Venting "best years of your life"

[Feedingbirds]

I'm going to be turning twenty in a few months.

I hate how my mental health has taken my teenage years away from me. I feel like I've lost out on so many experiences due to apathy, self hatred, etc.

I distinctly remembered the day in seventh grade when I realized not everyone cut themselves and thought of the best way to die while staring at a dark ceiling till 4 am every night. I realized how a lot of people were genuinely well. I was and still am so jealous of them.

Soon I will never get the chance again to be a happy healthy teen. My youth feels contaminated and I fear all the memories of the "best days of my life" will be wrapped up in blurry shadows.

 

[QueerMelancholy]

Not everyone reaches milestones at the same time and not everyone lives the same life. I find when people talk about youth being the best years of their life it's usually like some kind of story the media is telling people using movies that used 30-year-olds to play teenagers. Or society tells us we miss every opportunity we don't take because capitalism is very opportunistic. Sometimes so much is out of our control that even if we wanted to do something we wouldn't have been able to do it anyway. It's a terrible thing to think about.

There's meaning in causality. We all get old. Even beauty and youth are finite and the human body is meant to decay and entropy affects everything. In the long run, everything naturally decays, and disorder always increases.

You can try to make up for anything you feel you missed out on in your teenage years with other people who are in their 20s who feel the same as you. It won't be perfect and it won't be the same but nothing is perfect and really nothing is ever truly the same between two experiences even when they are very similar.

I've been where you are. I'm much older now though and I never realized what "old" people meant when they said "I feel a lot younger than I look/feel." until I got a lot older. Your body ages but the way you feel is more constant over time. You can still be young of heart and sometimes getting older can free you to experience things you couldn't when you were much younger because being an adult forces you to do things you might not have had to do when you were a teenager. There's more freedom and yet also a lot more responsibilities. It can be scary. The world is a strange and interesting place but it's also boring and average. I guess it depends on how you appraise it.

Everything is constantly slipping into the future. That is one thing none of us can escape as biological organisms. I hope you find some relief somewhere in this world. Just know a lot of people missed out on a lot of things. And we can be our harshest critics. But if anyone can believe that they can miss out on anything then I think they can believe that they can make up for things too. Life is all about self-discovery and telling your own story. Sometimes just letting yourself be wild and free is the easiest way to be your most authentic self. But it can take years and decades to discover who you really are. Taking chances opens you up and makes you vulnerable and the world has sharp teeth and a gaping maw but the risks can be rewarding. Most people you meet will only ever be strangers or acquaintances. I wish the world was more like what the media and our imaginations tell us it is. But even the best stories we tell to each other are often exaggerated because it's very rare for something to be so magnificent. Even our own minds make the best of our memories so much better.

TL;DR: Getting old sucks but you can feel young a lot longer than you can literally be young. I hope you find some relief in this world and other people who have had similar experiences to you and are around your age to help ease your burdens and soothe your soul. Sometimes finding those people makes up for a lot of it because together you can build even better memories. Good luck to you. And I hope you have a wonderful 20th birthday.

 

[Mirrory Me]

Yea, I hope it turns better eventually. It takes time to figure and create the structure that suits you.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

If it makes you feel any better, your teenage years are actually rarely the "best years of your life". Most people describe the best years of their life happening prior to or after their teenage years. Adolescence isn't that great, despite how much people try to glorify it.

 

[Yuina]

You took the words right out of my mouth. :( It makes me feel like I'll never be "normal."

 

[Forveleth]

I have no idea why everybody says that your teenage years are the best years of your life. Your hormones are screwing you up physically. Your brain isn't even fully developed. You have no idea how to handle interpersonal relationships. It's awkward, it's messy, it's terrible.I think my best years for me were actually in my 30s because at that point I had figured out pretty much who I was as a person. I kind of had my life together a little bit and I just felt way more stable and confident than I did as a teen.

Be gentle with yourself. You're still growing and developing as a person. Maybe you missed out on a few things as a teen, but you still have plenty of life ahead of you to partake in so many experiences.

 

[Praestat_Mori]

I have no idea why everybody says that your teenage years are the best years of your life.

That's probably bc the avg age on here is - I guess - 21. There's not much more life experience that has been lived but teenage years for this group of people.

My teens were the best, my 20's were the best and my 30's were the best - each decade was the best for me for various personal reasons.

My 40's are the worst years for now after I had a big failure in life in early 40's pushing me into a downward spiral and me ultimately making an account here.

 

[Yuina]

I have no idea why everybody says that your teenage years are the best years of your life. Your hormones are screwing you up physically. Your brain isn't even fully developed. You have no idea how to handle interpersonal relationships. It's awkward, it's messy, it's terrible.I think my best years for me were actually in my 30s because at that point I had figured out pretty much who I was as a person. I kind of had my life together a little bit and I just felt way more stable and confident than I did as a teen.

Be gentle with yourself. You're still growing and developing as a person. Maybe you missed out on a few things as a teen, but you still have plenty of life ahead of you to partake in so many experiences.

Though this wasn't directed towards me, thank you. I basically missed out on every major milestone for teenagers, or at least what people expect teenagers to do.

 

[derpyderpins]

If it makes you feel any better, your teenage years are actually rarely the "best years of your life". Most people describe the best years of their life happening prior to or after their teenage years. Adolescence isn't that great, despite how much people try to glorify it.

Definitely. I've heard people reasonably refer to their 20s, 30s, or even 40s as their best years (and some older than that will say they're currently in their best years) and they all seem to have pretty decent reasons why they think that. But if a grown adult says their highschool teenage years were the best years of their life that sometimes comes off as whatever the opposite of a flex is. There's nothing in high school that can't be even better in college if you are planning to attend.

 

[1MiserableGuy]

The teens being "the best" is just garbage perpetuated by people who want the school system unchallenged. The teens are really some of the worst, because of all the constant hormonal changes, the drama and bullshit, it's that season of life where you're getting ready to get the hell out of your parents' house but still have to do what they say for a while. It's not really fun for anyone, unless you're a character in a coming of age movie.

 

[KillingPain267]

I had the best years of my life, for 8 years that I was with my wife. Now those best years are over, and so am I.

 

[Apathy79]

I always thought the cliche was college/uni is the best years of your life (18-21). After leaving home and starting to forge a life of your own but before full time work kicks in and everything mellows. Free, dating, learning new things, meeting new friends, trying to work out who you are, all that jazz. I can see where people are coming from with that. High school years not so much. I spent my high school years looking forward to college.

 

[Yuina]

The teens being "the best" is just garbage perpetuated by people who want the school system unchallenged. The teens are really some of the worst, because of all the constant hormonal changes, the drama and bullshit, it's that season of life where you're getting ready to get the hell out of your parents' house but still have to do what they say for a while. It's not really fun for anyone, unless you're a character in a coming of age movie.

I think the only people who say their teens were the best years were people who peaked in high school. Which, most people don't see as a compliment.

 

[EmptyHeaded]

Though this wasn't directed towards me, thank you. I basically missed out on every major milestone for teenagers, or at least what people expect teenagers to do.

I mean, what are teenagers expected to do?
The only kind of milestones in development I know of are those in early childhood. I never heard about any expectations after that.

 

[HopingOnaMiracle]

I know that feeling of life years being stolen from you. I feel like 3 years have been taken from me trough burnout and depression. One year by depression. I can't enjoy life, am not able to work much and feel terrible. I'm waiting for so long to 'get' my life back to me.