cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/50507061

Next year would be my last year as a teenager. I feel sad that I did not have any experience in my life that makes my teenage life worthy. I got more depressed, more lonely. I knew some things but I lack the ability to prove them and remembering them exactly. I heard a lot of things but cannot identify which to trust. I have no friends. I have no money. Living with my shitty parents. Some years ago, I embraced my LGBTQ+ identity and also my atheist identity but I hide all of this in real life. I have some political stances that makes me left out in many online spaces too. I am confused, sad, alone, always having fire in me along with contradictory thoughts like I wanna be beautiful but why does it matter. I wanna be famous but why does it matter. If I don't pursue them, it feels like I am killing some part of myself. I feel I have something to speak but amount of silence I have caused me a low voice and can't even speak clearly in real life. I feel like I am special but moment I try to implement something, I feel like I am not. From many years, my problem has been same. I have been seeking something but I don't know what and also fearing from achieving that. I don't know myself or maybe I know but run away from it. There is a plethora of feelings I have that makes me overwhelmed and sad. I hear answers, tryna implement them, after some time, I still get same condition. It seems that either I started to like what I used to hate or maybe something else is the problem.

Oh honey, you’re gonna have so much more fun and be so much happier as an adult than you were as a child. Don’t worry about mourning your lost teenage years, your 20s and 30s were always going to be much better for you. Go out and be gay and atheist and pursue whatever makes you feel alive.

these "you are going to be __ later in life" things are so misleading. there was another comment recently, saying don't worry you don't have friends, you'll have so many! nothing will just happen out of the blue, if your circumstances are not right. the "good things" really can just happen to avoid you if you are not actively searching (and finding) them. I'm nearing the end of my twenties and guess what, there was no fun, and I'm not happy. and I have no fucking idea where to start.

sorry about the rant.

third places are closing one after another. because my generation is growing up, getting full time jobs and losing basically all free time. and the younger generation is not interested anymore in social experiences, as the places closing admit themselves.

the places that were dying while I was too shy to check them out.

I feel media often portrays high school as a glamorous time, but for many people it was anything but that. Life afterwards picked up significantly more for me, especially when I went to college and made friends there.

I had trouble navigating the world around me when I was younger. Taking a philosophy course helped me out to be able to parse through some of the things I grew up hearing but didn’t resonate with me. I would recommend signing up for a guided meditation class or seminar, as it could help with grounding yourself at the least I feel.

I encourage you to join any clubs that sound appealing to you or even try to start a club of your own if none of the ones out there sound fun.

Life does get better, I feel. Even small changes in the everyday can build up to something meaningful when you look back at how far you’ve come and will go.

I think it’s fair to say you’ll have sufficient opportunities to make friends, not necessarily that the people or experiences will be what we were expecting all of the time. Looking is important, making friends with people that have friends can help quite a lot too. Being in the right space of mind to be a good and caring friend will take you far, although our experiences may vary.

My twenties didn’t go quite how I thought they would when I was younger, but I still spent the time I had in ways that mattered to me.

Sometimes where we are isn’t the right place for us to grow. Sometimes it’s the people we’re allowing into our lives be a good or bad influences on us. Sometimes it’s our coping mechanisms that push the people that care away.

I feel that meeting the people that are right for us often means putting yourself out there and being a bit uncomfortable in a new space. That can be in the form of joining a D&D group, a running club, a book club, friend finding websites/apps, or even having penpals.

One of my best friends meets new people every day hosting Partiful events. He’s sending them out to acquaintances, and seeing how many people show up even for the most mundane things. The act of friendship can be one-sided quite a bit at first, I feel, where you’re often the one perusing the friendships or hosting events, but occasionally you’ll meet the right people and things will click into place.

One friend can often be how you make other friends, since they may invite you to events with some of their other friends and those friends’ friends.

Just a little something extra that was motivational to me: Icarus was warned not just to fly to high else he risked melting the wax on his wings, but he was warned not to fly to low either and risk dampening his wings before he ever had the chance to soar. In this, I feel, that we should exercise caution to both not burn ourselves out while trying and to not live a life where we don’t take some chances. I feel it matters so you can better live a life you can look back fondly on.

if it makes you feel better myself and my friends teenage years was mostly school, work, video games, movies, books, bowling, and other games like pool.

my thought is like and with the economy looking so brigght and the global biosphere so right its all gonna be great /s

Take heart friend, big changes are coming for you! Up until this point in your life your friendship groups, your family and the other people in your life have been largely determined by chance - but starting now you have the reigns. From now on, where you choose to study or work or hang out will be a reflection of your personality and the odds of meeting like minded people goes up hugely. It sounds like you already know a lot about who you are, the reason you're coming up feeling incomplete is probably because you're a bit different to most people around you. That's actually a huge strength and something to be proud of. Embrace your uniqueness and enjoy finding out more about yourself.

The chaos and uncertainty of being a late teenager is not easy so don't feel like you're a failure, a lot of those people who seem to have it all together really don't. One final note - be conscious that it's very common for the first onset of predisposed mental health conditions to rear their head in late adolescence. If it's all becomming too much, make sure you see a doctor and talk about it.

I just went to school and no other places.

why. was it a no one to hang out with situation or no where to go?

both

both is kinda hard to deal with. You sorta need places to meet people in real space. I have never been anywhere though were there were not places to go.