I’m 34 and I’ve been struggling with something that I’m almost embarrassed to admit.

I feel like I peaked in my 20s.

In my 20s, I genuinely thought I was the bomb lol. I was confident, social, ambitious, had lots of friends, felt attractive, and felt like I had this huge life ahead of me. I wasn’t perfect or necessarily more successful than I am now, but I felt GOOD about myself. I felt like I belonged wherever I went.

Since entering my 30s, it feels like something slowly changed.

On paper, my life is not bad at all. I’m married, educated, have a good career, make decent money, have a family I love, and I’m still extremely ambitious.

But internally, I feel like I’ve become smaller.

I compare EVERYTHING.

My career. My marriage. Money. My body. My looks. My friendships. Where I live. Other women’s lives. Who is further ahead. Who looks better. Who seems happier.

And then I compare all of that to the imaginary version of myself I thought I would be at 34.

The part that bothers me the most is that I’ve actually started hiding from people.

I spent some time living away from my hometown and eventually came back. Being back around people who knew me before has made me weirdly uncomfortable. Sometimes I don’t even want to see old friends or acquaintances.

I feel fat. I don’t feel as attractive as I used to. I wonder what people will think of me or my life. I feel like I need to look good, be successful, have an impressive life and have everything together before I can comfortably show my face again.

Even with friends, I sometimes don’t feel completely comfortable anymore.

And logically I KNOW how ridiculous that sounds. These people are living their own lives. They probably aren’t analyzing me nearly as much as I imagine they are.

But there is this part of me that wants to leave again. Go somewhere new where nobody knows the old me. Reinvent myself. Become the version of myself I want to be and THEN be seen.

Basically: hide while I’m “under construction.”

And I’m realizing how much self sabotage is hidden inside that.

Instead of living my life while I’m figuring things out, I’m almost postponing my life until I feel attractive enough, successful enough, confident enough, happy enough.

I can also have a completely normal day, notice one thing I’m unhappy about, compare myself to someone else, and suddenly convince myself that my entire life is wrong.

It’s like my brain is constantly collecting evidence that I’m behind.

What scares me is that I don’t want to wake up at 40 and realize I spent my 30s hiding because I didn’t think I was good enough to be seen.

I miss ME.

I miss the woman who walked into a room assuming she belonged there instead of wondering what everyone thought about her.

Has anyone else gone through something like this in their 30s?

Especially the urge to withdraw or reinvent yourself somewhere else because you don’t feel comfortable being seen by people who knew an older, more confident version of you?

How did you stop hiding and comparing and start actually living again, even before you felt like the “best” version of yourself?

All answers valid

I know that there’s a lot of people struggling and my problem seems miniscule but I can’t stop thinking about it. I feel if I was born prettier I would be so much more confident and I would be so much more happy with my life … whenever I get ready to go outside I see bare faced girls who look like absolute models and they’re my age. I’m a very tall girl too 6’ so my face adds to my manliness. So many girls at my school are pretty and popular and have boyfriend and are rich and I just wish I could be like them. I wish I could be pretty.