Longing for the childhood that I never had.

It seems like the older that I become, the more I seem to long for the days when I was younger. Despite being in a better position now than I've ever been, I wish that I could go back in time and relive my teen and young adult years.

I'm still wounded from the fact that my mother didn't let me have a normal childhood. She used the mental health system to control me by having a bunch of medicine shoved down my throat that I didn't need by lying to the doctors about my "issues". She would have me locked up to "punish" me for defying her. She wouldn't allow me to make friends or live a normal childhood because she would always claim that I'm a threat to other children when I wasn't. She wouldn't teach me skills that I needed to survive as an adult.

Because I never had a chance to live anything even remotely resembling a normal life, I crave some aspects of a normal life that I never had. I wish that I had the love from a mother and father, a group of friends that cared about me, and people to enjoy my youth with. I wish that I had a chance to do some "normal" people things like go to a prom, go on adventures, chase women, and have fun. Instead, the only happiness that I had was my tech and some books because my mother wouldn't give me a chance to sprout my wings and learn about life without her trying to control me. I never had a chance to learn and grow as a person. I couldn't learn how to be an adult or a human because of her.

Due to what I went through, I feel like I lost out a lot on life. I'm down several years that I will never get back. I didn't have any friends during my teens and I lost all of the friends that I made when I went to trade school after I turned 18. I started college this summer for the first time and I'm 26, yet, seeing all of these 19-20 year olds with happy friendships and relationships and what not makes me envious. I struggle to build relationships with people due to a combination of difficulties communicating my feelings and the fact that I am so insecure and envious when dealing with people who have things that I want or people that care about them; especially if that person is a girl.

I want people to pay attention to me. I am sick of being an outcast. I don't know why I have such a longing for the past and relationships with people when I normally am content with being alone. There are just times where I would give anything for a chance to go back in time 5-10 years and redo a lot of things and forge and rebuild relationships with people so that I don't have to be so lonely when I get in one of these depressed moods.

I don't know why I feel the way that I do and I am having trouble explaining myself but sometimes, all of these things bother me a great deal.

I'm feeling many of the same things you describe - the longing for something lost. So, you're not alone there. I'm reminded of it all the time too, as much as I just want to forget and "keep looking forward". But that's really hard. Hopefully it gets better with time.

The only thing that has kept me going is the thought that my rather unconventional experiences in life will guide me to achieve things that most wouldn't.

Back before my mother passed away, I was so mentally unstable due to all of the stress at home that I spent countless hours locked away in isolation inside of my room. When my mother's health started declining, right before she passed away, it was painful trying to deal with her when she was awake because she would expect me to drop what I'm doing and attend to her every little need. When she was asleep, I would spend a lot of time studying alternative ways to make money online, such as e-commerce, internet marketing, and a couple of other topics to try to support myself since I couldn't find nor hold down a job due to how overwhelming everything was for me at the time.

While doing all of that research, I discovered that there are people who succeed in it and make very good money while being able to actually have a life and do what they enjoy or travel the world. After reading about all of these successful people, I became interested in doing something similar.

So now, I figure that if I can get to a point where I can succeed doing something like that, all of the years I spent in isolation and loneliness and all of the pain that I endured would be worth something. I figure that if I was unfairly denied a happy childhood as a child than I will live my childhood as an adult and those who try to tell me I can't can screw off. I've been fighting for such a life so that I can be happy for once.

I figure that if I am making more money and I have a higher quality of life when or before I hit my 30s, I will have a much better life than most of the "normal" people who had happy lives full of family, friends, and fun in their teens and early 20s do in their 30s or 40s.

This way of thinking keeps me going most of the time, however, sometimes, it isn't enough.

I wish I could go back to when I was younger, too. During the teen years I only had one great girlfriend and that was it. And as it turned out, she's the only one I ever loved, even up to today. I felt like I had Attention Deficit in my child and teen years; so I've felt like I could have done better with academics and sports.

When I got into my 50s that's when health issues started. Before that, I was in practically perfect health. The skin cancers started. Then other things such as infections, bronchitis a couple of times, and prostate cancer. I feel fine now, but not quite the same as before.

And now in my life it's very hard to make friends and keep them. I feel like there's nothing much to look forward to in the future. I feel like what's ahead is loses of people, health, and possibly money.

It makes sense to me that you feel the way you do. When I hear people, myself included, say: "I don't know why I feel this way.". I tend to think its because we feel like we shouldn't feel the way we do. Or wish we didn't. But do. I could be wrong. But that's what I heard in your post. And I think it's ok to feel that way. Even if you don't want to. You are probably 1. Grieving your childhood you never had and 2. Maybe you're lonely, and that. Can drudge up some hella difficult emotions. I find loneliness messes with my mind. 3. You are trying to get better and improve your life. That in and of itself, can make us face stuff we don't want to see and feel. You were saying you are thinking about seeing a therapist at your school, in a different thread. If that's something that still interests you, I'd say go for it. It might help you sort things out.

One more thing, is I'm coming to realize myself, that life isn't perfect. For any of us. There are people who look like they have it all together. But even they have ****** moments too. I think I'm just trying to say, that this will pass for you. It may come back, since, this is your issue. But emotions are not stagnant and they change. You will feel better again. You have some good things and people in your current life.

And people say that time heals... Time does anything but heal.

I am honestly terrified of aging. The thought of growing old is something that brings me dread every time that I think about it. I know that once I become old, nobody will care about me. All people seem to care about is the youth; once you get to a certain point in age, people stop caring about you in favor of the "younger generations". It's like society sees people as being no different than a smartphone or a clothing style that they can simply abandon when becomes outdated.

Oh well, at least there might be a way to either reverse or circumvent the aging process in my lifetime. There is an entire movement of brilliant and innovative people who think that it is possible either reverse the aging process entirely, or to replace failing parts of the body with cybernetic implants or synthetic organs to circumvent aging. People might think that it's a little far fetched, but I'm an avid follower of the transhumanist movement.

Regardless of my opinion, this world and humanity as a whole is broken and it needs to be repaired. We need to build a better world and a better humanity.

I simply have difficulties explaining putting my feelings into words is all. I also do get lonely from time to time, but that isn't something that I can do anything about right now. At this point, due to my introversion and how busy that I am with work and school, I am far too drained to have a social life. It isn't uncommon for me to be gone from 6AM to 6-10PM because of how much that I have to do combined with how slow the buses are.

I need a therapist but I don't think that a school therapist is enough. I can't very well get another therapist because I can't very well make it to one alongside my busy schedule and the slow buses. Again, more waiting.

Everything is a waiting game and I am sick of being patient. I am going to waste the rest of what little youth that I have waiting on things to happen because it takes too long to work towards goals.

I sure can identify with the feelings the original poster expressed in terms of missing what he didn't have and wishing he could go back.
I also really identify with you because somehow it seems harder to have gotten to our age group and be missing those things and grieving for what we didn't get.
I hope and pray it all balances out somehow soon or that the losses fade as we try and make the best of NOW!
Take care!

There is a book I have that I've been meaning to read because some elements of my childhood mirror yours. It's called Running on Empty. It's about childhood emotional neglect and how to recover. It's not about what we got in childhood but rather what we didn't that was vital for our development.