Anyone 26 years old and up...

At 26, I had quite college after finishing 2 years, I had attempted suicide at 24, and was starting to get my life in order again.
I was making decent money and bought my own house. I still think it's hilarious that my mother told me she thought the reason I wanted to buy my own house was that I was being "rebellious". LOL- what in the world could she have been thinking? She was married with 2 kids when she was 26.

It was a really nice house with a 3 car garage and an in-ground pool.

26 had it's ups and downs. I started taking classes again, too, but just the ones I enjoyed.

by the way, 26 for me was over 20 years ago. I've been married for 14 years, and we have a beautiful 5 year old son.

At 26 (26 years ago) I broke my ankle and was out of work. I ended up in the nut house. It was a great year for being a nut case.

[phaset] You sound very much like you know what it is you want in life. I would never tell my doctor about depression because i'm generally against medications. *sigh* Were you ever diagnosed?

Nothing is going on with me at all at 26. I applied to grad school last fall, got denied. Am applying again this year; pretty sure i'm still not getting in. I live home where I moved back after college. Am paying off some of my student loans but bills keep coming in (currently I need two tooth extractions, a took implant, car taxes are due and when I finish - grad school applications are going to kick in..) Have $500 to my name which can't buy any kind of housing. I've been working the same part time job for 2 1/2 years. Single/no kids (both of which i'm very content with). Started seeing a therapist 6 months before I turned 26, now 6 months after i'm 26 I feel like i'm progressing 'emotionally' which now allows me to see that I suck in every other way except that.

[shakespeare] Lol, my mother is the same way about me thinking about getting my own place and was way further than I am by this age. I could never afford a house at this point though, so I admire that you could. That house is awesome. Sounds like an overall good year. Also congrats on the family - that's a truly beautiful thing.

[possum]

^well, don't be too impressed. It was in a decent neighborhood in a run-down city....and I paid 9% interest on my mortgage (it was a pretty good rate, at the time) But, it was fun for a while, until the pool-liner tore, and the air-conditioning stopped working...

but still, there was a silver lining. I sold the house for more than twice what I paid... and I always enjoyed the large garage, as I did my own work on my vehicles.

life does have it's up's and down's.

I should also mention that at 47, I work for myself, and most days, I love it! I have the type of business I've wanted since I was in Jr high.

Try it the other way around. I did a letter from myself at 82 and asked myself what I regretted about my life, now that it was nearly over. I realized I still loved history (a love I abandoned in 1970) and I went and got another degree, advanced training, etc. and am working hard in that field still today.

Oh I totally have no idea what I want in life... I am a 35 year old teenager who just found out two months ago that his wife had been hinting that she wanted a baby for years and feels trapped in a very good job.

I was diagnosed with depression in high school after someone told the school counselor that I was suicidal. Saw a therapist for 2 years and then went untreated for 15. I totally understand not being able to tell your doctor.

Yes I was diagnosed with Aspergers, almost by the psychologist who did my testing and then by a psychiatrist he referred me to.

In other words you got a bachelors degree, are trying to get into grad school, working and getting help with your problems? Doesn't sound like you suck to me.

Dear TB,
I think not knowing is one indication that the path you're walking is your own because if you had followed someone else's footsteps, you would foreseen the (probable) outcome of the journey. Another thing is that how much personal satisfaction you're getting from the choices you have made is also important. Regardless of the outcome (success or failure), if you feel satisfied with the choices that you have made, then it is the right thing that you have done. It is a risky venture for sure but we all have to take such risks... Remember "His First Flight" by Liam O' Flaherty...

I had my university degree under my belt and a job in local government and had been living in my own place since I was 18, but that was more because I couldn't live with my abusive mother anymore!
I had started dating my now ex who was an asshole! And my mother was trying to kill herself so I had to get her taken into hospital which made her real angry. I self harmed again after 4 years clean, cos I couldn't deal with the stress anymore...so it was a mixed bag....


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That year I graduated from my graduate school and since then I never went to a place where is my milieu and eventually even fell into a quagmire suffering from anguish. Originally I didn't plan to go back to the home after graduation. I desired to leave the home since senior high school. I tried to choose a university for my undergraduate school far away from the hometown but eventually I was admitted to a university not distant enough so that I can't live in the school dorm most of time; I commuted for an hour from home to the school and back another hour every day. After graduation I finally was admitted to a university for my graduate school far away enough so that I can live in the school dorm. During that period, I stayed in the suburb which brought me a sheer new life: I forgot all the pains in the hometown and understood what a really enjoyable world is. I considered I wouldn't go back to the smoggy hometown. I didn't go back to the hometown often during the period and gradually I found I couldn't tolerate the choking metropolitan atmosphere in the hometown whenever I had chance to drop by it.
After graduation, I planned to look for any position outside hometown to hoard some money then applied for a PhD program to study. Little did I predict not only couldn't I get a position close to my field but also couldn't find a position outside hometown. I ended up getting a position not in my field in my hometown city, which is the most high-end city in my country so that I can't afford to rent a house under my budget so that I could only live in the home. Little did I predict I was mired here since then for eons. How nice if I have not had moved back to the hometown. I almost forgot all the pains here during my stay in the suburb. Such long stay makes me recapture them and this time the situation is even tougher than the past because I have nobody to share at all. I don't have any friend in the hometown at all this time. And actually that position is a deplorable position and afterwards I left it. Then I wrote my papers for my master thesis ready for publication. I sent them to my former advisor to review. Little did I predict he can't finish them in more than 4 years, soon to be 5 years. During the period I kept looking for PhD programs investigating possible research projects. But it's like following his delay I seemed to gradually fall into a quagmire where I progressed slowly without much resource. I have been here floundering for long. Recently I told my former advisor I fell into a quagmire in a mail to him. I have written countless mails to him to prompt him revising my papers. He always gave me a great amount of subterfuges for delaying my papers. I really don't know how much he has progressed. I really want to leave this quagmire soon.
I really hope time can go back to that year when I graduated at 26. Because the stay in the quagmire has no registered credits to show.

I made the most terrible mistake when I was 26, marrying a very, very bad man, and am still suffering from the sequelae of that regrettable step. But in the end I have come out a very strong person and I am glad that the children from this married were born.

I am 27 and unemployed as I am on disability right now. I live with my grandmother. I was so successful throughout school until college when my mental health issues got significantly worse.

So basically, Im a failure.

HALLIE

Quote:

So basically, Im a failure.

You aren't a failure, you just haven't found the path for your life YET & that isn't being a failure. God will open the doors that he wants for you to go through & you will know when they open .....PATIENCE....not failure my special friend

Lets see, at the age of 26.....things were going ok except that I had been married from the age of 21 & there was nothing but conflict & fighting because I was darned if I was going to become societies version of the HOUSEWIFE.

I had graduated with an AA in music at the age of 20 (was in junior college for 3 years). Then I transferred to the local state university where I changed my major to Accounting Information Systems/computer science minor & was pushing to get my BS degree to to some sort of maybe business software programming. I got married in 1975 at the age of 21, took a semester off of college in the fall of 1976 to travel over to Rome Italy with my H on the job that he was doing.....5 weeks roaming around Rome all alone.....I couldn't have asked for a better experience.

By the next summer I ended up pregnant.....not my idea of what I really wanted but decided that was as good of time as any even though I initially kicked my H out of the apartment when he claimed that I could just take time off from my college....exactly what I had told him I wouldn't do even before we got married.....so it was WAR....but MY parents offered to care for her while I went to school & after I graduated. I was 25 when I had our daughter......& I finished up my degree 10 months later (it was my Christmas gift to myself that year).....& I had gone to the college placement office & gone through the interviews & I actually had 3 job offers to choose from before I graduated. I picked the best offer & started immediately after graduation.....no time to rest or recover after graduation that winter. I hit the age of 26 about a month after I started my career.

We had acquaintances of mine in the marriage....but H's friends weren't the kind of guys I really wanted to be around....but let him have his friends & his time.....I was independent & didn't need to be with him all the time or control who he was going to be with.

I had my music chamber groups that I was also involved with along with trying to make sure I put in a lot of time to make a good impression at my new position. Had a wonderful group I worked with & we played racquettball at the club where the company membership provided.....I felt like I was living in luxury. The company was in Westwood right where UCLA was & it was right next to Beverly Hills. When we weren't playing racquettball & doing trounaments, we were wandering the shops in Beverly Hills or having a picnic in the UCLA botanical gardens. Guess being an only child I was always very independent & that played a part in my marriage also............

So that was pretty much were I was at the age of 26....no mental illness issues existed & life was very much normal.....even though I do know that I had little parts of anorexia going on when I would get stressed & couldn't eat....I would always loose a lot of weight but the stressful time would clear up & so would my NOT eating.....didn't realize until the age of 42 that the foundation for my anorexia was in place already.

Life was basically good......I had one good friend that I had been friends with from Junior High.....but after we both got married, we went in different directions & her H was a biologist & so was she & he didn't want to have anything to do with anyone who wasn't in the field of biology.....so we just went our different ways. I had several friends from church & many who I knew through my music which I was very actively involved with.

I always knew that there was something that was a problem with my H but couldn't put my finger on it until just a few months ago....but it made all the issues that we had in our marriage become clear & understandable & I was right to leave after those 33 years.....gave him enough chances to work together on the marriage.....it was OVER....it was OVER....I didn't even grieve the loss of the marriage....only the loss of what I had wished the marriage would have been & never was.....but that was all invisable at the time other than the fights that we constantly had over his attitudes & his financial irresponsibility.

By the time I was just over 27, I was getting established in the aerospace industry as a firmware design engineer programming military communications systems & I loved the work I was doing....& I loved being one of the only women working in that department.....& I continued playing racquetball with all the guys I worked with. It was an awesome life until the age of 42 when it all fell apart.....but I had a good 20 years until 1994 of success & basic enjoyment of life other than the fighting that continually happened in the marriage