We all have those things that we look back on and internally cringe for not understanding back then. Whether amusing or serious, what do you wish you had known sooner?
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I had anxiety
I had autism
I had depression
It's okay to need help
It's okay to be yourself
This is my first post and I’ll be shocked if anyone else even sees this, but I’ll go first with two of my favorites:
1. Our dog, when he was a puppy, knew how to open his food bin. We had no idea how he was getting so chubby until I caught him face first in a bin of kibble
2. You’re allowed to switch therapists if you don’t want to keep working with your current one. It took we eight years, no shared treatment plan, and an insistence that I couldn’t be autistic because I wanted friends to realize this. And we switched not because of that, but because he stopped taking our insurance. 😑
That you don't have to please everyone...
That playing the "I'm so cold and don't care about anyone or anything" card is pointless and stupid. I could've hugged more the people who was so deared to me and now they've passed away, but I always pretended not to care and being "too cool" to show my emotions.
I wish I could go back and time and slap myself real hard.
That family does NOT have to come first! Especially if your family is dysfunctional and/or toxic. "Blood is thicker than water" actually means the opposite of what you think it does - the original phrase is "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."
Born in the American Midwest in 1971, I didn’t have much “guidance” from my parents about how to move forward in life. I mean, no idea how to save vs spend, no clue what to study for what types of jobs, no support in education in general (just a vague expectation of good grades), no idea the type of college that would be good for me. I wish I had known some of this stuff when got out of high school…. It would have helped me to be in a much better position now. Because I was clueless, naive and immature and I got into debt for stupid stuff and spent YEARS getting out and in my scrambling effort to make better choices I got a bachelor’s degree (with massive debt) in what is ultimately an unmarketable field.
People don’t learn that stuff by breathing the air around them…. I really wish I had had some positive influences about that.
Very important. In high-school it is important to know what to do after you get out. Maybe look for a scholarship, go to the military, go straight into college. Also know that not all things work out, so if you fall you just gotta pick yourself up again. Just like learning how to walk. Eventually you will know what to do.
That just because some says they love and accept you for who you are doesn't that they actually do.
That I spent 4-5 years doing sleep studies (on and off of course) only to get temporary or incorrect diagnoses.
I also have ADHD, depression, anxiety and potentially undiagnosed autism.
I now have a different sleep diagnosis, but its one with very little known about it.
it's super fun sleeping 9 + hours a night and having to go through my day feeling like I got 3 hours.
I also get 9+ hours of sleep and go through the day feeling like I got 3. I was always told that it was my fault. I thought it was just me. ....
I can’t pick one, but the main two are:
1) If I’d been put on appropriate medication for mood disorders and had therapy at a much, much younger age, my first few decades might not have been such a train wreck.
2) If I’d realized sooner that there are no supernatural forces, I would have abandoned the stupid New Age beliefs I grew up with, and would have known to simply work harder on myself and what I wanted out of life, rather than thinking I was cosmically special or looking for “signs” to tell me what to do. I wasted a LOT of time on that bull****.
That I was spreading myself too thin. My late teens and early-mid twenties was a wreck. I had c**p jobs, and between all the cars, guitars, bar tabs and bad habbits I dont know how I ever paid the rent.
That I'm on the autism spectrum and not just a socially inept weirdo (took me 40 yrs to work that one out...)
Not everyone needs you to argue with them.
It sounds weird but it’s true. People are always arguing with me and sometimes the best thing I could do was nothing.
That at 20 years old I was absolutely not running out of time and that I did not need to rush into the first relationship that came my way. That just because I got pregnant did NOT mean I had to get married. I could have saved myself a lot of heartache. I could have given my child a better life.
Now I am in my early 40's and finally past all of that. My kid is grown up, and i have 2 failed marriages under my belt. I am single and for the first time in my adult life doing what I want to do and not having to be responsible to or for anyone else. That sounds positive, but the down side to this is that I'm in my early 40's and I don't know who I am. That time I should have spent in my 20's figuring that out was spent being a wife and a mom and so many things to do many other people that I lost myself in the shuffle. So now the people in my life are looking at me like I have gone crazy because I am making all of these changes and doing all of these new things. It's kinda lonely, actually. Which is ironic, because the drive to not he alone was what led me to jump into that first marriage.
I recommend volunteering. Volunteering is a place to meet new people. Friends. It doesn't matter what you volunteer for, just as long as you enjoy it. If you don't wanna volunteer then maybe look for a club. They have so many different things you could do. (Sewing, building, baking, cooking, etc..)
1. I had ADhD. It should have been glaringly obvious, but somehow nobody realized so much of my "weirdness" just boiled down to that. Instead of getting treated, I just grew up with the sense of being somehow "wrong" on a level I couldn't even explain.
2. The fact someone says they love you, doesn't mean that they do. And even if they do, it doesn't mean you should put up with the way they choose to express it.
3. Removing your needs from a relationship isn't going to make someone love you. It'll just make them feel unloved.
I have 2
1. Not to offend anyone but homeschool isn't as fun as private school for ✨me✨ (Yes, I went to private school not public 🥴)
2. I wish I knew how to tell if someone was toxic earlier in life. It sucks if you're in a toxic relationship or friendship and you don't know.
I enjoyed in person school a lot more. Although homeschool allows you to make your own schedule. It also allows you to have more you time. Also ho.eschool supports super busy lives. As a person who moved around a bunch my parents choose homeschool and it works. Plus it looks good for your future.
It is not your obligation to make other people happy.
When someone tells you who they are BELIEVE THEM.
How good I can do hair styles.
I just found out because my husband has long hair and always ask me to braid his hair. Everytime I told him I can't do that until I was so annoyed that I said okay I will try.
Turns out I'm really good.
I wasted so many years walking around with shIty hair because I somehow assumed I'm talentless.
Holding someone accountable to their actions rarely ends well for the person wronged. The legal/justice system is an inefficient, bloated and decrepit institution that rarely allows for the truth to be spoken freely and justice to be had.
!!! ESPECIALLY CPS, IF ITS NOT OBVIOUS THEY CANT DO ANYTHING !!! This often results in parents taking vengeance on the victim often punishing and unleashing their anger on them! Words arent enough evidence unless you can record the abuser saying something, or if the abuser slips up enough while they are there, and they dont always listen to the child. if you cant show them physical evidence, (like a bunch of alcohol bottles laying around broken) or a audio recording that is obviously real, or a video with them both identifiable and the abuse being present, a picture of them (identifiable and wounds in the same picture, for example a full body that shows face and wound on the leg) may not be enough as they could say that it wasnt them who did it (ex: they fell when biking, they accidentally hurt themselves with a carrot peeler, or a basketball hit their head during practice). Parents that know they are wrong will be very careful to not get caught, and those who dont are convincing.
That my ex-gf is a cold-hearted insult to female dogs.
DAMN!!!! you went there but um I'm sorry your relationship was that bad
That you are never too young to make a difference.
THIS. For years I was told I couldn’t make a difference, and it took me a book to change it.
I have a few, so forgive me. TL;DR at bottom.
1. When I was younger (~5-7) and couldn’t sleep, my parents would pull me out of my room and leave me outside in the dark night to “sleep with the bugs”. I could stand there, wailing, and banging on the door from 15-minutes to an hour, and it scarred me. My parents told extended family that it was a game. As I said “this isn’t fair” when they put me outside, my parents always replied “life’s not fair”.
2. In sixth-grade at a magnet school (a school with above-average pace), I had a good friend who, in fifth grade, called me bipolar (two years later I am Bipolar II) but we were good friends, nonetheless. In sixth grade she distanced herself from me, and while I reached out to her multiple times, she pushed away. One day as I’m walking to my bus, a mutual friend flags me down and hands me a letter from said person. It said that she was angry that I had better grades than her and was able to get through school so easily. She even wrote that she told mutual friends to distance themselves from me because I was a jerk. At the end of the note, it said to disappear—the idiot I was in the E.R. that night and ended up in the mental hospital the night after because I thought that no one loved me (my parents expressed how wonderful mental hospitals are that I thought it would be a fun type of healing). I wish I knew then that you can’t trust everyone, something I still work on.
3. That people stereotype others. From sixth grade to being a junior now, I am asked out by boys as a joke. In the eighth grade, I was verbally sexually harassed by classmates and, upon submitting a report, it became worse. Eventually, I became paranoid, was touched in the crowded hallways (actual groping which, after turning to look, overcrowded hallways prevented me seeing anyone) and whenever at my locker I was told to “bark like a b****”. These experiences, along with being called “h*e” “c***” and “white-cracker” instead of my name (I was the only white girl of five in my class of ~30 in a 70-30 black-to-white school; we moved with the same classmates to all of our classes and lunch excluding P.E. and elective), caused me to clam up and fear males where I back up from male relatives and can’t have them stand while talking near me whilst I’m seated. The vice principal for eighth grade didn’t believe me, called me crazy, and upon the “white-cracker” term, asked if they were “talking about a brand of crackers”. I’ve been jokingly asked out ever since while these boys laugh at my blushing face as I’m so embarrassed. I was stereotyped as either the “basic, but smart, white girl” or “mentally insane, naïve girl”.
4. People are not guaranteed to believe someone with mental illness(es) and disorder(s) and/or on medication(s). After I anonymously emailed DHR about my parents (summer before eleventh grade) and requested a visit, they came to our house and my family was baffled. When talking to them, I showed physical copies of the papers where I removed my parents from my HIPAA for both therapy and psychiatry (mother text therapist asking about confidential meetings, and persuaded psychiatrist for changes in my medications through gifts, lies of reading medical journals, and paternal and maternal medicine reaction excuses) and explained my reasons. They believed me until I mentioned all of my mental issues and medications, to which they shut down the meeting and thanked me. My case was closed that same day.
TL;DR: I wish I knew then my parents abused me (excluding physically), to not trust people, that people stereotype others, that women must be vigilant, and that mental illness is a disadvantage.
That it doesn't matter whose fault it is. You have to live with the consequences and live with them.
As bitter as it is, it is your responsibility now to go to therapy / to work on it / to find a solution.
that no matter how hard i try to fit in with THEM
i will never BE them
Friends shouldn't cut you down. Took 6 years of bullying to learn that one.
You can forgive someone and still not want to have them in your life. There's a difference.
That Nick Jonas was part of the Jonas Brothers...
I'm slow ok
That I'm actually a decent person and not the a*****e I think I am
That I should have gone to therapy sooner and should have been more open and trusting. I think it would have helped me I earlier in life I realized that there is nothing wrong with feeling different in the head and I should ask for help sometimes
If you don't give your opinion just because it makes a few minutes more convenient, then sooner rather than later, you won't feel comfortable giving your opinion.
When I was young, I used to just tell my Mom that clothes that she picked for me to wear we're cute because I didn't want to hurt her feelings, and other things. Now, i can't give my opinion about anything without first seriously questioning wether I should.
TL;DR: Give your opinion as often as possible
Same. it took me a little while to train my brain to be okay with my opinions
People don't care about you. This can be positive or not. Have you ever had the feeling of being judged when in public? That people will talk about you because of your looks, your weight or whatever? Yeah, in most cases that's not happening. People only care about themselfs. On the sad side - people only care about themself, so if you need someone to care for you, you probably will get disappointed.
People are absolutely hateful and I was better off single
That I'm trans (and also gay). It would've been very nice to know I was a guy for longer. It's not particularly easy anyways, and transitioning a few months into a school year isn't fun. Everyone already knows me by my deadname, but I also have to deal with 6 or so more months of misgendering, deadnaming, and blatant transphobia. If I have to be trans I would have at least liked to have known earlier.
That I'm trans (and also gay). It would've been very nice to know I was a guy for longer. It's not particularly easy anyways, and transitioning a few months into a school year isn't fun. Everyone already knows me by my deadname, but I also have to deal with 6 or so more months of misgendering, deadnaming, and blatant transphobia. If I have to be trans I would have at least liked to have known earlier.
