[HazelGirl]

Ok...I'm 22, and as I'm sure most of you know, relatively mature for my age.

But part of that is because I never got to be a real child or teenager. If I her acted like a normal teenager when I was a teen, I would have had so many horrible things happen to me. I basically spent my teenage years numb. Mood swings? Nope. Anger? Nope. Boy crushes? Nope. Rebellion? Nope. I did nothing that a normal teenager would do.

And now, thanks to therapy, I feel like all those emotions have woken up and are making me an angry, mood-swing-y, stubborn, self-obsessed teen. I have boy crushes and my heart gets broken all the time. I am really suddenly obsessed with teen things, like make-up and good skin and hair. What the heck? I thought I managed to avoid that time of my life. I don't know quite what to do with some of these emotions.

Anyone else been here? How do I make it stop?

[RTerroni]

Well you aren't that much past your teenage years so it's pretty normal, I sometimes still feel like a teenager and I'm 31.

Also since you didn't have a full teenage experience when you actually were a teen perhaps you want to have it now.

I have said this before but I think that the teenage years (particular up until age 17) are the best years of your life.

[kororain]

Heh. I'm 37 and do all those things. I just think of that stuff as being girly, not teenagerish.

I'm thinking of getting pink and blue streaks in my hair if that makes you feel better.

Yep. I had a huge realization in therapy that my emotional development basically stopped when I was 15. So yes I relate on some level - I have been working on comforting and basically growing up my foot stomping, irrational, hormonal internal teenager which sometimes looks pretty darn wild considering I'm in my 50's now. She's written some good poems, though. I don't know about making it stop. I think you just have to go through it.

[stopdog]

I see students go through what what you describe all the time. I don't think it is unusual regardless of how you perceive your maturity level.

I think true maturity is learning to embrace that stuff without letting it worry you that you should be too old for it. Like you, I was always considered old for my years, and this came from the fact I was never allowed to be a child. But, I never felt I was allowed to be an adult either when I was younger and as a result I was filled with adult ideas but not listened to.
Then as I got older I hated being thought of as childlike. I'm just starting to realise it is ok to care about makeup and things. Never too old!
The mood swings and anger might just relate to becoming more aware of your emotions - not necessarily being teenager-like but exposing feelings that were always there and making them closer to the surface. Therapy certainly has done that for me, and sometimes I surprise myself with how much emotion I can actually express in situations where previously I would have felt nothing.

[HazelGirl]

Originally Posted by RTerroni

Well you aren't that much past your teenage years so it's pretty normal, I sometimes still feel like a teenager and I'm 31.

Also since you didn't have a full teenage experience when you actually were a teen perhaps you want to have it now.

I have said this before but I think that the teenage years (particular up until age 17) are the best years of your life.

I have heard that before and always strongly disagreed. My teen years were terrifying, unstable, and overwhelming. I hated being a teenager.

Originally Posted by kororain

Heh. I'm 37 and do all those things. I just think of that stuff as being girly, not teenagerish.

I'm thinking of getting pink and blue streaks in my hair if that makes you feel better.

Haha, it does. A little.

Originally Posted by artemis-within

Yep. I had a huge realization in therapy that my emotional development basically stopped when I was 15. So yes I relate on some level - I have been working on comforting and basically growing up my foot stomping, irrational, hormonal internal teenager which sometimes looks pretty darn wild considering I'm in my 50's now. She's written some good poems, though. I don't know about making it stop. I think you just have to go through it.

I don't like it!

It's making my relationships chaotic because of all the emotions, especially the anger and ultra-sensitive touchy aspects. And the freaking crushes. All the freaking crushes. All the time.

I just feel really foreign, like I don't know this person. I have never allowed my sensitive aspects to come out, and now they're all over the place. And it's confusing.

But I guess being a teen is confusing the first time around, too.

[HazelGirl]

Originally Posted by stopdog

I see students go through what what you describe all the time. I don't think it is unusual regardless of how you perceive your maturity level.

I don't know. I have always seen myself as "above" that type of thing.

Originally Posted by Echos Myron

I think true maturity is learning to embrace that stuff without letting it worry you that you should be too old for it. Like you, I was always considered old for my years, and this came from the fact I was never allowed to be a child. But, I never felt I was allowed to be an adult either when I was younger and as a result I was filled with adult ideas but not listened to.
Then as I got older I hated being thought of as childlike. I'm just starting to realise it is ok to care about makeup and things. Never too old!
The mood swings and anger might just relate to becoming more aware of your emotions - not necessarily being teenager-like but exposing feelings that were always there and making them closer to the surface. Therapy certainly has done that for me, and sometimes I surprise myself with how much emotion I can actually express in situations where previously I would have felt nothing.

I don't know. Maybe what I feel is extreme is actually normal for other people who aren't regularly numb to their emotions?

[HazelGirl]

For example, I just put on some good-smelling lotion. And I feel like it's the best smelling stuff in the world, which is so extreme.

Originally Posted by HazelGirl

For example, I just put on some good-smelling lotion. And I feel like it's the best smelling stuff in the world, which is so extreme.

Maybe you're just allowing yourself to feel. What feels to you like reliving the teenage years you missed, might just be learning to experience your own feelings and sensations.

[kororain]

Originally Posted by HazelGirl

I don't know. I have always seen myself as "above" that type of thing.


I don't know. Maybe what I feel is extreme is actually normal for other people who aren't regularly numb to their emotions?

Right, yeah. I know what you mean. I feel that way lately too and when I'm freaking out emotionally, I feel like such a weirdo. Once it's over (a couple days later), I can kind of go back over it and understand what happened.

For instance: Earlier this week I started crying because I was hungry. Who does that? Weirdo!

But when I tracked back to the ACTUAL situation, what happened was...

1. I was stressed at work.
2. I was trying to think of someone to talk to, to talk me off the ledge of anxiety.
3. I wanted to talk to my old friends from my old work, but one is on paternity leave and unavailable, the other well... I'm trying to avoid talking to him because Him + Me = Unhealthy
4. Resisted talking to these boys...
5. Wanted to go to Dairy Queen for a chocolate dipped in chocolate cone instead.
6. On a diet. Put the kibosh on DQ.
7. Thought about calling other friends, couldn't for various reasons.
8. Stuck in traffic and just wanted dinner. So hungry.
9. Tears.

So I think it was just that all my old coping mechanisms were unavailable and/or I chose to avoid them... so that was really why the tears. Not just that I was hungry. Even though that's what it seemed like at the time. It took a few days to figure it out and realize I wasn't actually emotionally crazy, to figure out why I was actually upset.

[HazelGirl]

Originally Posted by Echos Myron

Maybe you're just allowing yourself to feel. What feels to you like reliving the teenage years you missed, might just be learning to experience your own feelings and sensations.

If this is what normal people feel like all the time, I'm not quite sure why the world isn't a freaking mad house.

Originally Posted by kororain

Right, yeah. I know what you mean. I feel that way lately too and when I'm freaking out emotionally, I feel like such a weirdo. Once it's over (a couple days later), I can kind of go back over it and understand what happened.

For instance: Earlier this week I started crying because I was hungry. Who does that? Weirdo!

But when I tracked back to the ACTUAL situation, what happened was...

1. I was stressed at work.
2. I was trying to think of someone to talk to, to talk me off the ledge of anxiety.
3. I wanted to talk to my old friends from my old work, but one is on paternity leave and unavailable, the other well... I'm trying to avoid talking to him because Him + Me = Unhealthy
4. Resisted talking to these boys...
5. Wanted to go to Dairy Queen for a chocolate dipped in chocolate cone instead.
6. On a diet. Put the kibosh on DQ.
7. Thought about calling other friends, couldn't for various reasons.
8. Stuck in traffic and just wanted dinner. So hungry.
9. Tears.

So I think it was just that all my old coping mechanisms were unavailable and/or I chose to avoid them... so that was really why the tears. Not just that I was hungry. Even though that's what it seemed like at the time. It took a few days to figure it out and realize I wasn't actually emotionally crazy, to figure out why I was actually upset.

I do sometimes really struggle with putting emotions to thoughts/causes.

Originally Posted by HazelGirl

If this is what normal people feel like all the time, I'm not quite sure why the world isn't a freaking mad house.

Isn't it?

[HazelGirl]

Originally Posted by Echos Myron

Isn't it?

Haha...you have a point there.

[IndestructibleGirl]

Parts of you can stay being a teenager forever. I'm still seventeen in my head at times, and that's fine. Though actually I may have progressed to 21 lately. 21 with eight years of experience so I can masquerade as an adult a large proportion of the time, and be fairly independent.

In all seriousness, and without patronizing you - you are really very young still. 22 is nothing. Your brain hasn't even stopped maturing yet. The world we live in encourages a prolonged adolescence, with university meaning most people are only emerging out of full time education in their twenties, so embrace your youth. The average age for buying a house in the UK is now 37 compared to 24 fifteen years ago. Times have changed.

I also think that people who never have a bit of youthful frivolity during their teens/ early twenties, who keep it all very tightly wound in terms of school/uni/marriage/kids quite quickly and everything done very sensibly - they tend to want to rediscover some of the teen stuff when they hit about 45. They feel they've missed out.

[sweepy62]

Hell I'm much older, but I never had "childhood " or teenage years" I'm stuck somewhere in the middle of that mess. The embarrassing thing about that, for me is that, it shows up in session ughhhh . It shows up when I'm out wit my friends mind you I only have 2 close ones. You are very young. Not very much past your teenage years.

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[HazelGirl]

Originally Posted by IndestructibleGirl

Parts of you can stay being a teenager forever. I'm still seventeen in my head at times, and that's fine. Though actually I may have progressed to 21 lately. 21 with eight years of experience so I can masquerade as an adult a large proportion of the time, and be fairly independent.

In all seriousness, and without patronizing you - you are really very young still. 22 is nothing. Your brain hasn't even stopped maturing yet. The world we live in encourages a prolonged adolescence, with university meaning most people are only emerging out of full time education in their twenties, so embrace your youth. The average age for buying a house in the UK is now 37 compared to 24 fifteen years ago. Times have changed.

I also think that people who never have a bit of youthful frivolity during their teens/ early twenties, who keep it all very tightly wound in terms of school/uni/marriage/kids quite quickly and everything done very sensibly - they tend to want to rediscover some of the teen stuff when they hit about 45. They feel they've missed out.

Yes, a lot of people are in delayed adolescence.

For me, I guess I feel like I'm going backwards, from more mature to less mature.

Although I think it's really from more emotionally walled off and objective about all aspects of life, even the ones that I shouldn't be; to less objective and more subjective.

[HazelGirl]

Originally Posted by sweepy62

Hell I'm much older, but I never had "childhood " or teenage years" I'm stuck somewhere in the middle of that mess. The embarrassing thing about that, for me is that, it shows up in session ughhhh . It shows up when I'm out wit my friends mind you I only have 2 close ones. You are very young. Not very much past your teenage years.

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I am terrified I will start being a teenager in session. My T doesn't deserve to deal with that mess

[IndestructibleGirl]

Originally Posted by HazelGirl

Yes, a lot of people are in delayed adolescence.

For me, I guess I feel like I'm going backwards, from more mature to less mature.

Although I think it's really from more emotionally walled off and objective about all aspects of life, even the ones that I shouldn't be; to less objective and more subjective.

I do know what you mean. When I was very young, I spoke and behaved far beyond my years, with the result that I witnessed a lot of adult conversations that were really age inappropriate. I coped with some of this by freezing off reactions to stuff I couldn't handle, and then felt slightly superior to others my age who acted in an 'immature' way - but of course they really weren't being immature, they were just expressing the emotions I never let myself feel.

[sweepy62]

Lol hazelgirl , it just sneaks up on you out of nowhere. To tell you the truth I think therapists like when that happens, they are weird like that lol.

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Originally Posted by sweepy62

Lol hazelgirl , it just sneaks up on you out of nowhere. To tell you the truth I think therapists like when that happens, they are weird like that lol.

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They certainly are weird like that haha

[blur]

i think your emotions, desires, passion and sense of play are just catching up to your thinking self. that is a good thing. you are coming alive! neither reason nor emotion is better nor more mature than the other. feeling our feelings and acting on them are different and it is probably more the acting on them or acting out them that is where immaturity comes in. our thinking can be just as screwy as our feelings too. without emotions life is just a dull gray and who wants that. enjoy being a teen!

[RTerroni]

Originally Posted by HazelGirl

I have heard that before and always strongly disagreed. My teen years were terrifying, unstable, and overwhelming. I hated being a teenager.

I was actually bulled a lot when I was young (although most of that stopped by the time I got to High School) but that didn't prevent me from have an enjoyable adolescence.

Just like "The Ataris" song goes "being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up, these are the best days of our lives".

[HazelGirl]

Originally Posted by IndestructibleGirl

I do know what you mean. When I was very young, I spoke and behaved far beyond my years, with the result that I witnessed a lot of adult conversations that were really age inappropriate. I coped with some of this by freezing off reactions to stuff I couldn't handle, and then felt slightly superior to others my age who acted in an 'immature' way - but of course they really weren't being immature, they were just expressing the emotions I never let myself feel.

Yes, this happened to me as well. I wasn't protected or sheltered from some adult topics I should have been. I was also abused, both physically and emotionally, and I had to be responsible for how everyone else in my family was feeling. You grow up quickly in that scenario. A friend pointed out to me recently that I had to "fix" all the problems in my family, that was my role, and that I didn't know how to live outside of that. And they are right. I don't know how to have a role different than "care taker" of everyone else. And so to take even a little bit of time for myself is so scary and confusing.

Originally Posted by sweepy62

Lol hazelgirl , it just sneaks up on you out of nowhere. To tell you the truth I think therapists like when that happens, they are weird like that lol.

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I'm sure my T would be delighted. I wouldn't be. I would be mortified and terrified by her reaction. Even just thinking about it terrifies me.

Originally Posted by blur

i think your emotions, desires, passion and sense of play are just catching up to your thinking self. that is a good thing. you are coming alive! neither reason nor emotion is better nor more mature than the other. feeling our feelings and acting on them are different and it is probably more the acting on them or acting out them that is where immaturity comes in. our thinking can be just as screwy as our feelings too. without emotions life is just a dull gray and who wants that. enjoy being a teen!

Your comment made me think.

I think I compensated for my emotional maturity by being very intellectually mature. I needed to in order to survive. Part of the consequences of that was shutting off my emotions, which never really grew up. Hmm...

Originally Posted by RTerroni

I was actually bulled a lot when I was young (although most of that stopped by the time I got to High School) but that didn't prevent me from have an enjoyable adolescence.

Just like "The Ataris" song goes "being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up, these are the best days of our lives".

I was abused in high school and couldn't wait until I was 18 and could escape the insanity. You couldn't pay me a million dollars to go back. Probably not a billion, either. I don't think I could survive a second round of that craziness.

[Restin]

I understand that this is part of therapy. One purpose of going back is to re-do those parts of childhood and youth, and have it all come out right this time. It doesn't help so much to sit and talk about it and intellectualize in therapy. The therapist allows you time to rebuild your life and helps you to make a new adjustment. So, as they say, "go for it".