Feel like mental illness has taken my youth away ... just can't be bothered anymore

[harasgenster]

I'm feeling pretty bad tonight. My boyfriend has gone to his friend's house for a drink because it's his friend's birthday.

This partly means I'm on my own so I'm trapped with my own thoughts and it also makes me anxious because this is a friend he used to take drugs with and, although I know they won't be taking drugs tonight, the thought of drugs is making me nervous.

I'm not worried about any safety aspect of it, like he'll get ill or die or anything, it's because when I was a teenager all of my friends kind of abandoned me and I was basically on my own for two years and I thought (mistakenly I now know) it was because they were taking drugs and I wasn't.

The real reason, I've now been told, was because they didn't like my boyfriend at the time. He was very controlling and he would turn up everywhere, I couldn't get away from him. He'd turn up when it was breaktime at school - he was 23, I was 16 - and I couldn't get any time without him. For some reason my friends thought I was happy just being with him (despite the fact I obviously went downhill and stopped washing, wore men's clothes, went from being confident to not talking to anyone at all) and just kind of pissed off without saying anything to me. Even at our sixth form ball, which they organised, they sat themselves at the front and me at a table at the other side of the room with what seemed like a collection of other people who didn't have friends.

I'm still really angry at them for that and partly because of the mental health problems I was suffering at the time, partly because of the controlling boyfriend (who I wouldn't have been with if it wasn't for the mental health problems) I just feel like I've completely missed out on being young. When I think of other people taking drugs, it just reminds me that I haven't been there and done that. It's not really that I want to take drugs (I have done anyway), it's that everybody I used to care about did and they bonded and I was left out. And whenever I talk to people my age, they've all done it and they've all bonded through these parties they went to when they were a teenager - parties I was never invited to because a) people didn't like my boyfriend and b) I was weird.

Since I was 12 (now 24) there's been depression followed by eating disorders, followed by extreme social phobia, followed by agoraphobia, folowed by a whole host of psychosomatic illnesses that are making everything feel difficult. I just haven't had time to be young. I know that sounds stupid, but I feel so jealous of everyone else when they talk about being a teenager or going out when they were at uni. I didn't do any of that stuff because I was too ill, didn't have friends for part of it, and wasn't much liked because I was too weird.

When I'm on my own like this, all of this stuff just plays on my mind and I'm struggling to imagine a future where I'm happy. I know I haven't been ill as long as some people here, but this has been a pretty important 12 years I feel like I've missed out on. It's not like it's all been awful, I have had good times, it's just that I haven't had any prolonged period of feeling ok and having any hope about my future. I just feel like this is going to carry on for the rest of my life and that just makes me want to run away.

I especially want to run away from people. Sometimes when my boyfriend is out I think maybe I just won't let him back into the house. Or when I haven't seen a friend for a couple of weeks I think maybe I'll just cut them out of my life. I like them but I being around friends, having a boyfriend, hearing about drugs, it all reminds me of losing everyone and that makes me upset.

I'm sorry this is just such a massive unorganised rant. I'm not sure what I'm really looking for. I would just like to hear a story from someone that said: I had mental health problems for over a decade but I'm fine now and I haven't suffered for years. I just want to know that there's even a remote possibility that I can get rid of this.

[Dahlia]

Hey Harasgenster - I meant to reply earlier in the week, but got waylaid with lots of work. I've also read your other post about not wanting to see your bf again.

I think there are two interconnected issues here:

The first is that I think where your bf being out/around drugs is concerned, you are actually responding to the hurt you felt when you were a teen, and your friends left you out (which you assumed was about drugs). It's a fear of abandonment. Some people cling to the other person when they are scared of being abandoned, some people lock the other person out first before they have a chance to do it to them, hence avoiding the hurt. It sounds to me like you are maybe doing the second? It's an accumulation of all the abandonment you've felt over the years, and you're taking self-protecting action. Although in fact, that strategy can make you feel even more lonely. Does that make any sense?

The second point, which is your feeling about your loss of being a teenager and having fun. I can identify with that. The thing to remember here is that although things may have been bad in the past, that isn't a guarantee that they will be bad in the future. You're 24, you can still go out and have fun, do all those things (I wish I was 24 again! If I go to a club now it looks like I've just turned up to pick my kid up or something :S). I also missed out on certain stuff in my teens/at uni, but that's done now, it's over, finished, nothing I can do to change it. Looking back do I have regrets? Maybe twinges every now and then - but I was dealing with an illness, you do what you can at the time. What I can change is my future.

You aren't a teenager who people for (narrow minded) reasons of their own thought was weird. You're a 24 year old woman and still have a lot of partying time (etc) ahead of her (if that's what you want). You've got friends and a bf now. It takes time for the pain about how people act in our teens to go - but eventually the anger will go and you will simply think they were a bunch of narrow-minded, herd following a*ses. (I know this for a fact ;) .)

Anyway, just some thoughts...

Dahlia x

[harasgenster]

Hi
Thanks Dahlia. This does make me feel better. I was really distant with my boyfriend for a while when he got back but then he got upset about it and the feelings just sort of dissipated because I wanted him to feel better. I don't want to tell him what to do because an ex told me not to take drugs and I resented him later, so I've told him he can do what he wants, although he said he was getting a bit old for it anyway (29).

As for my friends, part of the problem may be that I am now best friends with my best friend who abandoned me at school. We ended up going to the same uni and she started hanging around with me again.

This kind of makes it difficult to forget about things but at the same time I really like her. She was always a good person but I think can be a bit impressionable and gets carried along with things and she can be occasionally harsh. I haven't worked out how to speak to her about her harshness yet (we've known each other for 13 years!) so I normally just have a go about her behind her back! Don't know if that's helping but, nevermind!

As for going out and feeling like a teenager again/parties etc...I'm afraid just about all of my friends are older than me and even those that are my age wouldn't be interested. I'm not sure I'm interested, really. I don't really know what I want to do to feel young, I just want to feel carefree and act impulsively and have a tight-knit group of friends that I spend all my time with - like it was when I was teen before I got ill I suppose! Now that there's so much work and housework to do and I'm so tired all the time, there isn't really time for that. I don't think I know what I want when it comes to acting young. I just feel very old. I live in much the same way as people ten or twenty years older than me do. In the case of one of my friends who's a decade older than me, she actually seems to be acting younger than I do! I don't think there is a way I can "live young" though. It's probably a mindset. I just need to start FEELING young!

I think I'll start feeling better once I've had CBT. Just got to wait for an appointment!

Thanks for your help.

[Nigel]

Hi Harasgenster,

There a saying: “Youth is wasted on the young” :winks:

“I don't really know what I want to do to feel young, I just want to feel carefree and act impulsively and have a tight-knit group of friends that I spend all my time with - like it was when I was teen before I got ill I suppose!”

Suppose it’s more an ‘attitude’ thing rather than what you were specifically doing. So back then you were happy carefree, and enjoyed doing the things you wanted to do as a teenager. How about feeling happy and carefree now, only this time enjoying doing the sort of things you like doing as a young adult?

Take care :)
Nigel

[harasgenster]

How about feeling happy and carefree now, only this time enjoying doing the sort of things you like doing as a young adult?

Hi Nigel, cheers for this. My New Year's Resolution this year was to start living like I was in uni again, because I had some happy times there. It's going quite well in that I see my friends more but I haven't got there yet. I went out for a run yesterday and, on my way back, noticed the sky was a lovely shade of blue. I've always had something about the sky and, when I was in uni, would have just stopped and looked up for as long as I wanted. This time I really wanted to sit down and relax and look at everything around me in the park but all I could think about was all the work that has to be done and how I'll get behind and not make enough money.

I know that's just a little thing but it was tiny things like that that used to make me feel happy. You're right that I should start enjoying life but really I just don't feel like I have the time anymore.

Tsk. I hate being an adult!