaks you can also be the rain that grows you.
Stop operating past your capacity. Being a lifeline for people who would never throw you one is exhausting and unsustainable.
Scarcity lies.
There is a difference between performing safety vs. actually feeling safe.
Stop explaining yourself to people committed to misunderstanding you.
Always ask: What am I chasing?
The masks we wear to survive eventually suffocate us - take the mask off so you can BREATHE.
You will learn that the version of yourself you were hiding was actually the one worth remembering.
Stop auditioning for people. I spent years proving my worth to people who had already decided I wasn't enough. The right people don't make you audition.
In your twenties, you’ll find yourself paying emotional debts you never owed. The pain isn’t yours, but healing can be. Therapy will help you trace the bill back to its source.
Stop pouring out without pouring in: That's self-neglect.
There will come a time where you will face the pain of your upbringing. Remember to always be kind yourself!
Say you love yourself more.
F—— people pleasing.
Time doesn’t heal all wounds, working through the mess does!
Don’t give people permission to shrink you!
You will survive heartbreak and grow through it.
Going no contact will protect you.
You will discover that the people who minimize your harm are often the ones benefiting from your silence.
You will wish you had more photos of the girl who was figuring it out, not just the moments when you had it all together.
You will realize that some of your money problems are actually boundary problems in disguise.
Every time I was brought to my knees, something more aligned found me. I returned to myself with more clarity. I bloomed in the rubble. I learned that the rain that soaked me was also the rain that grew me.
In those moments, broke, betrayed, overlooked, I met the little girl in me again. The one who was always creating, always dreaming, always hopeful. She reminded me of who I really was before the world told me who I had to be.
Now, as I close out my 20s, I am no longer interested in being likable. I am interested in being real. Being safe. Being free. I am no longer performing wellness. I’m doing the work to embody it. I’m no longer giving endlessly. I’m pouring from my capacity. And I finally understand that healing doesn’t mean I’ll never hurt again. It just means I now know how to come back to myself, every single time.
The 20s were loud, messy, exhausting, sacred.
And necessary.
I wouldn’t do them again, but I wouldn’t trade what they taught me for anything.
Entering the 30-somethings, I’m learning new lessons. This is a chapter of caring for myself unapologetically, of loving myself loudly, of not playing about me. I know now that trauma is a part of life, but I also know I have the tools to name it, to honor it, and to break the cycles that once kept me bound.
As the song “Live in the Sky” says, life’s ups and downs come and go, but what goes around comes back you know. In this decade, I want joy. I want peace. I want softness.
So here’s to the breakthroughs that follow the breakdowns. Here’s to loving myself better. Here’s to releasing the weight and choosing what feels aligned. I’m planting seeds of abundance for myself.
This is the closing chapter of my twenty-something season. And the beginning of everything else.
