- Date posted
- 4y ago
- Date posted
- 4y ago
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?
- Date posted
- 4y ago
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.
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- 4y ago
Hope that we'll get better soon im sure it's totally possible
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- 4y ago
@jj19 And i guess the best way is trying to get rid of the pressure. It may take time but we can do this and it doesn't mean our time here and now isn't good or doesn't have any value
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- 4y ago
@jj19 Yes. That’s what my therapist tells me. To stop worrying about the future and worry about right now. To focus on getting better and then deal with the rest later. The uncertainty is just hard to accept.
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- 4y ago
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
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- 4y ago
Thanks sm !! ❤
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- 4y ago
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
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Yes, i started hating my birthdays around 19 years old
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- 4y ago
Yes yes yes
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- 4y ago
Same
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- 4y ago
i’m exactly the same and i’m only 15
Related posts
- Date posted
- 25w ago
Hello, I am a young girl struggling with OCD, specifically existential related OCD. I feel constantly like my life is pointless, like my goals aren’t significant, because, I’m just going to be forgotten and die. What is the point? I don’t want to get old and not be able to do what I love. Sometimes I wonder if not existing would be easier, but I don’t want to die yet. It’s really confusing, and I’d love some tips I could get for motivation. I really want to be spiritual, but I struggle in believing in stuff so…?
- Date posted
- 19w ago
Guys I need help. I feel so alone . Basically I have this compulsion where I feel the need to write everything but this stems from me being anxious about EVERYTHING. Like my mom came in my room and I was irritated and snapped, immediately regretted now I keep writing “don’t be mean to mom next time” but I keep thinking about it. Then I think about how I finally left my house today and all the surfaces I touched that could’ve been contaminated and now I’m writing “next time don’t touch this and this”. Then I think about all the things I need to be doing for this week and I’m writing “don’t forget to do this and this” even though I’ve written it 5 times already. This is what happens everyday btw. My brain always thinks about something I need to be doing and making me anxious that I’ll forget it which is why I write it down on my notes app. I’m sooo mentally exhausted I need help pls!! Anyone have any advice ? I used to think I need to stop the writing but really I need to stop the anxious thoughts coming into my head . People say I need to accept the thoughts and let it go but that’s too hard for me
- Date posted
- 14w ago
Hi, I’m new here!! I’m praying I don’t get judged for this. But, back in late May of 2022 ( literally right before I graduated high school), I added this one random girl from my school on Snapchat. She posted something about a graduation party , so I swiped up on her story basically saying how I can’t believe we’re almost graduated. She replied and we had a really short and simple conversation. The next day ( i believe) , we started talking a lot , and I just so happened to see her at the highschool when we were grabbing our graduation outfits and doing the rehearsal. When I saw her irl, I kinda got turned off ( I heard she was kinda crazy) , and on top of that , she was a little ugly irl. I remember seeing her Snapchat bio , and she was close friends with my female cousin ( a year younger than me) , who I happened to experiment sexually with when I was 10-11 years old. I remember going to work later that day and having sort of a lightbulb flick thought ( it wasn’t a good thought though) , what if my cousin told her about what happened when we were younger? So I started to kind of panic and immediately distanced myself from that girl. I also experimented sexually with one of my female friends when I was 10-11 , and from that day onwards, I’ve been pretty much living in paranoia and a little bit of guilt about someone finding out and my life being ruined . On top of that, It’s gotten worse to now sometimes I wonder if a girl I added off of quick add ( Snapchat) is underage even if they told me they were 18+ or had 18 and above in their bio, and I get so much guilt and anxiety about that. I even had a quick thought last February on what if I did something inappropriate with my younger cousin when I was 15-16 but I just can’t exactly remember when it happened , and it still eats me alive when I think about it, because I don’t know if it happened or not. I’m sorry for the long vent, I just wish I felt normal again. No matter how much I try to do things that old me used to do, life always feels “ off”. I always kept the top part about when I was younger a secret up until early (ish ) 2024, then I vented to one of my best friends and he told me that that’s a normal thing to do at a young age. Since then, I have told multiple friends and they all say they did similar stuff, but my brain just can’t accept that. Please help me, I quite literally overthink everything nowadays. 2021 was the last full year that I felt normal ( coincidentally, the best year of my life so far) . It’s not just about sexual related things either, sometimes I’ll wonder if I messed up something at work or hit a car while driving/hit someone and drove off. I just wanna live my life how I was supposed to live it after highschool ( carefree and happy) before whatever it is ( I think it’s ocd) hit me unexpectedly. Thanks to anyone who read this , I just needed to pour it out regardless of how negative I felt typing this, I hope someone can relate , because I feel so alone in my head at times.
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