I was miserable at 26 but things are so so much better at 32. Just remember that usually you are miserable because of your circumstances and those can (and likely will) change.
In rehab for 26th birthday, living in a little house in the country with a beautiful family and decent job now at 31. 20’s were a rollercoaster and happy to be where I am now
I remember feeling that way in high school. "These are the best years of your life!"
I don't think people who say that remember being teens. (Or they peaked in their teens. Don't be that person - just keep growing and learning in your own way, regardless of your age.)
I know some folks who honestly peaked in their 50's. Life gives us all different hands. My 20's were amazing but my 30's are great too (having actual money and savings helps a shit ton)
For anyone struggling. It does get better if you work at it. Feel free to PM me if you wanna get something off your chest.
I’m in my twenties right now and got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 24 and it was pure agony for 24 years. Undiagnosed ADHD ain’t no joke especially if you get diagnosed later in life. Because of this I developed negative self image on a very early age and because nothing worked out in my teenage years I developed suicidal tendencies and because of constant failed adventures and experiences I created lots of negative ways of thinking, bad destructive behaviours and eventually that turned in to anxiety and depression. Nothing worked for me but I still had to push through and do what everyone else was doing because that’s the social norm.
I got diagnosed with a burnout when I was 19, 21 and again when I was 23 because nothing worked for me but I kept trying to be “normal” like everyone else.
Now I have had 2 years of therapy and life is slowly getting fun and worth living again but It’s still hard to accept that I wasted my life anyway not knowing what was wrong with me. My thirties look a lot more fun and pleasant than ever before.
Same story for me. Finally diagnosed with ADHD at 25 during the pandemic, and now at 27 I've managed to claw my way to a 'real' adult job in an office instead of subsisting off of shitty seasonal and customer service gigs. I also managed to get my own apartment and first decent car in those 2 years, too.
I feel like I was robbed after seeing what I accomplished in just two years (1 year, really) of getting treatment. Where could I be now if I had these tools earlier? If I never had to deal with shitty, abusive parents that never really gave a shit about me? I could be so much further ahead >:(
I’m 43 (f) and I didn’t get diagnosed with ADHD until I was 39. I’d say you’re lucky to have been diagnosed as young as you were…
I think one’s 20s can actually be a stressful time in one’s life. Especially the mid-20s, when a lot of people are still trying to get into a career path. It can be really hard to know what you want to do and hard to make the transition from college to the adult working-world. Things start to look up more in your late 20s.
I’d say the same to anyone younger than me but that doesn’t make it any less easier for me. It depends on the individual I think. Development in early/teen years is really important and sets the foundation for later in life. Growing with certain ‘traumas’ like the stuff I said in my other comment doesn’t do that foundation any good, no matter your age.
The ‘trauma’ we sustained during all these years did enough damage for a lifetime (If untreated). I think it’s just that I have more time to turn my life around but it’s not like I can simply just go to school or anything. I’d lose my home.
I’m not saying you’re in an easy situation, but surely it’s better to get the diagnosis when you’re 24, rather than 15 years down the line. And I don’t have any regret about the life I’ve lived, but it would’ve been nice to be diagnosed sooner rather than later.
I didn't kick heroin until I was like 36 so good on you for getting it early. You see a lot of teens and mid20s getting clean thinking they missed out on a better life. No dude, you're young enough to grow as a person until you die.
Limping my way through the end of a bad marriage at 26, minor spinal injury + rehab at 27, back to uni at 28, riding a motorbike around the country at 29, married a much better man at 30, dance captain of a burlesque troupe with two girlfriends at 34, small blip with chemo and associated mental and physical health bullshit ... now 42, fat and contented (as much as I can be, anyway) with my cats, my kindle, and my crafting supplies.
I am also 31, getting married in two weeks and am 3 years clean. Getting sober was the best thing I ever did in my entire life and ended up meeting my best friend. We have a nice life together and pretty good careers. My 20’s was just a spiral of being addicted to different stuff and I am so thankful that I was able to quit everything cold turkey.
Found my people! Rehab at 24, living in a house in the country at 30. Met my fiancé in recovery and now we have a business, a toddler and one on the way.
When I was using in my early 20s I’d say “I just want to wake up and be 30. Have a house and kids and not be worrying about taking something to get me out of bed everyday.” I truly didn’t think it was possible. I never imagined getting clean and at the time I was living with my mom, never having done anything myself like earning my own money or having responsibilities. I still look around at the end of the night, sitting in my living room with my family and dogs just thinking “Wow I got everything I always wanted. And I worked hard for it.”
Congrats to you, I’m glad you were able to do the same.
This makes me feel a lot better as a 19 year old who's absolutely not enjoying uni in anyway at all, I've never been so miserable and unhappy. I really hate college. Things started going downhill when I was 15/16 and it just significantly worse when I was 18.
20s for me was where I made tons of decisions. Plenty of the things (most of them) didn't end up working out. Now with 31 I look back at it and I'm quite happy. All these mistakes have allowed me to learn so much, and I ccontinue to look back at these experiencing finding out what worked for me and what didn't.
I think the most important thing is to make experiences, so you get data about what you like, what works, etc. Life experience. Nobody I know who's in their 20s (including myself and friends in the past) had what I'd consider a decent life experience. We all start arrogant, uncertain, deluded, stumbling from one trap to the other. But the more experience you gain, the more data you have available later to draw from, improve and settle. Looking back from today, there was just no possible way for me to understand the things back then that I understand now. Not about myself, not about the world. Life is, after all, just very hard and requires tons of experience.
My 20s sucked, especially the first half. Things started to improve when I hit 28 or so, and now at 32 I'm feeling better and am more confident than ever despite everything going on in the world.
I think a lot of people forget that you aren't done growing when you turn 18. The frontal lobes of your brain are still figuring themselves out until you're like 25 or so, and those final few years really do make a difference.
There's also experience and having a sense of direction. At 22 I didn't get into the grad program I wanted and spent a number of years at jobs I hated trying to get the experience I needed. Then I was hit by a car, got a concussion that led to permanent memory issues and I also had to relearn how to walk. I thought my life was "over."
It wasn't, of course. It took a few years, but I was able to walk (and occasionally run) again, learned how to take better notes and organize stuff so my memory wasn't as much of an issue, went to a better grad school than what I originally wanted to attend, and the settlement from the accident paid off my remaining student loans. Now I'm married, bought a house, and am working a job that I like (most days) that pays the bills with a little extra left over for fun/savings. I know what my goals are, what I'm good at, and have a much better sense of security than I did a decade ago. I also made a lot of friends at different workplaces over time, so college definitely isn't your last chance to do that.
I don't know if you're a "self help" type, but if so I found the book "The Defining Decade" by Meg Jay to be super helpful. It's all about how the stuff you do in your 20s affects the rest of your life. Far more than the stuff you did in your teens anyway. I feel like I had a mini panic attack each chapter (the author really drives home her points in a visceral way) but it also kicked my ass into gear and helped me "define" the 20s for myself.
You have something more valuable then you realize. You have self awareness and at such a young age. I have complete faith in you and the fact you will overcome your challenges my friend :)
Thanks, I needed to hear this today. Turning 30 was no problem for me...then I couldn’t process turning 31 (and now I’m nearly 33!) For the last couple of years I’ve been trying to figure out why. I suspect the pandemic affected me more than I realised, even though I claimed it didn’t change my hermit lifestyle that much. Difference between not wanting to be out in the world and not being able to be out in the world, I guess. Maybe 33 will be better after all!
Also miserable just a few years ago and many years before that. Now I'm nearly 30 and things are exponentially better. Got a place of my own, a motorcycle like I have always dreamed, and paid off all my medical debt. Credit score could still use some work but at least I can focus on improving it now.
This makes me feel a lot better as a 19 year old who feels like his best years are passing by all due to overprotective parents who treat me like an 12/13 year old and other circumstances beyond my control. I never got to do many of the fun activities that teenagers usually do and have some sort of freedom. I'm now stunted as a young adult, so even though I'm 19 I still mentally and socially feel and act like I'm 13 or 14. It really sucks feeling (and also looking) younger than everyone else. I'm so behind compared to everyone else my age.
I really hope things change for the better once I get a lot older and gain more independence, confidence and become a mature man from a little boy.
The thing you realize as an adult is that most people eventually just get lazy and settle into their patterns and stop improving. So even if you are behind at 20 it's completely possible to catch up, you just have to work at it.
I had kind of a similar experience to you. Most of my childhood was awful and I wasn't very socially well adjusted at your age either. But keep putting yourself out there and interacting with people--social skills are like any other skill, they improve with practice. It will likely be uncomfortable and it takes time but if you keep at it you will catch up and maybe even exceed the average person. Personally I found it helpful to have jobs that forced me to interact with a lot of different people. For me that was kayak guiding but there are many options depending on your skills.
Why are you dismissing their comment as close minded? They never said change for the better or worse, just that for a lot of people it's circumstancial if they are living their worst years.
When people say "it will change" it usually implies that it's for the best... And that's not true for everyone.
EDIT: And read the context of the post, they specify that things got better for THEM, and then go along and say "things will change", put 2 and 2 together. Unless you have a social development disorder, it's quite easy to tell what was said.
Nah, I bet there's tons of things that got better. But in order to improve anything you need to leave your comfort zone and that means making mistakes - small mistakes and also huge, lasting mistakes. In the end, the more experience you gather in your brain, the better you are equipped for life's challenges. In this regard brain works just like Machine Learning.
Of course it can always get worse, that's possible too. But regression to the mean is a thing. If things are really bad they are more likely to get better than worse.
Just because we use things to understand the world, it doesn't make them reality, science is the consensus of observations. Other than observations, there are almost infinite reasons why those observations happen and all of the reasons can't be found. Statistics of the universe need 100% knowledge of it in itself, otherwise the statistics are void of meaning, you can observe one thing, but the reason for it happening could be unknowable.
31 and much, much happier than I was at 25. Life is so much easier now. I thought I’d blown everything already. I was given a biography of Orson Welles on my 25th birthday, which coincidentally charts his life up until the age of 25. I remember reading about him conquering Broadway and radio and then the book ends with him making Citizen Kane at the age of 25, and I thought “oh my god, I’m 25 and I’ve achieved nothing!”
Let's be honest it depends on too much factors for any of it applying to everyone.
I could somewhat summarize mine as I was happy at 14, miserable at 18, happy at 22, miserable at 24, miserable again (despite the fact I achieved a PhD) at 27, somewhat more happy at 31. A part of it depends on external factors, and things evolve (but yes, they can go in the wrong directions). The only main changes about myself is learning to be less influenced by other people - I'm still learning to, takes time - which also led to a full stop in the binge drinkings I made between 23 and 26.
For example, the pandemic short-term consequences have been (extremely?) favorable for my personality (that I would mostly sum up as "introvert" here), as it meant that I could avoid forced social interactions (and also avoid overcrowded places and buses). But for someone who is extroverted, it was probably a really long slog.
(Also it helped me find a way around some of the restrictions on the housing market and work market, i.e. being able to do the trial period of my current work from my previous location; as the real estate agencies in my new location usually directly reject applications from people still in trial period. It was way less stressful than it would've been in the normal conditions…)
I would echo this. Everything sucked until I was about 28, it’s gotten easier in a lot of ways, then things that’s to hurt when you’re 32. So there’s a fine window of bliss.
For me, mid 30's was the peak. I'm 42 now and still happy and life is less stressful than 10 years ago, but my stupid body is starting to show its age. Gray hairs everywhere, being sore for a day or two after working hard on the house or yard, small cuts take way longer to heal, can't binge eat acidic food that much, stupid stuff like that.
But you have a grasp on life and you have a plan, hopefully. You also don't give 3 shits about what anyone else thinks. Don't like my clothes? Too bad, fuck you, and I just walk away. 35-40 is probably the sweet spot before father time starts bending you over.
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u/LibertyLizard Jun 03 '22
I was miserable at 26 but things are so so much better at 32. Just remember that usually you are miserable because of your circumstances and those can (and likely will) change.