Do u guys have anxiety about getting older ? It feels like time flies and i'm only 19 but it's like i'm scared of wasting my youth bc of anxiety and ocd and not knowing who i am. So i'm kinda obsessed about how old am i and am i enjoying my youth enough and that i'm scared of getting older

I guess that just sort of depends on what is meant by “wasting” youth or “not enjoying it”. There’s a cultural expectation that by the time you’re in your late teens or early 20s you should have some firm grasp on what your desires or wants will be for the rest of your life. You should also have nice things, be close to homeownership or own a home sometime within your 20s. You should be able to do a job your passionate about, but also pays six figures. You should have robust relationships with friends and family, and perhaps your perfect partner. Once you’ve “attained” this “ideal life”, your life is supposed to continue in a state of perpetual bliss where the difficulties of life will be just a blip of momentary discomfort in the otherwise euphoric joy of achieving postmodern transcendence. That’s a complicated way of saying we spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing, comparing, categorizing, and ruminating over the vagaries of life, both emotional and intellectual, in some measure because our brains have evolved with these capacities because it helps or orient ourselves in social hierarchies. It’s also because humans have always wondered about our lives and what actually “living” truly is. From Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations to modern movements like minimalism, people have tried to figure out by what system or ethos can they further their well-being and optimize their happiness. Yet, life doesn’t comport to our philosophies or ideals as we would like. Random chance can play as much of a role in the outcome of your life as any other variable. If you’re born in extreme poverty in some part of the world, that precondition could dictate your existence and the existence of your children. As best you can, try to find peace with whatever IS. That includes anxiety about the future, because the future is uncertain for all of us. Your days may have joy and triumph. They may have sorrow and tragedy. Yet come what may, humans have this remarkable tendency to press on in the face of challenges and aspire towards the better angels of our nature. You’re young, and if it makes you feel better, I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on at 19. At 34, I still don’t most of the time. But we’re here, right now, in our own tiny moment in the sun. You had something like a one in four trillion chance of ever being born. Your existence is an incredible quirk of cosmic alignment in the vacuum of space. Why would you know what’s going on? And do you even need to?

I definitely feel this hard. I’m turning 30 in a few months and I’ve spent this last year dealing with debilitating anxiety, depression, and OCD. I feel like I’m wasting my life being miserable. So often i get horrible anxiety about whether or not I’ll be able to pull myself out of this in time to enjoy my life.

26. No driving licence. Going through therapy had to resign from work and don’t see much people but I’m learning so much about myself and it might feel like you are wasting your time but OCD or no a lot of people have that feeling. You’re living and discovering and you will become a person you might would have never gotten the chance to be if you haven’t gone through those toughs periods :)) Good luck to you

i’m 17 currently and i feel the exact same. i continuously obsess over my age - because i haven’t really done a lot with my life, each day i’m down doing nothing, i’ll think that i’m “wasting my life away” or that “nothing good will come from this”. i seem to forget that not everything has to be done in my teenage years, yet because i’ve constantly been told ‘these are the best years of your life’, when i catch myself doing nothing, i feel overwhelmingly guilty

Yes, i started hating my birthdays around 19 years old

Yes yes yes

Same

i’m exactly the same and i’m only 15