What This Theme Explores
Identity and the Loss of Self in The Way I Used to Be asks how a person rebuilds when the continuity of the self has been ruptured. For Eden McCrorey, rape is not only a single violent event but a seismic shift that makes the “before” version of herself feel unreachable. The novel probes whether survival requires reinvention, whether reinvention can become self-erasure, and how truth-telling might knit disparate selves back together. It ultimately considers what authenticity looks like after trauma: not a return to the old self, but the forging of a self that can contain both pain and resilience.
How It Develops
In freshman year, the self shatters. Eden experiences an immediate split from “the way I used to be,” rejecting her former identity as naive and culpable. She tries to outrun recognition—internal and external—by creating a book club to avoid the cafeteria and the social roles that once defined her. These early moves aren’t confident choices so much as survival tactics; the new routines double as a disguise and a plea for safety.
Sophomore year becomes a deliberate reconstruction. Eden changes her look—contacts, clothes, hair—and with it, the way others reflect her back. Even someone she’ll later care for, Josh Miller, doesn’t recognize her, a moment that feels like power: invisibility as freedom. Yet this self is an exoskeleton. Strict rules keep people at a distance because she can’t integrate the old pain into the new surface.
After her relationship with Josh collapses, junior year fractures the reconstruction. Eden adopts a reckless, promiscuous persona; the performance grants a fleeting sense of control but deepens her estrangement from her own feelings. The more she performs not-caring, the more hollow she becomes, severing ties to people who once knew her best and pushing even memories of her former self further away.
Senior year begins the first real integration. News of Kevin Armstrong’s arrest drags the past into the present, forcing Eden to confront not just what happened but who she has been because of it. When she speaks the truth, she doesn’t “become” the girl she was—she couldn’t—but she starts to assemble a self that can hold the contradictions: innocence and knowledge, fear and courage, silence and voice.
Key Examples
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The immediate aftermath: Eden rejects her past self outright, signaling a break so severe that memory itself feels like a threat to survival.
But I’m not her anymore. I don’t even want to be her anymore. That girl who was so naive and stupid—the kind of girl who could let something like this happen to her. — Chapter 1-5 Summary This moment establishes the core wound of the book: not only harm to the body, but a rupture in self-continuity. Her disdain for “that girl” becomes the engine for self-erasure and reinvention.
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The decision to change: Eden embraces reinvention as both escape and aspiration, borrowing a language of change that sounds empowering but hides profound dissociation.
"I’m reinventing myself. Everyone else gets to change." ... "I guess." I can’t exactly protest too much, because honestly, the idea of reinventing myself sounds pretty appealing. This signals a shift from reactive avoidance to conscious self-curation; yet the appeal of reinvention rests on rejecting the “old” Eden, not integrating her, sowing the seeds for later fragmentation.
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The new persona: When Josh fails to recognize her, anonymity feels like relief, proof that the past can be scrubbed from the surface.
That’s when I realize he has absolutely no idea who I am... And somehow, I really like the way that feels. I smile again. — Chapter 6-10 Summary The thrill of not being seen underscores a paradox: power through invisibility. It works socially, but it also confirms her growing disconnect from her own inner life.
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The brother’s perspective: Caelin McCrorey becomes a mirror that no longer reflects the person he knew.
“You know, I don’t even recognize you anymore.” — Chapter 11-15 Summary His bewilderment crystallizes the totality of Eden’s transformation—not just a new look, but a severed relational identity. If family can’t locate her, the loss of self has become communal as well as internal.
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The yearbook reflection: Eden stares at a past image that now feels foreign, identifying an unnamed absence that trauma carved out.
And I have this smile on my face, but it’s all wrong... That missing something is something important, something crucial, something taken. Something gone now. Maybe for good. — Chapter 21-25 Summary The snapshot becomes an autopsy photo of innocence; she can name the vacancy even if she cannot restore it. The recognition moves her closer to truth, the necessary precondition for integration.
Character Connections
Eden McCrorey: Eden cycles through protective disguises—quiet girl, confident new girl, casual girlfriend, “slut”—each an attempt to control what others see, and therefore what feels real. The personas work until they don’t; each sheds a part of her that needs acknowledgment. Her turning point comes when she stops choosing between past and present selves and starts speaking from both.
Mara: Mara’s makeover is framed as reclaiming her “real me” from bullying, offering a healthier model of change. By contrast, Eden’s transformations suppress the “real me” to avoid pain. The growing distance between them illustrates how trauma isolates identity work; the survivor’s internal battle often goes unseen, misread as fickleness or rebellion.
Josh Miller: Josh loves the girl Eden performs sophomore year but senses a hidden self he can’t reconcile. His confusion mirrors the novel’s central conflict: if Eden can’t integrate her identities, no one else can do it for her. Their breakup exposes the limits of relational validation when an internal fracture remains unhealed.
Caelin McCrorey: As the sibling tether to “the way she used to be,” Caelin’s failure to see Eden’s pain compounds her isolation. His later shock—“I don’t even recognize you”—is both indictment and lament, showing how family narratives can erase survivors when they can’t (or won’t) hold the truth.
Kevin Armstrong: As perpetrator and gaslighter—“No one will ever believe you”—Kevin attempts to fix Eden’s identity as voiceless and discredited. His arrest interrupts that imposed narrative, creating space for Eden’s voice to redefine who she is and what happened to her.
Symbolic Elements
Eden’s physical appearance: Glasses and band-geek clothes mark the pre-trauma self; contacts, new hair, and trendy outfits are armor. The makeover grants control over how she is read, but as armor, it prevents intimacy as much as it provides safety, dramatizing the cost of self-protection.
The bedroom: Because the assault occurs there, her room becomes an internal wound mapped onto space. Sleeping on the floor in a bag and compulsively locking the door ritualize vigilance; the room no longer shelters a self, it polices one.
The yearbook: A book meant to archive continuity becomes an artifact of rupture. Seeing a stranger in her own photo reveals that time alone can’t restore identity; only truth-telling can bridge the “before/after” chasm.
Contemporary Relevance
Eden’s story resonates with contemporary conversations about trauma, C-PTSD, and dissociation, especially the “before” and “after” language many survivors use. The novel refuses the cultural script of “getting over it,” insisting instead on the long, nonlinear labor of integrating grief, anger, and memory into a livable identity. In a world that rewards curated personas, Eden’s journey challenges the allure of reinvention as a cure, advocating for voice, community belief, and trauma-informed care as foundations for authentic selfhood.
Essential Quote
But I’m not her anymore. I don’t even want to be her anymore.
This declaration captures both the necessity and danger of reinvention. It names the survival instinct to abandon the “old” self while foreshadowing the cost of rejecting one’s own history. The arc of the novel transforms this line from erasure into redefinition, as Eden learns to speak from, not against, the girl she used to be.