If you’re an adult now and grew up before the internet was packed with tips on how to dress, perfect your hair, and look your best, there’s a good chance you went through an awkward phase. I certainly did. When I was 14, I decided to cut my hair short, thinking I could pull off the look of one of my favorite female singers. Instead, I ended up with a haircut that earned me the nickname ‘Justin Bieber,’ because, as you might have guessed, it looked just like the iconic style so many teenage boys had between 2009 and 2014. The problem? I was a girl, and while many women can rock a pixie cut, it just wasn’t working for me.

Sometimes I can’t help but grimace when I look back at that short hair phase, but I also try to approach it with kindness and self-acceptance. After all, if you can’t experiment wildly with your look during your teenage years—when can you? I think those cringy experiences are humbling and help build your character and sense of humor.

The followers of the ‘Blunder Years’ subreddit—one of Reddit’s biggest communities with almost a million members—would probably agree with me. They’re all about owning their past selves.

As the group puts it, the photos shared here need to be truly cringe-worthy. “Simply being nerdy just isn’t going to cut it. If you wore your ‘nerd glasses because you thought you were so hipster,’ that’s not enough of a blunder.” And the redditors deliver, offering everything from painfully bright 80s outfits to intense emo and goth phases, and all the questionable trends of the early 2000s. It really feels like going through an archive.

Of course, it’s not always easy to move on from the awkward moments we experienced growing up. To explore why these memories linger and how we can overcome them, Bored Panda spoke with Dr Charlotte Russell, a clinical psychologist and founder of The Travel Psychologist blog.

Often, our tendency to cringe at ourselves stems from our sensitivity to how others perceive us. “Humans are a social species, and our social relationships matter to us,” Russell says. “This can mean we fear or worry about things that other people might judge us for—whether it’s over a bad haircut or following a trend we later find regrettable.”

“It’s important for each of us to learn that we’re not perfect; we all make mistakes and do things that are embarrassing at some point,” Russell encourages. In particular, as we enter our teen years, we often try to understand ourselves better, which can lead to some unusual choices. “When we’re young, we’re especially focused on figuring out who we are, so we experiment with different things to see what fits,” she explains.

“In adolescence, people typically go through phases that involve trying on various identities,” Russell adds. “Inevitably, this means that later on, we may look back and feel a bit awkward about choices and things we now see as questionable. But this is all part of being human and our personal story, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Science approves of these awkward phases. Researchers believe that everything you went through as a child or teen—from acne and growth spurts to bad fashion choices—has made you stronger.

“There are actually hardiness and resilience genes that can be turned on and off with that,” says Joyce Mikal-Flynn, who teaches a course on neuroscience and post-traumatic growth at Sacramento State University. Adolescence, she explains, is the perfect time for those genes to kick into action. “It has to start early and often.”

Studies suggest that resilience is shaped by various adaptive changes in the brain’s neural circuits. While scientists haven’t pinpointed a specific resilience gene, they have identified one linked to a lack of resilience—the NR3C1 gene, which affects how people respond to cortisol.

Individuals with a certain variant of this gene are 75 percent more likely to struggle with issues like substance abuse, aggression, and antisocial personality disorder if they don’t seek help after a traumatic event.

However, unlike severe childhood trauma, those awkward teenage phases provide a more manageable way for kids to build their resilience over time, according to Mikal-Flynn.

Interestingly, these adolescent phases could not come at a better time. It might seem counterintuitive, considering all the changes teenage bodies undergo, but these experiences are actually beneficial for brain growth.

Adults reason with a fully developed frontal lobe, which controls many abilities, including thinking, movement, and memory. It also plays a key role in social skills, helping us understand how to communicate, behave, and interact with others.

Since the frontal lobe finishes developing in our twenties, adolescent brains are still in the process. When teens recall socially traumatic experiences, they engage these regions of the brain, which helps bridge the gap between the impulsive mind of a child and the rational thinking of an adult. While trauma from bullying about appearance can have negative psychological effects, with the right support from parents and friends, these challenges can become less of a burden and more of a stepping stone toward maturity.

One way parents can support their teens, says Mikal-Flynn, is by acknowledging their struggles but also reminding them that it’s how they respond to tough situations that truly shapes who they are, not the difficulties themselves.

“Parents don’t want their children to be in pain and I understand that, but there’s another way to deal with that between letting them hurt all the time and not letting them feel it at all,” adds Mikal-Flynn. “There’s a middle ground.”