Hi monica

Sorry your having a rough time of it lately. I think is pretty normal to see oneself from a younger perspective. For the longest time I saw myself though the eyes of my 18-year-old self especially when I when home for a visit and I would ask myself the same questions your asking. Perhaps because I was 18 when I left home.

Jung taught that one of the tasks of becoming or individuation was to come to terms with the mother/father complex. This tends to come up at the age you are regardless of the type of parents we have.

Basically, what I think this means is that as we enter adulthood we need to become our own mother and father – connect to the mother/father archetypes – allow that “energy” to resonate within ourselves vice outwardly… However you want to put it the task requires that we learn to nurture, discipline and protect ourselves.  One of the steps of this process is to get to a place where you can see your parents as individuals and not only mother and father. Individuals with hopes and dreams of there own as well as other imperfections.

A great book by Cheryl Strayed called the Wild is example of a young woman going through the process after her mother dies to soon. In this case her mother was “to good” and Cherly was dependent on her to nurture her. Without her mother and no father in the picture she was at a loss as to how to nurture and be disciplined. At the end of her hero journey, a walk in the wild, she see her mother as she was and in that way developed a more healthy relationship to the archetype mother and better able to take care of her self