How do you deal with lost years?

[kuze]

I've completely missed out on my adolescence and my young adult years, I'm turning 24 next month and it seems I may be depressed and lonely for some more time to come. Besides the pain of depression the fact that I never got to experience things regular ppl my age do really saddens me. I can never get those years back, there is no real consolation for them. I worry I'll experience the same for my 20's. I'm almost half way through and I haven't done anything more than be an agoraphobic loser. I spend day and night coming to terms that I lost too much of my life to depression and I can very well lose more, it isn't easy swallowing that fact.

 

[NormanBates]

Most of the adolescents and young adults I saw when I was a kid looked depressed and mopey.

That is now what I look like.

I think I have had exactly what they have had.

If anything, go to englishrussia.com and you will feel cheered up

 

[lurknomore]

I know how you feel- depression scarred my life from adolescence until my mid 20s or so- but I find it's best to not dwell on what you can't change, just focus on making the remainder of your life what you would like it to be- there's still plenty of time ahead of you. And I believe that the things that happen in our lives happen for a reason- and your experiences, good and bad, help shape you into the person that you're meant to be. I wouldn't feel bad about not doing regular "teenage" things- most of them are not as great as they're made out to be anyway, or are just downright reckless/idiotic. So, you could perhaps count yourself lucky in a way to have skipped over making stupid mistakes that you can't take back- that's the way I see it anyway. Of course I'm an optimist, so I don't mean to candycoat or gloss over any of the pain and regret you're feeling- I know it's hard. But you're not ever going to accomplish anything by perpetually dwelling on the "what ifs."

 

[powerfulthoughts]

You can't go forward if you are haunted by your past. What's done is done, and we have to accept it. We need to focus on how we can make the rest of our life experience as good as possible. Don't let "what could have been" drive the rest of your life. It's not worth it.

 

[Psychedelicious]

Time oh precious time....

Right now I don't really feel like I have lost very much because I'm not old enough to say that. I definitely do feel however, I am in the process of losing it all right now. I am nothing, this is all nothing. I will have nothing to remember because it's like nothing even happened really, or atleat that is what I feel like it will be for a long long time. I really hope it's not like that forever though. There's nothing you can really do about it though. The more time you spend worrying about the years you "lost" the more time you waste on the even fewer years you have got to experience. When I'm old enough I hope I won't care, but I might just be like "I'm HOW old and have done WHAT with my life??!?!?!?"

 

[antipop621]

I'll be 24 soon as well, and I feel the same. I have and will continue to miss out on so much. I have so much regret that I'm starting to smell like it.

 

[bleach]

You deal with it by accepting that the past is unchangeable and beating yourself up over it will solve nothing. On the contrary, blaming yourself for the past will only hurt you and make it impossible to make any progress for the future. Remind yourself every day of how fruitless that is and start moving forward.

 

[Lea]

I wouldn´t mind my past so much, the only thing is it doesn´t look good on CV and with bad CV you don´t get any job... so you can´t move on. And starting now from the scratch is maybe a bit late. Everything is possible though if you really want, but I know I´m not going to make it so in the very best I´m going to continue with the "living style" like I did until now.

 

[eso]

I feel the same. I was 25 was when i turned my life around. but i was already friggin 25, you know? I had lost so much time. I actually took the rest of my 20s and had a blast. I don't regret that time. It wasn't as good as I could have gotten it but I really tried my hardest anyway. And let me tell you, it might be too late to get those years back but it's not too late to have fun in your 20s. Seriously, get on the ball because I wish I could live in my 20s again but do it over even better than I did.

But still I feel like there is so much stuff you can do as a kid and young adult that you can't do anymore as an adult. Such as hang out at the arcade and other really childish things that are gone forever. Plus you had school so you had nothing else to do but live off parents' or grant money and have a blast while learning and being in an environment where you're constantly surrounded by people your age who also have lots of time on their hands. It's the perfect time and I pretty much ruined it 80%. I had fun in college but my shyness certainly stopped me from most things I could have done.

Now I'm 33 and I feel like that again. I just have this agonizing feeling that you have one life and I'm kinda halfway wasting it because since I almost totally wasted my youth due to shyness I am doomed to repeat it again.

I guess what I could do is try to make the best of the rest of my life. I think I can do that but I need to come up with a plan. But at the least if you have my attitude where you have hope instead of fear for the future it does help you deal a whole lot. I'm not an incurable optimist and it took a lot of reprogramming to get me from being a negative hermit to what I am now, but trust me it is a better life.

 

[xtina_fan81]

Its one thing talking about how we cant change the past, but what about when it is pushing itself the still exist in the present?
Example...I have tickets for a gig and I obviously have a REAL lack of people to ask, and the ones I have asked cant or dont want to come. I mean am I just friends with useless people? WHENEVER i try to arrange ANYTHING it never works out, its been like that since i can remember and its just like HOW can i move on if if i have to miss out on so much if people cant be bothered for whatever reason. its either REALLY bad luck or people just dont want to spend the time with me. or both. theres just no way of getting out of it.

 

[kevinvincent86]

Sometimes I feel cheated out of my youth for not having some of those experiences or milestones...Not because I wanted to experience them, but out of principle. Little quiet people like me should have had the opportunity to go to proms, roll around in the back seat with a girl, party till you pass out, etc., just like everybody else.

But as some have commented, a few of the "lucky" kids paid a big price for fun, eg. pregnant girls, drunk driving accidents, etc. Sometimes missing the fireworks can be a blessing.

I completely understand the feeling of having missed the boat while you were young. It never quite goes away, but for all the reasons in the comments, I agree that there isn't much point losing a lot of sleep or hair over it. Adulthood is much more rewarding than having old stories to tell over and over. I'm not much of a Bruce fan, but I think the song "Glory Days" sums it up pretty well.

 

[Nicholas]

I've completely missed out on my adolescence and my young adult years, I'm turning 24 next month and it seems I may be depressed and lonely for some more time to come.

Same here. Probably not really the same, but I am in a similar situation, and I understand your problem. I have told myself several times that "if things don't change, by the time I am 30 I will definitely be chronically depressed and there won't be any hope at all anymore". And I really feel that's true, I know I won't ever be able to accept still being a loser in 5 years from now.
There is only one true thing to remember though: you can't change the past, you can't change what you did. You have to accept it anyway, because there is no other solution. But I have realized that being a loser in the past doesn't mean you will be a loser in the future too. We must act now, only acting can we hope to change our future. And if one day you are happy, you won't think of the days you were sad anymore. Trust me: once you are happy and optimistic, that's all that matters to you. So, in other words, my solution is "let's try harder to make sure we get a lot of chances to change our lives the way we want".

 

[Noca]

I just come to the realization that the years I've lost, I was sick during and needed help.

 

[Apple Strudel]

I lost my 17s, 18s and almost 3/4 of my 19s to agoraphobia.

Now i'm schooling full-time and work part-time to make up for my lost time and experience

 

[L Hilla]

I don't think its nessacarily lost years id call it, more like lost oppurtunities. I'm only 16, so of course ill feel like i have to do the usual teenage thangs but in reality, its not always like that. Not always like it is in the movies/tv/media, so i just live and remind myself that life's not over until i'm dead, lol!

I'm still the same introverted and people-awkard me, but I'm trying to find ways to keep my head up, and feel good about myself. But the most part i realise i have many more years to go, and things'll happen when they happen. That's all i can think of right now.

 

[Nicholas]

Try to give yourself credit for what you have been through and what you are going through. This is a real disease. It is hard to fight on your own and usually takes a variety of treatments or therapy to get it right. Give yourself credit for what you have done, what you are trying to do, and the fact that you are still here.

Find your own way to do it, in your own time. No matter when you do get better, the feeling will be just as good then as if it happened at any other time.

Heh, best advice I've seen so far. I agree. We can do whatever we want, it's just that we are "scared". Once we decide we are not going to be scared of relatively unimportant things, we will see there are almost no limitations and we can get what we want. We are basically limiting ourselves, we are imagining limits that don't exist.

 

[theblank]

YouTube - Iron Maiden-Wasted years lyrics

 

[DaaaBulls]

I feel like I wasted my junior and senior years in highschool, I lost a few of my best friends junior year over some fights and basicly became a ghost for the remainder of high school. I still wish I had partied and hung out more those years instead of in my room.

I also feel like I wasted my sophmore year in college because I didn't do a whole lot except for class and smoke weed and play video games with my roommate.

It's strange because when I start new things like highschool and college I am really into it for the first little while. In highschool I was really active freshman year, looked like I had a lot of potential but for what ever reason it faded and seemed like I fell off the top. Same with college, my first year was good until mid way through I became depressed and every year since at college hasn't been that great.

I too dwell on wasting my youth, this is something that makes me feel the worst. I'm only 22 but I have the mindstate that I am like 40 already looking back. If I can shake this mindset off I can enjoy the prime of my life, my mid twenties, otherwise I will be 30 doing the same thing I did after my teen years.

 

[Slothrop]

There are no "lost" years. You were there, you lived them, now they are done. You may not like the way you spent that time, but you can never get it back. Instead of wishing to change the unchangable, let that be a lesson about how much value to put on the time you have left.

When you're 24, you're going to wish you hadn't spent so much time at 23 dwelling on past regrets. So stop. When you catch yourself mourning time long past, politely tell those thoughts to get the **** out. If they slip in sometimes, that's ok, but drop the habit. Drop the baggage, keep the experience; learn from mistakes instead of regreting them.

Stop comparing yourself to others, while you're at it. You've had the same 8500+ days that everyone else your age has, that's all: aside from that everyone's life is different. Whatever lead to where you are today--regrets and all--is what you have to work with. It's hard and it isn't fair, but it's your life--the only one you get--and it doesn't excuse you from trying to make every day you have (including this one!) better than the last.

Living in the past is like walking backwards; it keeps you from seeing where you're going.

 

[NothingElseMatters]

whenever i let myself think like this i become depressed.even though i am 21 and cant say i wasted my life,if i go on thinking like this i will lose just as many years.sometimes it helps me to think that i am gonna remember all these in the future and feel proud about it cause i overcame my fears and depressions and anxieties and i am living my life.maybe its just a dream but it gives me hope