Frankenstein of my former selves

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m not just one person anymore. Rather, like I’m a Frankenstein of my former selves - stitched together from versions of me that didn’t survive but never really died either. They linger. They haunt. They help.

There’s the me who used to apologize for everything, even my own presence in a room. She’s still curled up somewhere inside, flinching when someone looks too long, even if it’s not at me. Next to her sits the version who thought for a minute that she was fetching, only to realize, not anymore. They’re stitched together at the spine, and they’re constantly pulling in opposite directions.

There’s a teenager in there who tried so hard to be liked that she never really figured out who she was. I haven’t seen her in a while, but sometimes she whispers in my ear when I think about trying something new - “Sit down. Don’t embarrass yourself.” It’s sad how often I’ve listened to her.

There’s the one who believed love would save her, but that she would never really deserve it. The one who gave up on all her hopes and dreams for a few feckless pomps. She still lives in my chest, hands pressed over my heart, waiting for the final blow that might come. But now she’s sharing space with the one who learned to stay - alone, if necessary.

And then there are the ones I’ve buried, the ones I’m afraid to look at too closely. The angry one. The scared one. The one who self-destructed because it felt easier than sitting with the pain. I don’t like them. But they built me, too.

None of these versions were ever fully destroyed. They just went underground, hiding in the folds, echoing in habits I can’t explain and reactions I can’t control. And now, I carry them. All of them. Each one patched into the fabric of who I am now.

The thread is thick with memories. Regret. Growth. Defense mechanisms I forgot to uninstall. Pieces of me sewn together not by choice, but by necessity.

The seams between them aren’t always neat. I feel it when I contradict myself, when I outgrow a habit but still reach for it out of muscle memory. When I act out of anger that belonged to someone I used to be. It’s not elegant. It’s not linear. It’s messy. Monstrous, even.

But that monstrosity - it’s alive.

I didn’t wake up whole. I wasn’t born coherent. I’ve had to build this version of myself from scraps, from bruises, from breakthroughs, from moments I thought would break me and ones I couldn't begin to register until much later. And every version of me, even the ones I’d rather forget, gave me something.

A warning. A boundary. A scar that taught me never to leave my drink again. A voice I didn’t know I had.

So yeah, I’m stitched together. Jagged in places. Confusing to people who want clean lines and simple stories. But I am mine. Authentically, irreversibly mine.

And maybe that’s what healing really is - not becoming someone new, but making peace with all the people you’ve had to be in order to survive.

Because each version of me, even the ones I buried deep, brought something vital. They made me complex. Layered. Human.

Sure, it’s ugly sometimes. I’m not seamless and I’m most certainly not polished. But I’m alive in a way I never was before - alive with history, with contradiction, with resilience.

So maybe I am a monster. But I’m my monster.

And there's something kind of beautiful about that.

Sign up for my newsletter to get more content like this delivered straight to your inbox! Subscribe  

I'd love to hear from you! Please leave any questions, comments, or insights in the comments section below.