Life Doesn’t End in Your 20s: The Myth of the Teenage Dream
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2022
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Olivia Rodrigo's Brutal, Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, and a debilitating belief that the best years of your life are already behind you walk into a bar...Who makes it out alive?
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Cohen, Eliot E. “A Teen-Age Bill of Rights; Here is a Ten Point Charter Framed to Meet the Problems of Youth.” The New York Times, 1945. www.nytimes.com/1945/01/07/ar...
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You make me feel like I'm living a teenage nightmare...or whatever Katy Perry said.
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Where is the poster from? Love the video btw❤️
It seems Gravity Falls may have been one of the few instances that made a semi-accurate assessment of high school.....
anyone remember Wendy's rant about how it's not like High School Musical?
@@DrawciaGleam02 the
@@chantellequsham2823 o
@@DrawciaGleam02
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It was the eve of my 17th birthday and I broke out in tears because I hadn't accomplished anything impactful. The teenage dream is a lie, I ate it up, nearly choked on and thankfully later regurgitated it.
you described it perfectly
Same :/
I felt the exact same way the day i turned 18. Didn’t even want to celebrate
I’m gonna turn 17 in about a week and I feel the exact same way currently. I’m so so angry and feel tricked and like I’ve wasted so much time being depressed that I’m missing out on “the best years of my life”
Same
Our societies obsession with youth has made us feel like we’re old and washed up at 25. I’ll be 30 next year and honestly I couldn’t be happier to be further from my teens. I thought I knew everything only to come this far and realize I knew nothing at all.
I'm 32, and I concur. I'm happier than I ever was when I was a teen.
@AA I couldnt Agree more! I am 31 now and I have my own little kids and I can promise you No one knows what they are doing but feeling like you are running in a hamaster wheel goes away. I feel happier now than I felt when I was 18 because the same pressure to (do it all) was on my head. I wish I could go back and relax and enjoy the time I had with my best friends
I'm gonna be 31. I am so happy I am not retable to teenagers anymore. Like holy shit lol. Yes I am 30, and not I'm not old. (I'm getting back and knee problems)
@KC I will be 50 this year. My teens, 20s, and early 30s were awful for me. I honestly did not really start enjoying my life until I was in my 40s. Right now, is truly the best time in my life.
I remember years ago being so frightened of 50. Now, I'm so grateful that I was able to take all the lessons I learned, and all the strength I gained fighting for my peace, and use that to live the life I thought I was going to have in my 20s.
So yeah, the older people you see are enjoying their life and they probably look back on their youth with nostalgia, but if they are being honest, they would not really want to go back to it.
Honestly though. I'm 24. People legit think I'm "old" now. Bitch, I'll consider myself old when I feel like it, and that'll probably be when I'm like 65.
"being in your twenties feels like Teenage Two: Electric Boogaloo, now with more bills and less friends" made me WELL UP lol, that being said, as I age I feel happier and more patient with myself. I wish I could give past-me a hug. And past-Shan. Brb going to have a big cry, videos like these are why I watch and make videos on here. 🖤
What does the cow think about the teenage dream?
Getting older is awesome. Lately I've been thinking "it is punk AF to age and be unapologetic about it and combat ageism by being happy with myself and doing what I want at every age not buying into "this is what adults do" or "that is how young people dress", etc." and I've been analyzing where I've bought into a commercialized view of what it's supposed to "look like" when you're an adult and crafted my own version of adulthood on my own terms.
My 20s have been my best and worst years. Nothing started for me til after 17 lol friends, freedom, accomplishments, mistakes, responsibilities, relationships, growth/finding myself. All of it
At 25 I feel like I’m going through a second teen phase lol - was the baby in my masters program now I’m the baby of my school staff (I think I’m the youngest teacher at my school lol, I’ve been mistaken as a middle schooler … no I teach 4th grade now let me use the copy machine!! 🥴) , at 25 I finally reached a phase of being obsessed with a band lol like I’d been a wild 5 years but I’m glad of the life I have now !
@@athenathemself yes!!!! this here! forever and ever!
I'm Brazilian and I'm 28 years old, and this video made me think of something that I think most other young people from other countries, mainly from Latin America and others considered third world, notice too. It's like the teenage dream they sold us, it's actually the American dream. You in the USA, you can't imagine, how most of us glamorized (and still glamorizes) adolescence with the elements pertinent to the culture we see in tv shows and movies, such as the popular cheerleader at school, the captain of the American football team , the prom king and queen, leaving their parents' house when they go to college... If it's hard enough for American teenagers, imagine for us who spent our adolescence being bombarded with propaganda about glamour, freedom and drama of youth through an American perspective, in countries where the reality is completely different, where we don't have any of the elements that were shown to us as ''this is adolescence''.
I loved the video, I highlighted this point that I found interesting, but it made me think about several other things. You are amazing girl.
I'm already excited to see the other videos on the channel
(I am also Brazilian, I am going to comment in English for the other people here to be able to read it too)
Yes, we are sold the American dream and everything, that's why so many people here idolised the States (it's getting less common nowadays), so much there some years ago it was a dream to send your kid to the US or to live there, no one really talked about how some americans treat immigrants like trash, it's was just the good things.
I 100% agree with you! So I was raised in America but grew up in a Latin American cultural household since that's where my family is from and although i was raised in Hollywood I did not have the "Hollywood teenage experience." This city does a very good job of selling a dream to others and making you think it's the only valid experience one should have. It's extremely difficult growing up in America if you are not rich/middle-class/white or have relaxing parents. My parents were struggling and very strict/abusive and I had to grow up very fast and be treated as both an adult and a child at the same time which was NOT good. I'm currently 24 and I suddenly feel this pressure now from my family in Latin America to have my life together, to be married with children and to have a company job when I am still recovering from my past. I also notice how much mistreatment I and my family received on both sides of the border. Growing up in the US I would face criticism from white-Americans and immigrants for not being fully American whereas whenever I visited my family in Latin America I was constantly criticized for being American. My family was criticized as being seen as a failure for immigrating to America when wealthy Latin American families send their kids to American schools for the same reason. It's just exhausting being told constantly by both cultures that you're never good enough and you're always compared to what is expected of you by either culture at certain ages.
Interesting take. I agree
exactly
Yes, yes, yes! Born, raised and still living in Puerto Rico. As a US colony, it’s like we’ve gotten a cheap knockoff of the American Dream they keep trying to sell as the “real” deal (doesn’t exist lol). Scraps even in the concept of adolescense. Prom is a hit or miss, there’s no homecoming or other dances, most schools don’t have lockers or yearbooks, and only half the students move out for college, most commute from home. I remember the bad highlights, a broken heart, fights with a friend, mental health problems/body problems, a few parties I had no business being drunk at, but we’re all so confused at that age. Beginning to understand our own identity and wondering how life (or “the real world”) is supposed to be like but having no one to look towards for help finding either. Just classes, media consumption and talking to each other, left to our own devices. Most of us carry generational trauma that we didn’t even realize at the time… I feel that’s a huge part of why the highs didn’t feel as intense as the lows, we were on survival mode. Couldn’t trust the highs and the lows were comfy (and madly romanticized on Tumblr too).
I remember thinking I wouldn’t live past 18 because there was nothing after that. I’m 20 now and I fully blame The Teenage Dream for my lack of identity and feelings of inferiority in comparison to my peers.
i am 100% in the same boat 💔
here’s to healing 🥂
I'm 18 now and i have to remind myself there's so much after this. All adults say your teenage years are the good ones and when you're depressed it's not exactly motivating to hear it only gets worse. Rationally I know it isn't true and luckily whenever I'm down in that way I have a friend to remind me it's not the truth.
Yea I'm similar
I’m almost 16 and I definitely struggle with this, feeling as though my best years are behind me. I am lucky that I have role models that show me that there is plenty to live for in adulthood, if you find the right people to surround yourself with. Hope everything turns out good for you ❤❤❤
I’m 21 now and I remember turning 18 and feeling this exact same way. It’s crazy how the media and everything gets in our subconscious so much.
I turned 19 a week ago, and I remember crying throughout the last year that I had done "nothing" meaningful with my life, and I had nothing to look forward to because everything was behind me. Then I realized that society was filled with pedos who were overly obsessed with children acting like tiny adults with no consequences; having sex and doing drugs every Friday night, staying out late at shifty parties, having a minimum wage summer job, and somehow being able to afford everything they could have ever wanted, a car, a brand new phone, etc. I'm 19, and I was sheltered for most of my life. I couldn't go to parties. I never went to a school dance, and I went to exactly one sleepover birthday party since the age of 14. I didn't have access to the internet until age 15, when I got my first phone. My middle school (and high school) life revolved around watching Starkid clips and pirated anime on my 3DS, playing Pokemon, and cutting out pictures of Daniel Radcliff to tape to my closet wall. I felt 5 years younger than everyone. And now, I realize that wasn't a bad thing. I did do things that were meaningful, they were meaningful to me! Drawing anime Legolas in my math notebook was meaningful. Crying to Hetalia AMVs was meaningful. Going to the library to rent Warrior Cats books by the armful was meaningful. And when life has no real end goal, no real meaning, we make up our own meanings as we go.
Hey! Another Pokemon player here.
Coming from someone who also spent my teen years playing Pokemon and drawing anime Legolas, we would have totally been friends. :)
@@sophiatalksmusic3588
I remember my 18th birthday playing the Battle Subway in Pokemon White.....
I was proud because I tend to not do well at those battle facilities..
I love your comment!
Hey, I turned 19 recently too and had a major existential crisis (again, the first was when I turned 18)😭 I don't know why but there's just this invisible pressure weighing you down.
Thankfully, I'm getting much more in touch with myself, trying to get by a day at a time. I hope you're doing well!
I'm 31 now. I swore I wouldn't see 18 at age 13. At 18, I didn't intend to make it to 21. At 27, I didn't know if 30 was in the cards for me. At 28, I got help for my depression and I bought a house in 2020. Now, my biggest problems are figuring out what I want to eat and what would make me feel content at the moment. Things do change and life doesn't always feel simple but it does get better.
Hey! I'm also 31 and bought a house in 2020. High five!
I turned 32 today and I 100% relate to this comment. I didn’t buy a house but I opened my first business in 2021 🎉30s are being the best I felt ever (except for longer hangovers and being a bit less social)
@@Aster_Risk yay. High five. I'm proud of you. 😊
@@Barbaraska my 30s are so much more fun and relaxing. Congratulations on the business. That's awesome. ❤️
I love this comment, thanks for sharing ♥️
I’m 20 now, but I can’t see myself beyond 25 and so many of my friends feel the same - here’s to hoping change is in the stars for us ♥️♥️♥️
the amount of people i’ve had tell me i’m too old to be in fan spaces on twitter is insane. they act like you’re not supposed to have interests as a woman past 19. IM LITERALLY STILL IN COLLEGE!!! their perspective of what is “old” is actually insane to me
they call you 'scaring hag', I'm literally 20 and I like some kpop groups, showing my support there when I'm also in college means for them that I'm doing nothing all day and I'm just useless
I'm 61, yet here I am learning new things.
@@ana.5687 the TRUTH in this comment 😭
@@maryeckel9682 that's wonderful. And quite inspiring tbh.
I feel like our society has been ageist since a long time ago. Media is oversaturated with teen focusing content. And also people think becoming old means you stop living? No dude. You're a human being. You're not in an era where you can live past 60 and doing nothing meaningful with ur life. I strive to live as I'm living now when I'm 60 just with more exercise and more enthusiasm. Being older means u have more experience and freedom.
i'm gonna be real i could not wait to be grown and leave middle and high school. i hated the people i was around and being broke lmaaoooo. i may not be the best during my 20s but being a teen was terrible for me and I'm recovering from the trauma i experienced during those awful years.
yooo icon harri in another icons comments
Omg Hari ♡ yeah my Highschool years where weren't that super great either mostly at my senior high. My Junior high has its ups and down. But overall its fine its just wasn't as glamorous as I hope for like in the movies when I was younger
Yeah, I think you mentioned having a bad childhood in a few of your videos.
Yes! I’m 23 and it still blows my mind that I can pick what I want to eat for dinner, hang out with any friends I want, and just play my music out loud. When I moved out from my strict parents the world became so much brighter. Still have anxiety and feel like my career is out of my control sometimes, but I know this isn’t true and I can apply to be anything I want. 20s is nice, I don’t know how to do many things but I like that I get to pick what I want to learn.
Me too. Like at first I was sad to grow up but being a teenager was horrible and I’m healing as a very young new adult and it’s *super exciting* to be an adult. Boring and tons of responsibilities, but I can actually enjoy the time now that I’m healing and I hope that for everyone else too.
I’m 48 and can confirm the “teenage dream” is a lie and always has been. I still remember starting high school and adults all around telling me to “make sure you enjoy it…these are your best years!” and all I could think was good Gods I hope not! For you younger people you have lots of time to explore all sorts of dreams and don’t let the media or other adults tell you otherwise 💜
And hear I am thinking that being a teenager was better and more fun back in the day
@@Pink_pr1ncess
Oh ,same here! Well, maybe if you were a young white person who fits beauty standards.
I don't think certain minorities (African American, etc) and more rotund teenagers had the type of fun the teenage dream showcases. At least, that's what I've gotten from the older teen movies.
@@DrawciaGleam02 ohh I see now, im an 18 year old black girl who always wished to be a teenager in the 90s because it looked more fun.
32 here and cannot agree more with the “ God I hope not” part. My school years (after primary school) was god awful, I am not from the US and the school system is stressful af, I didn’t think I’d live over 30 bc if that was the best years of my life I’d rather die😂
@@Pink_pr1ncess
Hell no!
Being a teenager sucked then and it sucks now. I grew up in the 80s. My son would often say things like that to me.
I told him stories about being a young person when the crack epidemic was first starting to take hold and how many people I saw ruin their lives during that time. Also watching so many of my friends get caught up in the game and either losing their lives or going to prison.
This would also be the same time HIV would come along. My son did not quite understand how that felt, so I told him imagine the same panic that surrounded the Covid-19 pandemic, double that anxiety, and now imagine it was being transmitted by sex. You would also be totally shunned by society and it was pretty much a death sentence.
Can't forget about the nuclear war drills. I don't know why they thought getting under our desks was going to help us.
Music videos, TV shows and photos have a way of warping people's thinking and people tend to project whatever sentiments they have onto pop culture media from the past. But that stuff is only entertainment. The same way people post pictures of themselves on social media with smiling faces when their lives are actually shit and probably falling apart.
As a 16 year-old, the idea that this is the best time of my life honestly just paints a horrific picture of adulthood. I hate constantly being told to enjoy my childhood while I can because whatever this is isn’t a “teenage dream”. I’m glad that I’m not the only one who’s had to deal with this and that maybe I’ll live past 20 too.
That's a sick joke being a teenager is like the worst
I’m 15 and I have a lot going on like I feel this pressure to have so many friends and hang out all the time but I don’t really have anyone to do that with and tbh I genuinely don’t want to I just tell myself I want to because I see everyone else doing it.
Dude (gender neutral) I remember being 16 and let me tell you, you couldn't pay me to go through that again. I'm still a teenager but hands down ages 14-18 are THE worst. I too hope it gets better in my twenties
@@user-ks2vb8zu6b shit went downhill for me when i turned 14. cant see myself live until 20 at this point but im trying to not make everything a big deal for the people around me. hoping things get better for me and to everyone else here.
I sobbed as my family told me "It only gets worse" "these are the best years of your life" "youth is wasted on the young". I hope with everything that I never have to experience pain like I did in my teens, especially 15-17. I'm 23 now. I'm not saying I'm happy and everything is wonderful. Life still sucks but it sure as hell is better than my "best years".
As you age and deal with your problems head on, life becomes more tolerable. At least I hope. I'm still young too.
"I knew I would never make it to 23." This line hit HARD.
I remember in my freshman english class, we were assigned to write a letter to ourselves in 10 years. It was the only assignment I failed that semester. I never turned it in. Why would I write a letter to someone that doesn't exist?
I'm 26 now and I wish I'd written that letter. More importantly, I wish I could tell that girl the next 10 years of her life would be more incredible than she could even imagine.
You still can do it! Last year I started to write letters for my future self about random things that happened to me and that I see as special. That way, I’ll always be able to remember them and be able to see myself grow as a person. Totally recommend it!
@@giulossI did the same thing last Tuesday before my birthday I’m 20 now
Oh my god I remember being worried about aging by the age of 9 because All tv told me I had to figure out how to throw elaborate schemes, get straight a’s, be the most beautiful girl, and rule the world within 10 years and I knew I had no idea what I was doing and that timeline would NOT work out.
I hope we start taking the pressure off kids. I was told to my literal child face more than once by my mom, "Failure is not an option." There was just some shit I wasn't good at. Period. Now, she was talking about school, which itself is bad enough, but hearing that over and over turned me into a little ball of neuroticism, because I didn't hear, "Failure is not an option (in you classes)", I heard "Failure is not an option (EVER)." I'm not saying we should let kids sit around, slack off, and do whatever they want. But can we give them some space and wiggle room to try something and just...not be good at it without it feeling like the world is going to end for them? What's the point of making kids feel the way you did? What's the point of filling children with existential dread if they don't land every shot with perfect accuracy? What is the point of all these arbitrary deadlines and if you don't "get it by now" you're somehow looked at as defective and hopeless? It's it really so bad to have your own timeline for some things instead of having adults slam them down on your head at every turn?
you were a smart 9 y/o
@@ChristopherSadlowski you described it perfectly and you have no idea how much i relate to every word you said being a kid that was always compared to others and had no room for failure only turned me into a perfectionist & an anxious 18yo with an extreme fear of failure and a low self esteem. it's really hard to go through it and i'm still healing, but the good thing is that we're self aware and that we're trying to heal, i wish u the best in life sending lots of *virtual hugsss*
Same I vividly remember being 7 or 8 and having a breakdown because I was terrified I’d die without doing anything substantial in my teenage years. That shit is fucked
Omg SAME I cried to that one Taylor swift song never grow up. I still cry to that song tbh it’s just sad to me. But man that’s so sad that we go through that at like 9!! Dang😰
I have a theory that the people who describe your 30s and 40s as a downward slide where you're so tired, have way less energy, get immediately out of shape etc. Were the kind of people who blew their load in their teens and twenties and did live that dream but completely wiped out their baseline health in the long run. They didn't develop emotional intelligence, stable money habits, health habits, good relationships etc. Because they bought into the narrative from the previous overindulgers who similarly were in denial about their mistake. The vision of life as a sprint is an engrained ideology at this point even though being just little bit more mindful could extend your healthy, energetic years and probably make the physical shift to the thirties and forties much smoother.
Good points. A lot of bad habits are made up for with youth, but that shit catches up to you eventually. I'm also thinking that the "your life goes downhill from here" thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy. People see being unhealthy and unhappy as inevitabilities, so they don't try to avoid those problems.
I'm 44 and having the time of my life. Take care of your health when you're young and you'll be ok.
And having kids. That pretty much sums everything up. Having kids. That’s what does it to you. It’s natural
But I am going downhill... which just so happens to be easier and more enjoyable than climbing up hill 😂
The girls who I envied in high school who were out every weekend at parties getting black out drunk and smoking looked way older than they were in their early 20s. Also they didn't do much to prepare for the future so that adds financial stress and any excessive stress ages you as well. I loss my teen years due to a controlling narcissistic single parent and loss the few friends I made in childhood. I kinda made up for it after college my traveling the world and moving VERY far away from my parent. I still wish I enjoyed that time more tho.
I’m 18 now and have never been in a relationship/ barely partied during highschool. During my last year of highschool I watched my best friend completely change her personality in order to have a “highschool experience” before we graduated. Now she’s in an incredibly toxic/abusive relationship because her parents also kind of pushed her into this idea of NEEDING to date during high school and not wanting her to be “antisocial” the way I am. I’ve never understood why people act like their life is over at 18, but in the same respect I would spend nights crying because I thought I would never be able to get in a relationship in the future all because I had no experience in highschool. Looking back on that it was such a stupid thing to cry about, because high school is not an indicator of how the rest of your life will be at all.
Lol you're still a teen
Oh no! I hope your friend finds a better partner.
Well you're wise for your age because in high school your life hasn't even started yet
I had my first kiss and first relationship at 19 at university. I am 24 now and my comparative lack of experience has never been a problem for me, even with me being very socially awkward. You'll be fine
15 year old me thought 18 year olds were too old and that I needed to already have a house, a relationship, stop liking cartoons, etc. And 18 year old me was trying so hard to act that out. But 18 year olds (and 19 year olds and 20 something years olds) are still so _so_ young, trying to figure themselves out just as much as their 15 year old self was. And I feel like not many people say this.
I had my very first relationship (including sexual experience) a year ago (18 y/o). They broke up with me due to their toxic behaviours that, thankfully they could recognise. I'm glad they did, because now looking back at it, they were absolute narcissists. But I only let it slide because I thought to myself "If it isn't them, then it's no one else. You're 18 already so you need to take this or you'll keep on being alone forever."
For a while I thought that after them there was nothing left for me, not only speaking of a relationship but also regarding friendships and a career, since they said we'd follow the same path and would buy a house together. I thought "holy shit, I'm 19 and they were my only partner. What was I doing all this time that I had my first relationship at 19 and now I don't have it anymore? Now my next partner, if I ever have one, will know of how inexperienced I really am" etc etc
After sitting down for a few months to think on my own, I've came into the realization that it really doesn't matter that much. It's not that deep. If the next partner will come and make me happier than the previous one did, then I'm happy to make them just as happy. If they don't and I stay alone for a few more years to come then that's okay too.
I sat down and realized that I needed to stop crying over something as little as "not being experienced for my next partner" and started focusing more on _me_ . Stopped thinking more of "what will my next partner think of inexperienced me?" and started thinking "what can I do for myself to enjoy life as much as I can?"
I started focusing on myself and also my hobbies. Specifically the ones I had left behind while I was in that relationship because they were deemed as "too immature" lmao. Or my friends were too weird because status was too much of an important thing to them. 18 year old me thought I was already so mature, all grown up and cool simply because I was in a relationship. Looking back on it now I was just a really confused kid trying to figure out how to be an adult simply because I had gotten with someone who told me to "grow up" and was already planning on moving out with me.
And now that I'm able to compare *18 year old me dating that person, forcing myself to be an adult for them and trying to impress everybody else by showcasing my "immature" interests less* Vs *19 year old me just vibing listening to my favourite music, watching my favourite cartoons and tv shows, studying exactly what I want, eating exactly what I want and hanging out with whoever weirdo friend I want to hang out with* it's like... Comparing those I prefer being the way I am right now. I ignore the assholes telling me I'm immature and am getting too old and need to be in a relationship already. Let me vibe dude, because since coming into my realizations I see life in a different light and now? I just wanna vibe.
as a teen who has had my life stolen by mental and physical illness, the teenage dream pisses me off. most of us are lonely, most of us do nothing, most of us struggle to deal with the pain of others and ourselves
As a teenager too, thank you❤ i needed this
ah I needed this
Same .The 25 yr old deadline freaked me out. All those teens talking about wanting to die at 25.Just turned into 26 and now I feel I have infinite time because I'm already declaired dead
As someone who was always considered one of the weird kids, I grew up waiting for my glow up. I expected this sudden shift when suddenly I woke up with perfect skin, no frizz in my hair, and an all around put together look. It was all superficial and looking back after realizing I'm autistic, it all makes sense. I wasn't speaking the same language as my peers, and everyone knew it but me, so I got along best with the other outcasts and shunned the popular people because in my mind they were the ones who put me in the trash with the other outcasts. It doesn't help that my own stepdad told me I shouldn't be hanging out with the weird ones, and that I could be doing so much better. So not only was he attacking the people who I got along with best, he was turning me against them and making me feel even more alone.
same here. being an undiagnosed autistic child and teenager was truly a painful experience, filled with confusion, frustration, loneliness, self-hatred, and crushed hopes, but oh well. i'm now 20 years old, officially diagnosed, and finally seeing a therapist who actually understands the way my weird brain works. i can only hope my 20s will be better.
My gosh. I feel like I could have written this. This is exactly what it feels like. And I’m so glad to see us both developing and slowly thriving as our authentically autistic selves.
I’m autistic and bipolar too. My teenage years were a bit dramatic 😅, but I pulled through. I can barely remember my twenties. All I remember is trying to discover who I really was. Here’s to hoping my 30s will thrive!
Wow I also could’ve written this. Diagnosed at 29, five months before my 30th birthday.
@@Eternal32bloom Just turned 30 trying to find me place too. Good luck to you!!
if teenage years were supposed to be the best of my life, why did i shut down and live the next several years in a haze? all i remember from being 16 is that i ate once a day and slept as much as i could with school going on because i literally didn't want to exist. now i'm 21 and i'm just starting to do something about the emptiness that i still feel.
i'm tired of the media promising all that excitement, especially for teens. it's all a lie. life really is so boring and maybe we could find beauty in that instead of looking for something that doesn't exist.
Especially because it actually CAN get so much better. I was super depressed in the way you describe for a lot of my teen years, and in my late twenties now I feel like I can actually experience the world as someone with a healthy, comfy brain. It’s far better than being a teen.
As a 24 year old who feels like life hasn't even started yet, I thank you for putting into words what I have felt for so long. I've had mental health issues since 13/14 and I've struggled with this a lot.
The teenage/ early twenties dream is a scam and most people are just as lost as I am. Media has warped our senses in such a way that the pressure to everything figured out is crippling at times.
It just feels nice to know that I can place the blame onto something other than myself for once
Im gonna turn 25 soon and you described my experience
same here! I will turn 24 at the end of next month and my life is moving forward very slowly because of health issues. many people make you panic that since others in their early 20s often already work, have been working for years etc you should be at the same level. heck, I'm happy I made it through school with good grades despite being absent for it for two months right before finals! and I also am super proud of myself that I'm trying my best! even if it takes longer, even if there are times where I get thrown back a bit again - I won't give up! I'm still so young, life hasn't even really started yet! once my health gets better I can still do so many things I want 😙✨️
I’m 31. I had a quarter life crisis turning 24 because I had nothing to ‘show’ in life. No house. No partner. Paycheck to paycheck. I see it’s getting younger and I am so sorry.
Fast forward, approaching 30 I believed I’d be worthless. I was told a woman over 30 was worthless. But man…. when I hit 30, the idea I was supposed to be something left. The pressure of ‘make it before 30’ was gone. The fact that I was now ‘old and getting older’ became ‘growing wiser without the pressure to be young.’ I don’t give a shit anymore. I’ll be navigating forever and it’s cool.
Thank you for sharing that! that gives me a lot of hope for my future :)
As a 29 year old I needed to hear that
THIS! I’m also 31 and can attest my 30’s have been the best decade so far. As someone who cried on her 16th birthday for fear of getting older, I feel more confident in myself than I ever have now and truly have lost the ability to give a fuck 😂 your 30’s can be freeing.
I'm 28, single, and living with my parents, something my teenage self would probably be horrified to know, but I'm happier and healthier than I've ever been. For a long time I felt like I needed to be a Fully Independent Adult (TM) the moment I got out of high school with my entire life figured out, but I didn't even start to realize what direction I wanted to go in until my last year of undergrad. It's easy to feel like a little bit of a late bloomer, but tbh there's nothing wrong with that and it's better to grow at your own pace than to try and force yourself into a mold.
❤️ same age, similar situation. Think I’m just starting to not feel like a failure.
Thank you for this comment, I really needed to hear this. I feel like I have been living a constant life crisis because I'm not in the same place in my life as my friends and peers are in theirs. I have let the capitalistic culture wear down my self-esteem because I cannot work yet and am thus still living with my parents. It feels like you're living as the butt of the joke when you can't be independent after you've passed 23 or 25. It is more common now for kids to still live with their parents later into their lives but it is never really shown in a positive or comforting light, it's always something that is used to signify a loser, lazy person or a leech. It makes me sad to think kids are growing up feeling the same isolation and insecurity that I did. I hope you're doing well and thank you again for giving me some more perspective!
I'm really grateful you shared that! I turned 20 this year and am still living with my parents. I was so worried about becoming something and being fully independent, but it's not the end of the world. I didn't get the cards I wanted to be dealt, but the cards I have aren't so bad if you look at them differently.
Cost of living is staggeringly high. Especially in certain places. You’re not alone. I lived at home until I was 30 because the cost of living in CA was insane! I moved with them to GA and the cost of living is lower here and I was feasibly able to move and get my own apartment. Even for a crappy studio in the worst part of town in California, they wanted $1700 per month if not more!
as a 20 year old who thought i’d never make it to 18, this is so raw, so relatable, so important, and i wish i could show this to myself as a teen
As another 20 year old I totally agree, I wish I could go back and show this to my younger self! I hope a lot of teens find this video and take it to heart the messaging.
I was fully focused on school as a teen and found it really weird that other kids partied. I went to school and went home and that was it. I’m in my 20s now and the media portrayals of teenagers makes it seem like I didn’t have a life, but I was A KID.
Anyone knew they wouldn't do the teenage dream because of studies and family having a religious background?
I never attended parties, but I liked the idea of them (except for drugs and s@x). However, I don't think I'd be willing to go to one now due to how music at those parties drowns out general conversation.
@@DrawciaGleam02 yes it it greatly contributed to my mental health issues and I became very isolated because I couldn't never go out with my old friends
@@DrawciaGleam02 Same here. Never went to parties or anything like that. I was barely allowed to hang out with my friends outside of school. It was so suffocating
Same
@@DrawciaGleam02Yes, im a Jehovah’s Witness and it pretty much stole my childhood.☹️
Being 30 years old and watching this makes it just kind of funny. I lived my best years after 25.
Same. more money, freedom, understanding of what you need and much more of a idgaf attitude vs the people pleasing one I had in my early 20s.
Absolutely same here
being 36: it got better every year, sadly the body starts to complain about my lack of sports and healthy food
@@happytofu5 you're still on time to fix that. A lot of people start having these problems right after 25 because they never eat, sleep well or exercise. I feel great every day cause I love taking care of my body and mind.
@@shaktibabe I great as this sounds, I am trying to do this since my mid twenties. I just can't manage to do it though. Plannign food and doing exercises takes mental energy I don't have left after work. Its frustrating.
i'm 24 and i've been feeling this weird panic about my age SO much recently. i think the combination of covid teleporting all of us two years forwards and capitalism now accelerating at TOP SPEED has really got a lot of people freaked out. especially as an afab person, there's this part of me that still wants so badly to be seen as 'cool' or pretty or smart or, i suppose whatever hyper-niche identity marker is being packaged and marketed as the 'teenage dream' that month, honestly -- but the older i get, the more it feels like i've lost that chance. i find it a bit creepy that if you identify as a woman, suddenly even now 24 doesn't feel 'young enough'. like, i'm almost too old for leonardo dicaprio? what the fuck?
I'm the same age and only now learning to find myself. I am done following trends and trying to be palatable. It's a journey but we'll be ok😘😊
Ooo I feel the same...My teen years were "boring and sad". So when I finally left for college and just started catching up on the things I felt that I have missed out on.. Covid hit hard and boom two years went by and now I feel like I missed out again. So I guess, do not let your age stop you from trying out new things, finding yourself and have fun. 24 or any age for that matter is not "too old"🥲
I'm almost 26 Leonardo Dicrapio would see me as ancient 😅 and losing 2 years from 24 makes me feel like I've lost my twenties 😳
I am 27, been feeling like you since 25. It is getting better tho. At 26, my mindset shifted suddenly and now I do whatever I want to do with my life even if I am deemed too 'old' for it. Starting a new major, going to piano classes while studying with kids and I am thinking about starting dance classes. It gets easier once you understand that you were brainwashed to believe that life ends at 25 and that you still can do a lot of things after that age))
Yepppp
i'm only 13 and have been brainwashed by this teenage dream nonsense more times than i can count. it's frustrating, honestly. cant wait to watch the video, it seems like a really interesting concept!
SAME
me too! (love ur profile pic btw! i can't wait for midnights!!)
@@iwouldgiveyouthemoon_ ty!! i love yours as well, and yes, i'm literally so excited for midnights 😭
Well if you’re watching this video you’re already ahead lol. Like many people say, I wish I could go back to 14, I know what to do this time 😭
Q
Ok so, I'm 29. I've lost my childhood, teenage years and young adulthood to family trauma. Now for the first time in my life, I actually can do things. I hope to god it's not too late to be my own person,and to be happy. I'm so tired of depression and anxiety and isolation and problems that aren't mine but that I end up suffering for.
Never too late! Hope your 30's and up are all you want them to be.
I'm 21 now, and I've never had a lot of the classic "teenage experiences". Like, I still haven't had my first kiss, never mind dating or sex. I've gone to some parties now that I'm a university student, but I never went to parties as a teenager. I've always had a friendship circle that's on the smaller side, although it's bigger now than it was in my early teens. I don't even have like a dramatic reason for any of this... I was just shy and nerdy and "uncool". I was busy being a teacher's pet and an overachiever at school and social skills weren't my strongest suit. Now I'm navigating the online dating scene as someone with zero previous experience of any sort of love life, and I'm trying to make friends and have cool experiences at uni. I'm generally a happy person, and I still think that my happiest years are ahead, not behind me.
Yeah I’m in high school right now and I focus way to much on my grades and doing well in school but I’m okay with sacrificing my teen years so I can do week later on and I think having some what of a smaller friend group is better than a huge one because then you tend to not be close with some of them.
Same exact story here dude, 21 and going to collage, have never dated or had sex, too busy with keeping good grades too do that stuff, plus being kind of shy. I'm not doing online dating though. (I'm ace, and gray-aro). My friend group was small but close-knit. And I feel like I got my future ahead of me.
Same ❤
@@Shadowonwater yea
When I was at my preteens I remembered seeing movies where teens are always having fun and living their best lives thinking that how my teenage life gonna be but boy I was wrong! Living in an asian country things are really different. We didn't have big partys where we crash to someone's house or driving a car to school. I was just a broke angsty boy who loves to daydream a lot, I honestly feel my youth was wasted even though I enjoyed some few moments but majority of them kinda suck.
Living in America, I never once experienced those giant house parties you always see in movies. The only parties I went to were comparatively small, and usually resulted in a couple people sitting at a table and talking about their grades.
You need to watch "Do Teens Really act like this?" by Not Even Emily! The video comments there are enlightening too.
I live in America and my life is nothing like the movies.Not only me I’m pretty sure other people are like me too
@@A98765
I think the generic parties we saw in teen movies have begun to fade out. Many adults have become aware of the bad things that happens at such ragers and as such forbid teens from attending. Heck, there are parents who despise prom/school dance due to similar issues!
The pandemic certainly didn't help either.
my teen years were marked by increasingly disruptive health issues, (which no one believed were real until I got a diagnosis at 23). In 8th grade I had a constant sense of impending doom. In high school I stopped being able to function at all, largely actually due to the anxiety of having everyone around me constantly looking for ways to disprove my reality. I remember one day in high school I woke up and just could not stop crying. I physically could not stop, I literally cried all day and had to stay home from school and I couldn't explain why. My health was better then than it is now at 27, and I still look back on my teen years as the worst in my life. And I don't know a single soul who wasn't relieved to exit the so called "best years" of their lives. I think most of the romanticization we see in media is just people trying to rewrite their own past
Exactly. It was all a lie and I’ve never met a lot of people who liked their teen years- heck even tween years. I’m sad it’s all a lie we believed in, but I’m glad we can see that and look ahead at what’s to come. We really have a lot of firsts and so many good things that being a young adult brings (along with the development of our prefrontal cortex yay lol) thank The Lord💖
Yep. Absolutely hated high school. I never thought life was worth living until I turned 18 and went to college. I have older siblings in their 30's getting their health together and enjoying life. "Best years" my ass. Life is for living, and I'll be damned if anyone tells me my best years are behind me. We have the power to make every single decade worth it.
I’m kinda glad the pandemic happened in my teenage years. I was 15 when the lockdown started and 17 when I went back to in-person school. I was always bullied, left out. Online school let me get an education without feeling all of that loneliness and isolation surprisingly enough. My senior year was the same as my freshman and most of my sophomore year anyways. I graduated with no one to miss me and that’s alright.
Now I’m in college and it’s like I’m watching the teenage dream happen to other people. My roommates like to party and gossip, and they also have impeccable fashion and romance while also having part-time jobs. They’re so pretty and popular. Sometimes I’m jealous. Other times I’m too busy doing my homework and trying to sleep at a reasonable time while they’re partying in the living room. Just live your life how you want to, the “teenage dream” is a myth and very unsustainable
I can relate to this so much. I was 16 when the pandemic started and 18 when I returned back to school :/ I feel like I missed out so much social development
i can relate to this so much
I hated school so much. I wanted to be homeschooled but my school wouldn't let me leave. We suggested working from home, doing less classes, coming to school later but they wouldn't hear any of it. I was 15 when I sropped out and 6 years later, the pandemic happens and now everyone is doing it online from their home. I feel stupid to say it but it's so unfair.
Plus if you wanna do those sort of things you can always do it anytime in your life! I know so many people who discovered their wild party sides in their late 20s and they're having a great time. Get a good education now if you're enjoying it!
I'm probably one of the oldest commenters here. I'm in my 40s but there was a time I was sure I wouldn't live past 25. It might help to know that this is a common experience for people with prolonged childhood trauma, whether that's from family or school. The teenage dream is a lie for sure, high-school was hell for me, so much so that I left home half-way through to escape from my small town school. It's also a lie that adults, even adults in their 40s, 50s and up, have our lives figured out. If you're already asking hard questions when you're young and thinking about what kind of life you really want, you are leaps ahead of most people your parents' age. I'm not good at saying "it get's better" or "it will all be okay" because I don't know if that's true. My life now has some elements of what a "good adult life" is supposed to look like, but it's also worlds away from that in so many crucial ways. All I can say is that I'm pretty happy with my life, and I don't often want to die. If you're trying to heal from the bullshit, that's the most important thing you can do in your life. And if you're major life goal is to feel okay in your own skin, that's valid and absolutely worth it.
Same here I'm in my 30s and I honestly didn't think I'd live past 21
I'm a few years younger but probably had a similar experience, grew up in a small town in an Eastern European country where I was bullied. At that time no one had internet connection available all the time like now, I could only use the internet during the last 2 years of high school in my living room, and talking to strangers online was considered very weird back then. Therefore, I had no awareness that there are other people like me, no online friends or connections and I assumed everyone hated me like school bullies. It took a decade to get past it, because coming out of high school, I had no social experience and talked to people like a shy prepubescent girl. I didn't know what to say and was just weird, which was the reason gossiping and more hidden bullying continued outside the school. Because of that, I'm often acting like someone younger, experiencing the same phase of my life that other people did in their late teens and early 20s. It isn't exactly the same, because of physical differences and I've never cared about mainstream teen activities like drinking and popularity anyway, but similar. I'm still discovering myself. The good thing is that I'm much more confident now that I would have been in my 20s. I've felt how my brain has changed with age, being less emotional and impulsive and I was really happy for the first time only in my 20s. I don't think there is too late for anything.
Thank you ❤
that’s exactly my life goal, thank you ❤️
My teen years were... An experience. Recovering from my severe childhood trauma while being emotionally stunted due to said trauma, being medicated for Schizophrenia (Diagnosed at 14 and then discovered to be a misdiagnosis at 19), trying to reject the fact that I was trans, fantasizing my gruesome and bloody death in extreme detail (to the point where dreams that I died in didn't end at my death. In some I would watch myself decay into the floor as maggots ate away at my eyeballs and mushrooms grew from my hips, and in others I would see my biological mother step into the room and immediately start screaming and crying only to find a note in my hand stating that I never loved her), and so on. I was and still am surprised that I even made it to high school.
Oh my! That's...very descriptive.
Hope you are recovering now.
i'm so sorry you had to go through that (i went through similar experiences myself. kind of still am). i hope you're feeling better now. and if you're not, don't lose hope- it will get better.
I'm glad you felt brave enough to share but consider adding a trigger warning if you're gonna go into graphic detail
I honestly relate to this too much. I’ve thought about disowning my mom in my last words and traumatizing her with my death as revenge for her traumatizing me. I hope I can keep going through adulthood and that this weird time will be behind me haha
I've had that dream before,, where you feel yourself decay. I'm surprised somebody else has,, it makes me feel a little better about it, thank you. I hope your life is better now
My teenage years is a fog to me and I’m only 23 lol. Nothing happened, i hardly had friends, the school had like no events, I didn’t date or liked anyone, I never had my rebellious phase because I had /that/ Asian family lol, and there was nothing to ever do in my small ass town.
The epiphany I had when I turned 21 and realized I can still do all these things and feel fulfilled even after 20 lmao. Teen years are precious but they’re not actually the “peak” of your life because that only happens when you can make it which is at any age really.
Yeah, I've heard that in small towns one is less likely to have the teen experience shown in movies.
Same here
this comment is a BLESSING
Holy shit, are you me??? Except I'm 28, divorced and have 2 kids
I'm a college freshman, 18 now, and I hated that I desperately hoped for the "teenage dream" in highschool. The expectation and glamorization scattered all over media made me miserable. Instead me and 300 other kids in school were burning ourselves out for academic validation and a hope for a financially stable future. The teen dream is a lie, it's all marketed. and there's hope for all of us no matter our age and what we have is enough
All you 18-20 year olds and below lamenting your lost youth makes me sad. I'm 28 (next month) and lemme tell you, the fear of aging decreases with each passing year for me. I'm beginning to see aging for what it truly is, which is a gift. There's more to life than outside appearances. I wouldn't trade in the wisdom and knowledge I've accumulated up until now for all the youth in the world. I'm always baffled at people who want to live forever. Sounds like a right curse to me.
Why do we all think that our lives are gonna be be over by 27? As though baring any complications or freak accidents we still have 50-60 years if not longer to look forward to?
I'm 46 and I'm happier than I've ever been. Left a lot of that crap I used to care too much, behind. It feels really good
Because older people constantly tell you that are a lot of bad things that are unavoidable at a certain age. (in my experience, this age is always pushed back. First it's 18, then 20, then 23, then 25... I'm 29 and things still haven't gone to shit yet lol) That the second you turn 30 or whatever, you'll have no energy and you'll be out of shape and you won't be able to handle doing fun things, and you'll be tied down with marriage and kids and shit, and it will be too late to follow any passions you might have.
Really, I think a lot of that shit is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don't develop healthy habits, and it catches up to you at some point. You get married and have kids just because it's what you're "supposed" to do and you never thought very hard on whether you actually wanted that. And you don't follow any passions or dreams because you've internalized that idea that only young people can do that, but really, there's no outside force stopping you from taking an art class when you're 35.
@@StarlightPrism I was told by 25 I’d be out of my prime by family members so to enjoy it now. By 30 I’d be dead weight to myself, my looks will have faded and my energy gone. All the good men/women will be taken by then, so to hurry up and have that fun teenage romance so I could get married. That once you have kids say goodbye to a social/fun life. That if I didn’t have kids and be tied down I’d be one of those bitter women who sip wine all day and reminisce on better times. Very depressing out look and that’s the way many of us have been raised to see aging.
Interesting. As a gay kid I thought the teenage dream was for straight kids. I was envious, but also wanted to just be at the stage of my life where I was financially independent and able to not care what people thought.
i’m still a teenager and all I want from the teenage dream is to be financially independent. I don’t want to have to care about what my parents or siblings think, I just want to have my own house and live my own life, but that won’t happen until my teenage years fly by me in a whirlwind of missed opportunities that somehow goes too slow and too fast at the same time.
As a trans guy, I thought almost the same when I was younger, but it was more depressing. Dreaming is for straight cis people, being happy and safe isn't for me, nothing is for me.
I envied the other boys for doing "boy's stuff" with other boys, I envied them for being capable of having fun without having horrible consequences, I felt my life was a waste.
I don't hear a lot of other LGBTQ+ people talking about this, I wonder if this is a common feeling...
@@lordarthur2165 I suspect it is. Especially for trans people who couldn’t be themselves as teens.
@@ravenwolfkittyface1802 I thought about it, but I think I heard just a few people talking about this before.
Same. They seem to put emphasis on teen boys and teen girls dating especially in proms and homecomings which made me think having fun as a teenager is more of a straight/allo people thing than anything else. Any other type of fun is either childish or too adulty.
If any teenagers read this, I can say that it is worth it to stay alive. I had a really hard time in my teenage years from mean girls in places I didn't expect to health trials and body image issues. When I turned 20 my whole life began to seem okay. All of those things I thought I could never get through I am a survivor of. You are loved, if not by anyone else I am giving you that. Keep surviving until you feel like you're just living to live.
thank you.
@@Man-ej6uv you're welcome 💖💕
i remember one time when i was incredibly depressed i told my mom that i felt like the best years of my life were behind me, and she just went "you're 17." just those two words really helped me put in context how ridiculous my assumption was, i still have so much of my life ahead of me and so much more than my teenage years.
I was a bit sad when you read the text by this person who wondered if they 'peaked" at 17, because no one does, but indeed that's what media is selling you.They say you are supposed to be living your best years, but that's absolutely not true at all. I am almost 40, and my adolescence was hell. I was lonely, I had almost no friends, I was hurting and I couldn't wait to be done with this Earth. I thought I would never be 18, and then 20. But I managed to have a great friends group in college, and even though I was still burdened by chronic depression (and sometimes I felt like I would never make it to 30), for the most part it felt like what you were describing at the end of your video. But, it came down crashing after I turned 26. I became long-term unemployed and my depression had never been so bad. I nearly didn't make it to 28. I truly believed my life was over because I had nothing in it. I felt again like I did when I was a teenager. Having the impression that I had wasted my life and done none of the things I was supposed to be doing according to any media I consumed (having a job, a foot in a lucrative career, building a family). I felt like I peaked at 24, and the idea that I still had 60 years to live in this misery was unbearable. But I was lucky to get help, be medicated and get into a new career path. Since then, I've started taking every single year as a bonus. You don't peak at a particuliar age. Your life is made of many peaks, and your teenage years is definitely not the highest of them. And even if one day you reach that highest point, there will be many more that are going to be also absolutely amazing.
This was really encouraging for me as an 18 year old. Thanks :)
i was 26 last year when everything felt like it was falling apart. ..honestly i still wonder why i’m here and everything you said down to picturing another 60 years really resonates
As a teenager I didn’t really do any of the things TV teens did. Some of my peers were sneaking into bars, partying and traveling because they had the money to do so. I was very boring, I did boring teen things lol. Teenagedom did kind of suck. It wasn’t all bad but I was mentally unwell and my home life wasn’t great. I’m genuinely happier in my twenties than I was as a teenager. Despite that I can’t escape the feeling that I haven’t done anything important or impactful yet which means I’ve failed. There’s such an insane amount of pressure to succeed within the first half of your twenties and as a teenager. Unrelated: Your videos are so visually appealing. It tickles my eyeballs in a good way.
being a teenager during the pandemic was the worst experience of my entire life. i missed out on so many teenage experiences and when i finally got out i felt like i was barely 13. on top of depression i just feel so behind everyone else. the idea of the teenage dream is making everything that happened to me during quarantine feel 10x worse
The teenage dream is a lie, though. Don't fall for it! Life begins after high school.
How old are you mate? Trust me- I just turned 22 and still feel like a baby. You have SO much life to live! When you reach my (very young) age, you'll realize just how young you really were!
I went to a small religious high school and everyday I would wake up and feel like a loser because I wasn't "taking advantage of my youth". But now that I'm 21 and in grad school, I feel so much happier. I was literally a child back then and it was ridiculous to think I would have had the time, freedom, and money to live out the "teenage dream". I'm able to do so much cool stuff now, at my own pace. For the longest time I was scared to grow up, but now I'm looking forward to my 20s, 30s, and beyond.
“So if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like dating me, get your wedding attire ready, my daddy issues are already walking down the aisle”
'Being in your twenties is just like teenage 2...- now with more bills and less friends"
I'm dead 💀 Shanspeare is the most poetic youtuber mashallah
Just yesterday I was having a mental breakdown about how uneventfull and stale my life has been; I'm only 20. It is very much teen angst leaving my body but to look back and see that the life one was promised just doesn't exist does a number on you. Specially when the feeling of "there must be something fundamentally wrong in me" permeates those memories, those teenage dreams of greatness. Even though it is now clear how this great time of joy and rule breaking is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to sell something to teens, I can't help but wonder in the very back of my mind, "Was there something wrong with me?", "Maybe if I had tried harder, I could have been one of the cool kids"
Now I can only look forward, and make the most of my twenties; after all, they are the best years of your life, right?
I agree I'm about to turn 20 soon and I feel like no matter how I act or whatever I do I can never connect with other young people I just feel so out of place
i hope they’re not the best years of my life. i’m 25 and more miserable than ever.
I'm an autistic, asexual, aromantic woman currently in my forties. I wasn't diagnosed as autistic until I was thirty, and more recently I was also diagnosed with ADHD, mild depression, and possibly a minor head trauma as a very young child. Until I got into ace groups on Facebook several years after my autism diagnosis, I thought I must be the only person in the world who didn't have crushes. On top of that, there was all this stuff related to my neurodivergences that I didn't have the language to talk about for more than half of my life.
When I was in my teens, I didn't live. I merely existed. Since the way that the school system is set up was too overstimulating for me, I stayed away from a lot of experiences that I'm sure would have been healthy growing experiences in other circumstances. I was in survival mode, not growth mode. I guarded my me-time after school *jealously*.
College and most of grad school were the happiest days of my life, on the other hand. I grew so much intellectually, but continued to play it safe to an extent that I remained stunted emotionally without realizing it.
In my mid twenties I had my first work experience, which brought up a lot of insecurities that I had suppressed, thinking that I had transcended them. Nothing had prepared me for any of these new experiences, and it was like being bodily picked up and tossed into the pool and expected to swim or drown. This and the ripple affects it caused in my relationships with my friends and family kick-started a delayed adolescence for me, only . . . imagine all of the angst of those four years being dumped on you at once like that bucket of pig's blood on Carrie. It was like giving birth to a baby through my brain.
So, I wasn't in such a great place for a while. I ever-so-slowly processed that shock to my system, trying to untangle this huge ball of yarn in which I suddenly found myself ensnared. I started exploring who I was and that lead to my autism diagnosis and finding the autism and later the ace communities online.
I can't thank God enough for the relative immunity to peer pressure that comes with my particular version of autism, and the fact that I never swallowed that whole teen dream thing. On top of everything else, the last thing I needed was the shame of feeling like I hadn't done being a teenager right. Currently I feel like I'm finally starting to come into my own, at least psychologically. Praise be that we have all of these other years to live, because I know I have damn well needed every last one of them to be able to grow to the extent that I have.
I'm very sorry for what you have been through in your young life. I could see your pain as you were talking about it. I hope that things continue to get better for you.
I would just like to say that I am jealous of your aroace nature. I don’t want to deal with romantic emotions and crushes.
Trust me, it’s not really something to be jealous of. The world is set up for allo people and romantic relationships.
@@laurahamilton8868 well good news for me, I figured out I am at least arogray. And as for your thesis in the comment, I couldn’t agree more.
I think the idea of the teenage years being the best of your life is related to the way we perceive youth as inherently beautiful and aging as ugly. I know i have felt the need to live it up while i’m young and beautiful because I won’t have that beauty when i’m old we, which completely isn’t true!! I think so many of us will be pleasantly surprised to find out that there is so much life to live in your 30s 40s and 50s and it’ll be better because we’ll have fully developed brains to help us out too lol
It's amazing how the teenage dream can make me romanticize my own teen years, even tho I was struggling so much with my mental health. So many of the things you shared in this video resonate with me, especially about mourning your teen years and how you reflected on your own experiences as a teen. Thank you for this video.
I hated my teen years- precisely because I felt I wasn’t living enough. And I don’t know why. I don’t know why I was so stunted so emotionally shut down and antisocial. It’s awful because I truly don’t remember much specific between the ages of 13-16. I was really just going through the motions. And much like you said, I deleted most photos because I didn’t like seeing myself there.
But then something changed in me. I don’t know really how to explain it I can’t remember exactly when but I know where- I was on a bus ride home from school and something just clicked. This backbone where I realised I’d been living in my head so much and decided fuck everyone and everything that made me feel there was something wrong with me. And I started being nicer to myself- not in a positive affirmations in the morning sort of way (no shame if that’s your bag) but I was just owning what was true. I knew I was smart, I knew I’d get good grades and go to a good school- I was even beginning to like the way I looked too.
Nowadays most people know me for being confident, well dressed and happy, smart and even funny sometimes. I’m 29 and don’t look it I’m married I have a home with my husband and I wouldn’t know what to say to my 16 year old self if he knew that he’d go from feeling so displaced and miserable to feeling so complete one day. But I’d like to think if he saw me he’d smile.
I’m 18 and I somehow feel … old. I feel like it’s embarrassing that the people living their “golden years” are younger than me. It’s so twisted how media has made me believe I was supposed to feel my happiest and most fulfilled through my late childhood.
Everyone remember, many of us are still healing in our 20’s and BEYOND. Greatness cannot be rushed take your time and don’t compare yourself to anyone. You don’t know what they go through, or how much more advantaged they may be. The fact you wake up each day and try matters. I’m 28 and struggle with feeling like life for me is over sometimes due to this fixation of teenage youth. Nothings over until we’re dust in this life, and then it’s onto the next journey! Be kind and brave everyone, wherever you’re at, all I can say :)
as someone who's 24 and still feels/wishes I was a teen, even tho it was some of the worst years of my life, i'm excited for this
ur still young
I’m 34. My teens started alongside my father having a severe schizophrenic breakdown that resulted in him being very violent with me. The bullying I was experiencing at school had gotten so bad that I just stopped going to school after year 7. My father was institutionalised by my 14th birthday. My mother just randomly moved me and my sister to the city where she grew up by 15. Evicted at 16. Moved again by 17. By my 18th birthday, my sister had moved out and my mother had moved her narcissistic abuse onto me that would take hold until I was 32.
I was allowed to be a teen. I was allowed to listen to teenybopper pop music and wear cute clothes (within budget and until I started getting fat at 16). But I still never able to have a ‘teenage dream’ per se. I didn’t finish high school until my 20s through an adult education program, so I never went to prom. I was isolated from anyone else my age , so I didn’t have any friends or had any romantic relationships. Hell, I still don’t know how to drive.
All I have left of “my teenage dream” is a few old Britney & ‘Nsync CDs, a fuckton of trauma and a few decor items from my teen bedrooms.
ETA: I feel like I should put down my ‘happy ending’ or whatever. My mum’s health got so bad that we couldn’t live together any more (she’s OK, but major boundaries are in place). I have my own place now and though I’m living paycheck to paycheck, my life is finally mine. I get to come and go as I please, my money is mine and no one else’s (except bills…blah), and I’m working on getting a degree and the shit-ton of trauma I have. I’m doing OK. I’m not 16 or whatever. But that’s OK.
I’m me. I can’t change the past, and the last thing teen me needs is me hating her for not being what I wanted her to be.
I'm 22, and I can tell you, my teenage years were almost nothing like how it's often depicted in media. In fact, I often felt younger than my peers because I wasn't living the "normal" teenage experience.
Damn I cried so hard. I am currently 26 and the part about your 20's being like your teens but with more bills and less friends really hit me in the feels because I always thought it was just me who feels that way. It feels like other people my age are married with kids, going on holiday, working good jobs and so on while I feel stuck in some way almost like a child still in my lifestyle and interests but I just do what makes each day a little bit more bearable and hoping my 30's are gonna be the "good" time where I have it together and not just rotting in bed watching Netflix every day lol
😭 🥲🥺 I feel the same
What you are feeling is very normal. I am decades removed from my late 20s, but I look back on them now and remember all the existential anxiety I was feeling. I remember worrying so much about the fact that I was 29, did not have a degree, did not have a spouse, no kids, and none of the spoils of financial success.
I remember being so depressed about it because I honestly felt like some type of "clock" was about to run out on me and and I had squandered the time when I was supposed to have been having the most fun and positioning my future.
To be frank, my early 30s were not much better.
I never imagined in a million years that I would end up experiencing all the things I thought I had lost out on in my mid to late 40s. But that is exactly what happened.
If you were to ask me would I ever want to go back to those years, I would give you a resounding no.
I miss some of the energy and physicality of my youth, but there is something to be said about living a life where you're (mostly) healthy, have had a chance to truly mature and work out a lot of your anxieties and insecurities, and have the benefit of years of lived experience to guide your decisions that is missed in the obsession with youth.
Again, what you are feeling is very normal. Don't feel bad about it. In a lot of ways, your 20s really are just a slightly better (maybe) extension of your teen years and that is nothing to be ashamed about.
If it helps, I'm 25, married, master's degree, working my dream job and still feel incredibly lost on what comes next. I'm happy with the things I've done and my lovely husband, but when the checklist starts filling up, it's like...what's next? What do I do for the next (hopefully) 60 years? Life is confusing and you never stop having that inclination to measure yourself against others, know that your pace is just right and no one else has it figured out either.
I'm not lying when I say that around 25 minutes into this video I was crying. this perfectly expressed all of the worries I'm currently facing I haven't been able to express to others in my sixteen years of living. I feel suddenly so seen and understood and I feel like the future might be brighter. thank you so much:)
Could you make up a summary? Sorry im not a natuve english speaker
@@gustavus0013Use Google translate.
turning 17 in a few days, absolutely love this video and definitely relate to how I often feel like i'm missing out on the "teenage dream" where other people around me seem to be living it. thank you for being so open about your teenagehood and even though you think your poetry was cringe it really was just how you were feeling at that time- angsty teenage writing and i think it's wonderful haha
I'm 17 already. this vid felt so especial to me too, I felt seen. I struggle so much with the anxiety and dread of teenagehood and it took a long time to realise that it was normal to feel that way, that most teens felt that way...after you realise that it gets much easier. I hope your seventeenth birthday is great
Yeah, that's why I'm not that bothered by teen love poems....
I’m 14 and I’m terrified of not feeling the teenage dream. I only have three years of high school left (in sophomore year currently), I don’t know how I’m going to be able to live that “High School Experience™️” that everyone wants me to live, and the more time I spend wasting away in my room doing nothing, the more things I’ll regret when I become an adult
@@wren_. to be honest with you, the teenage dream like in the movies doesn't happen really, what I realised after some time is that the teenage dream doesn't exist, I spend a lot of time at home too, due to anxiety and stuff, but I have really close friends around my age and when I'm with them I allow myself to relax and just live.
You make your own teenagehood but It's important to remember that the movies are just movies made by old white men and that you are your own unique individual. It is okay to not have your whole life in order and done everything you wanted by 18, and honestly that's quite impossible to do if you aren't rich. Just be yourself and remember that you are really young still, you have a * lot* of time left and you *do not need* to have done everything right at 18.
@@wren_. I would definitely suggest hanging with friends, taking goofy videos and pictures. Dancing in your room.
in my 30s and i can safely say this is so far the best decade of my life. it hasn't even lasted that long, but it's definitely the best. finally getting a hold on various issues that ruined me in my teenage years (gender, sexuality, trauma/mental illnesses, etc.) and i finally feel like i have some level of control that i didn't really get in my teens or my 20s. the teenage dream can go f*ck itself lol
I’m 25 and finally getting to do all of the things I wished I could’ve done as a teenager. It’s never too late to choose yourself, your happiness, and your peace.
This was so comforting as an 18 year old who has been struggling with mental health issues since elementary school. I have sobbed and sobbed the last 3 birthdays I've had because I'm not at all what I wanted to be. I'm still grieving what I would have done and who I would have been had I know my diagnoses earlier. It's hard to remember that I was 5 dreaming up all these things I wanted, 8 fighting to be smart enough to graduate early, 11 being devastated to be sick ever because it "held me back". I was just a little kid who wanted to be enough, smart enough, strong enough, fast enough. I have to remind myself constantly that it's ok to be where I am, I'm still beginning. This is just a small part of bigger things, even if now feels like forever. Gifted kids out there, fight to give yourselves a break, you're good enough, even if you can barely move today.
I love you for writing this comment, thank you so much
Being a teenager is really really tough. I never did any of the things I saw on tv shows and always felt like I was missing out on key life experiences. But trust me it does get better! I’m 30 now. Society makes it out like aging is the worst thing that can happen, for women especially, but I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. Still have ups and downs obv but I’m so glad I kept pushing on 💕
I’m 24 now, and I was never the popular kid who has a budding social life. I was an undiagnosed autistic with a very protective family, and I wished to have that “teenage dream”. But honestly, as I got older, I’m living that dream now. I’ve accepted the way I look, have a job I’m passionate about, a fulfilling and caring relationship, and if I’m honest, it not only took me realising that I was autistic, but also that I could do the one thing I never did as a teenager: taking the control back and deciding what I wanted for my life for MYSELF.
I will say this: There are no best years. There’s only now, and we make our best moments. And it’s okay if we aren’t where we want to be yet. We will get there.
This video hit hard. Im still in my teen years but as soon as they started my life just went down the toilet. Neurodivergent teenagehood is something that most people don't understand, it's why so many of us end up breaking down then. Since age 12 I've been in the mental health system which has traumatised me and a whole lot of my teenagehood has been lonely and depressing. Sometimes it hits me like a truck that I've been in survival mode for this long while it seems like I should be spending it with other teens and doing everything I want but I just can't.
Being a teenager is beliieving the feeling won't ever end, and waking up one day to notice you just don't feel the same anymore.
31:08 It's an interesting point about how some people have accessed to an _organized life._ I've always had trouble trying to understand why my childhood messed me up and what made me seek out chaos, but I think this is the reason. When your life has no orgnaization and stability growing up, it's easy to see how any kind of calm and predictability would seem foreign, uncomfortable, maybe even unbearable. Add ADHD onto that and oh boy!
I don’t know if I’m allowed to relate to this. What counts as an organize life. I mean, I’ve moved around a bunch and not been able to keep many close friends for more than a year, but I’ve always had the same structure, the same family dynamic. What if my life is organized in the wrong way? Am I still allowed to relate to this? i have no idea
I turned 30 about six weeks ago after moving 1500 miles away from the town I spent my life in. My husband and I bought a house in cash (which is wild in this market, and that a few years ago, we were two months behind in rent, power shut off, in credit card debt) and honestly, I feel like my life has just now gotten started. My teenage years were a nightmare, I hated all of them. It was only after I left high school that I realized it was all bullshit, all the teenage dream nonsense I had been fed, and life might not be easy, but it is a lot better with a fully developed prefrontal cortex and some fucking therapy.
Much love to you all out there. I'm seeing so many teenagers in the comments, and I want you all to know that life is an experience. I hope you choose to keep on waking up in the morning to see what else there is out in the very big world.
i felt cheated as a child, and as a teen, i knew i wouldnt make it to my 18th birthday. i lived for others, i didnt take care of my mental health. i wasnt diagnosed with depression, so i surely didnt have it... 18th birthday felt surreal and dissociative, but i slowly started realizing that it was my life and i could do something with it. i will be 26 soon, i still need therapy, and every now and then i have to pick up the pieces of my inner child or inner teenager and hug them because back then, nobody else did. something that brings me great joy though is the knowledge that they, if they could see me where i am right now, would probably cry from happiness. they wouldnt believe where we got, even when i didnt reach my craziest goals. despite the bills, job anxieties and everything else happening, i am happy, and im glad both of them kept going. i got to meet "my" people, my chosen family, and i get to see what else is in my future.
Omg this perfectly encapsulates how I feel. I’m 25 and still sometimes fantasize about being a teenager again, like the fake idealized wayyyy too adult version of high school, not my REAL teenage years which were cringey and awkward like everyone’s are.
yes, thank you. i’m 27 and i’ve been feeling like ~ my life is over ~. so much toxic pressure around age and it’s importance in your achievements.
My teenage years were shit and I feel like my live only started in my 20s but I still feel like I'm not achieving enough because media sells us what our life should be. It's all a lie.
I’ve never read a comment this relatable before.
The entirety of my teen years were consumed by a restrictive eating disorder. For anyone who’s gone through that, they’ll know the amount of self hatred and isolation as well as the physical, emotional, and mental trauma that comes with it. Also, the strain it puts on family and friends.
Sometimes I get really sad that my teen years weren’t spent differently, as they are depicted in so many shows and movies. Then again, I’m so glad I made it to 23. Sure, I have more bills. But I also have more friends, a degree, a job that I love, and a rekindled relationship with food. I’m perfectly fine not being a teen anymore. Honestly, I’m relieved if anything.
Yup very much so restrictive eating disorder. I wish I could give my younger self a hug but I can at least give myself as I am now- a very warm hug. I hope you can too.
That is one of the reasons why my teen years were terrible and every time I thought I actually liked myself Just body dysmorphia came back at me again it is the most depressing isolating thing- at such a young age too. So I absolutely understand and the worst thing is that you talk about, at least I talked about the way I looked constantly, because it was always on my mind. I’m so glad we both made it out of our teenage years. I’m glad we both have a rekindled relationship with food and now we are much much happier. I hope you have a wonderful, blessed day love💖😋🥰
As I'm approaching my 30s, I'm actually happier than when I was a teenager/in my 20s. I spent so much time feeling like a failure, like I have nothing to offer the world. But I couldn't be farther from reality. My 30s are going to be so freeing and fulfilling!
I feel so lucky for having the chance to go through my (almost starting, I will be 13 in the next month) teenage years with your channel, since I move to my father's house it's like it's a completely different world. My mom raised me on a Disney-like world, hiding the fact that she was on abusive relationship and that our familiar ambient was totally dysfunctional, so when I learned that I've been manipulated trough nine years of my life to think that my father didn't cared about me, that he was horrible, that he didn't helped my mom to raise me... It was so fucked up.
Luckly, I didn't brokedown about it but I will have to go through some pretty big character development to live at the closest that someone can get to peace. My father teached me that fulfilling happiness is a utopic thought, but this doesn't mean that I can't take somethings good from my life, because if we drown ourselves in misery we will never actually live. I can't say that my life is complete shit though, my parents (and stepmom :]]]) love me and work to make my life better than their was, which is really rare on... Every time perspective, and I'm grateful for it.
Also, can we PLEASE stop stereotyping 12-years-old girls ? Lots of people don't take me seriously when I tell them my age, and it made have a pretty low self-esteem for a while because I thought that everything I said was "drama" or "should be ignored", please, let's move on :/
Ps:. If you find any spelling and/or grammatic errors in this comment, please tell me !! I'm brazilian so my english isn't the best ajhjsjsg
Oof, your post reminds me of an online story where something similar happened...
A girl was lied to that her father was abusive for YEARS. Her mom just left her with the father one day and the girl LEGIT had a culture shock (wait, is that the right term here?) when she realized her mom's claims weren't true.
Meu beeem, seu inglês é maravilhoso e o fato que você consegue se expressar maravilhosamente em mais de um idioma mostra como você é fantástica já aos 12. De ler seu comentário é perceptível que você tem sua própria percepção do mundo, sua própria voz e eu espero muito que as pessoas ao seu redor comecem a reconhecer isso também e a valorizar mais a pessoa que você é.
@@lorotacaradepipoca
Aaaaah, obrigada !! Meu rosto tá doendo de tanto sorrir rsrs
I feel like every decade gets its turn in the "last good decade of your life" myth, but it's definitely especially pervasive for teens and twenties. We're told our teens are for living it up, because our twenties are for settling down and getting our shit together, and our 30s are for becoming irrelevant and too old to be deemed youthful and attractive anymore. My teen years were fraught with mental illness, which I spent at least half of my twenties cleaning before I could even begin to do all the "grown up" things. I'm happier in my 30s than I was in either of those decades combined -- living the DINK life and having the financial freedom to travel and pursue my interests. Life doesn't end until it actually does. Most of us have plenty of living to do in the in-between.
i remember someone saying that they were mid 30's and they were more exposed to life than they were in theyre teens or young 20's and tbh that really did open my eyes in another ways and gave me a bunch of positivity to my heart.
Honestly, there are moments I wish I was still a teen, but definitely not a lot of the time. As someone that had a chaotic high school experience, I was so happy to finally be in college and have a fresh start.
The whole week ive seen stories of ppl attending cllg events and going to concerts and it made me feel so insignificant and shitty. Like i wasn't doing enough to live the "teenage life". You shouldn't be forced and pressured into creating memories. You shouldn't feel guilty for not falling for the "ideal milestone". This could not have come at a better time. I needed this reminder so much. Thank you.
Hey there!
I kinda knew before hitting my teen years that it wouldn't be like the movies.
I did wonder about things like concerts and prom though.
Nowadays I wouldn't attend a concert because I've learned that I'm uneasy when I'm in a loud room and can't hear conversations.
^^ i think having ideal milestones is a must but people shouldnt feel guilty for failing/not doing it
that was beautiful
I always thought we'd just need a "your life doesn't end in your 20s", but the dread starts even earlier.
Let's make the best of whatever time we're in
Honestly, as someone who had to deal with a chronic illness during her teenage years, I can say that I was left feeling completely isolated from everything and everyone. This teenage dream wasn't feasible for me, although I had relatives, friends and teachers who told me that my situation at that time was my fault. I had to put up with so many people not believing the hardships I had to go through. I had to come to terms very early on with the fact that I was completely excluded from the teenage dream and the expectations that come with it. So I was left no other option than to create my own dream. Things got better in my twenties, fortunately. So if anyone is currently struggling with an illness, or with mental health problems, just know that I see you and believe you♡♡ you're not alone.
I'm 15 and in recovery from illness after three years. All of this is on point! And I'm still grappling with "how to be a teen" because I missed so much. You have given me hope. Thank you xxx
My last few years of high school were disrupted by the pandemic and it probably left me socially stunted.
No job, no girlfriend, no social life, very few friends, it sucked. But I’m in college now, and I’m pretty much a shut-in, and my life is just beginning. My teenage years sucked, and the future’s looking grim, but I’m in a position to keep moving forward, and start living my best life.
I also didn't think I would live to 25. I only realised I had survived past it at 27. It gets better with age and I am glad I kept pushing. ☺
I am a freshman in college and I remember graduating high school and feeling like I missed something. The pandemic and then my general me couldn’t hang with the people around me but I have had more “teenage” experience in my first month of college than that ever did in high school. I’m so glad I got some now and even though I hated it when I was going through it, I’m glad THESE are my firsts, it feels better knowing that I made it to this step and can have these moments with different people.
The teenage dream is also similar to the university dream, or idealistic life you should have as a university student; parties, finding lifelong friends, great fashion, traveling, acing exams and socialising all the time. You are told that your university years are your best years, when in reality it is not like that for half of the people. Sure, for some it is and honestly good for them, but what no one talks about is the awful loneliness and isolation you feel as a university student and the shame you feel for not measuring up to that ideal university life that everyone said you would have and expected you to have just like most teens do not live up to that idealistic teenage life. In reality life at uni is quite mundane, waking up at early hours, going to classes and lectures, going to the library and then back home or your dorm to study until 1am.
Our teenage selves didn’t deserve to grow up with these types of social pressures, along with all the other life stressors. I had no goals, no hope for myself, no guidance as a teen. My teenage self would not believe where i am now. If you are a teenager reading this, there is hope and there is more to life than the things you see on TV/ or what the “cool kids” are up to. There are still ups and downs, but all worth experiencing.
i'm 16, and i've made nothing of my life. i'm not in very many clubs and i only really have a few close friends, and i prefer to spend most of my time doing nothing. i can't see a way forward. everything in life, from school, friendship, even my hobbies, are exhausting and i feel so, so drained. it feels like the best thing to do would just be to leave, but even that's too hard. the part of the video where you shared your own experience with suicidal ideation really spoke to me, and it really helps. coming from someone who feels like a failure for not already knowing what i'm going to do for however much time i have left, thank you.
same.
I'm currently 17, going to turn 18 in 20 days, and I just want to say thank you for this video.
The closer I got to being 18, to being an "adult", the more regret and shame I had towards myself, my anxiety and self hatred preventing me from "living the dream". That because of my issues, I "wasted" my youth and I'll never be able to get back.
Like the comment in the video said, I feel cheated but I guess now I realize that it's alright, that the stuff we see and hear in media is fiction, not reality.
I'm still so fucking scared cause I don't want to grow up, I don't want to be an "adult" yet but we'll see..we'll see. Anyways thank you so much for this video I really needed it
Thank you for this video, specifically at that little Heartstopper mention. I can't watch that show due to my own grief of an unlived teenage dream. I'll be 25 next month, and I still mourn the childhood experiences I didn't have.
I remember, for instance, how I was invited to a classmates house to work on a project for French class and I thought to myself, "oh today I get to be a real person." Getting invited over was such a rare occasion for me that this day was notable.
I remember I took the first chance I could to get my first kiss out of the way out of the fear of never getting another opportunity. That went for first dates and, later, accepting the love of the first person to ask me out.
Being queer, Jewish and autistic, I had difficulty Fulfilling Adolescence. I wasn't invited to parties and my 16th birthday was spent with my family at a fondue restaurant. I remember how miserable I was that day. "Real people have Sweet Sixteens," I thought.
One of the unwritten and unspoken rules of the teenage dream was that who you were seen with was important, to the point that if your friends were in different grades, or, God forbid, different schools, you were good as friendless. And if you were friendless,
you weren't real.
I was a hostage within myself, too. I am still a hostage within me, my 15 year old self my jailer and my current self the prisoner.
We negotiate daily. I tell 15 that I have good friends who think I'm interesting and talented, friends who invite me over and bring me true joy.
For 15, these things don't count as much because I'm an adult and no one cares about milestones after high school.
But they do count. You KNOW they count, even if it doesn't feel like it sometimes. A lot of times.
How do you materialize into a 25 year old when you've spent more than half your life as a ghost?
I'll keep you posted.
I don't think the people making shows about teenagers are very ok. The people in the industry are humans just like the rest of us who don't know everything about life. We may not want to take what they show us that seriously lol. We can all benefit from basing our expectations for any phase of the human journey off of what genuinely makes us happy to be alive :)
I haven't thought about this concept in a while because I've been consumed by my 30 year old crisis. But it should probably put what I'm currently dealing with into perspective. Interesting.
And now I am 24 (yes, still very young), and i see 16 or 18 years old being afraid because they think they'll forever be lonely because they didnt have their first kiss or relationship yet. At 16! I was shocked that they thought their life lost all meaning because of something so mundane.
The one who got me out of the teenage dream rut was my dad actually. Seeing him still go on vacation and enjoying life and buying things for himself, made me realize that i still got time and dont need to rush anything and im so grateful for it!
I’m currently 17, soon to be 18, and I spent a long time comparing myself to the fake teenage dream. I kept wondering why I wasn’t doing a good enough job, I kept trying to check of this checklist of experiences that I thought I should have. When I stopped doing that, when I decided my life was enough, was when everything got a lot more enjoyable.
And the funniest thing is, looking back at my 17 years of life so far, I’ve lived through some of the things that could be part of “the teenage dream.” I’ve had relationship drama, consumed different substances, been to parties, had family drama, spontaneously goofed of with friends, I’ve checked off items on the checklist.
Yet it never felt like enough. Even when I was doing something that could be listed as Teenage Dream, it felt like I was still missing out, I still wasn’t doing enough. Oftentimes it felt just plain bad. The checklist doesn’t exist, and holding yourself to it just makes life worse. Even though I’m still very young, I can say with certainty that life will only get better if you stop comparing it to something that only exists on a soundstage in Hollywood and a scenario in your imagination.
I also feel the need to stress that a lot of the teenage dream experiences, including ones I or my friends have had, didn’t come from having a happy childhood. There often needs to be a lot of neglect and sometimes full on abuse in a child’s life to get them to the point of doing a lot of the things that are romanticized as the ideal teen experiences.
Im 30, turning 31 in a few weeks and when I was 25-28 I felt so pressured, like I was wasting my youth but since I hit my third decade in this life I’ve actually been more peaceful and comfortable with myself, more than when I was younger.
That last part of the video really touched me. I recently turned 23, and it's strange to say that I've reached an age I used to think was monumental. There are a lot of times where I feel very much behind. A lot of people my age have kids, marriages, jobs, etc. I have none of that. I'm still working on overcoming anxiety to get my driver's license, and the knowledge that I just haven't done as much as I feel I should messes with me a lot and makes me feel like such a failure. But then I remember that 13 year old me never thought we'd be here. Even in the last two years, my life has gone down several unexpected roads of self discovery, and honestly that self discovery has been a gift I'm happy I didn't miss out on. I've gotten to points 13 year old me would never have dreamed we'd reach, and that makes me excited and hopeful for 33 year old me. I'm excited. I know life is just beginning, and I'm glad my teen and high school years weren't the end.
This reminds me of how it feels to age past 25. I see it all across the internet. Everything from people commenting “Wow, you can’t be 30!! You look so young!!” To “that’s a kid’s hobby, what is wrong with you??” The whole view on age is incredibly toxic. We’re only here for a short time. Why not relax and let others enjoy themselves??
You talking about your 16 year old self really stood out to me. I don’t have many photos of myself from ages 14-19 and it was oddly comforting knowing that I’m not the only one that struggled with even viewing myself as a real person in high school. So many older adults will talk about high school like it was the best time of their life, but I’m so glad I don’t feel that numb anymore. I wouldn’t go back, even though my teenage self needed so much more love and patience
All of this is why I didn't worry about external clocks. I still enjoyed Kid's shows at 17yrs old and did it with my whole chest.... I lost interest before I turned 18 but the point still stands😅. But then, I was ahead of the curb in other ways like observation and understanding of things and people, if you're a kid it's better to keep quiet though🤕
When you spoke about your mental health issues I teared up. It was as if I wrote it myself- and when you mentioned having Bipolar I felt so seen. I had the same feelings as a teenager, didn’t think I’d pass 23, was diagnosed with BP1, all sorts of stuff. I’ve been there in the car crying. I’m now there in the car singing.
Now I’m just shy of 25 (I did have a crisis at turning 24, but somehow survived that!) and my friends and I draw silly doodles of the time I ate a whole chocolate pie in the car crying to evanescence. At the time I was in so much pain but looking back, where I am now, I can giggle a little at the comedy of the image.
I’m thankful I didn’t end it as a teenager. I really think the best years are yet to come- I’ve only heard positives about the 30s. I’m scared and excited. I wish I could hug my teenage self and say “these aren’t the best years, they’re the worst, and it’s about to get SO MUCH better. Just hang in there one more year, or month, or week, or day, or minute. Just hold on.”
I imagined this morning that I fell asleep wishing I could go back to my teenage years "when things were easier." I'd wake up to my mom yelling about how I'd be late for school and I'd tell her, "I'm not going to school, I'm 26." Then I'd realize my wish came true and say, "WAIT, I DIDN'T ACTUALLY MEAN IT-"
Being school-aged was simultaneously the easiest and hardest part of my life so far. I knew what I was supposed to do each and every day with a schedule and a supply list printed out for me at the beginning of each school year. I didn't have to pay for groceries and I always got what I asked for on birthdays and Christmas. I also got cPTSD from a toxic friendship and felt consistently out of place and alienated because I didn't understand the parts of me that made me unique are also the parts that most people don't have. There are things from my teenage years that I wish I could get back and others that I sometimes wish had never happened. But whenever I find myself dreaming about how I would do it all over again but better, I remind myself that I wouldn't be the me I am today.