Growing Pains - Page 2

On September 04 2012 15:09 Roe wrote:


I always felt like I wanted to be one of the adults. I wanted to see their complex humour and their witty references. I wanted to understand their authority and power. My mother would comment on how patient and quiet I was - never admitting it was her unpredictable anger that set me that way for life. Perhaps it was that same strictness that pushed me into maturing so fast.

Back when I was a kid the older folks would say how I was wise and kind beyond my years. I never really wanted to make fart jokes, or to be mean to other kids. I seemed to understand empathy and decent behaviour. I was always trying to be mature. There was always something making me not take such a joke in humanity. Perhaps there was a bit of faux-intellectualism in my constant brooding, which was only reinforced by parents calling me "so thoughtful". All my friends' moms would be enthused with my intelligence and polite behaviour, and wished openly for their sons to be like me - much to my dismay and maybe later loss of company.

As the years in university go by, (taking Psych major, and a handful of philosophy and computer programming courses) the fact that I don't have a grasp on a career is scaring me more and more. I've been taking online career quizzes, talking to family and friends, reading up on official organizations (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, for example). This only leads me to desire a burnout lifestyle rather than a stable, long term one with a steady career. And what purpose do I really have anyways? I won't be passing down my genes, the world will keep spinning and all I can think of keeping me alive is my parents and sister. For some reason I'm allowing myself to be shackled to their emotions, how could I let them down by leaving the world? How could I sadden them so? Yet living a destitute and impoverished life might lead them to more misery.



Is it unheard of for someone to grow old and grizzled quicker than everyone else? I've always felt like an outlier for many reasons, but recently some health issues have come up that make it particularly hard to feel normal or happy. I'll be 22 in a month, and with the great range of temperatures brought by Fall my bones and joints are starting to give away. The other day I just about fell I remember when reading about psoriasis I noticed that many cases also involve arthritis - previously thought by me as an old man's disease. (Might be just an advertising scheme, but supposedly Phil Mickelson has psoriatic arthritis, so that sort of helps morale for some reason).

As well, never quite feel like I've caught my breath. My breathing is flemmy most of the time and I have to hold my nose open to breath properly. I tried running for maybe 20 seconds but that makes me cough to my knees and it feels like there's liquid trying to get out. When I don't take deep breaths every few minutes I get this weird "lazy" feeling in my head. Every few days or so there's this spiking pain in my chest around my lungs, followed by a shock of pain all throughout my body while my eyes lose focus. It's been happening for a couple years. I've gone to the doctor's and had breathing tests and x-rays done, nothing shows up. Every time I try to work out my wrists and ankles flare up, so I can't do much to exercise my lungs. I wonder, how can you tell if your brain is getting enough oxygen? My head feels sort of empty and hard and sluggish all the time, so I wonder if that has anything to do with the breathing.

What's more depressing is the fact that right now my parents are beginning to show their own signs of old age. My dad's foot has been flared up in pain for the past week or so, causing him to walk very slowly having to use a cane to get around. My mom's hip, which was once replaced by operation, has been hurting her as well. I never realized this, but my parents are 66 and 62...which makes the difference in age about 40 years. Their sedentary lifestyle isn't helping either, as my father is quite overweight.

I miss my father already, even though he's still with me. I feel like he's always been at work and when he's home he's working. I remember a few rare times when I was younger that I felt a bond with him. We didn't play sports like normal families. We played with Legos and Chess, and somehow, through just being there and being my friend, he taught me everything I needed to know. Sometimes I wonder if we could ever have that bond restored, however small it was, before it's too late. Before life passes us by. [i]Cats In The Cradle[/] reminds me of those times. Maybe another time I'll dwell more on the early years with my parents.



Sometimes I think...if only I could disappear with them convinced I was somewhere in China or something, where I couldn't communicate with them. But again, plans for escape are flawed as when my parents pass away my sister will be all alone. She has her friends, but we have a strangely intimate bond, and she and my parents aren't very strong in the emotional sense. In the end, I should merely live for my sister?

It's not like me to leave randomly, but the urge to do something in the world - the real, mortal world of some foreign continent - manifests every time I feel this hopelessness. I'd be working in some town, living a life where I don't think about depression, or anxiety, or apathy. I could adventure in the wild jungles and find out what it really is to live life. I'd be doing something real in the world, I could inspire foreign ideas, maybe even ignite someone's lost passion. Ah, those blue skies of some far off land on the other side...

Growing up and living in a place which imposes no demands on you is all good and fine for someone with their own aspirations, but in my case there's been a lack of vision since I sunk into depression several years ago. If I did go traveling someplace I'd just end up depressed again, with no motivation to go out everyday and do something... How can I beat this, or is it just a part of me permanently?

Sometimes I just want to let loose, do a lot of drugs and wind up on the other side of town some days later. You know, just do something really crazy like ecstasy or LSD, something that'll knock your brain right out so you won't think like you did before. When you're someone who's been repressed for so long, it's amazing looking back and discovering what you kept hidden from yourself. My mind cements in its patterns as the years go by. I might not get to the core of my problems before I finally burst. Or worse yet, I may wait too long to unfasten my cemented mind.



I know it's a regression to the immature, but I just don't want to go to back to school. I don't want to move back up to that small town with its crack dens and slums. Its yelling drunken lunatics in the middle of the night. Its insufferable cold. I don't want to be in a new house, a new room, with new room mates. I don't want to get old and broken. Fuck, I've wasted the past 10 years of my life, and it keeps going downhill. The most depressing part is that I'll probably just end up not doing anything about it and be perfectly content to watch my life degrade to a minimum wage job with no spare time living in a slum. Amazing how quickly you get old - it feels like yesterday I was a kid in high school just trying to get to the end of the year so I'd be free from responsibility. How ironic, now I want the time to move backwards.

I don't know what to do about all these problems anymore. I thought I'd have another 10 years until I'd have to worry about the physical signs of aging. I can keep listening to songs that help lullaby my woes but that only lasts so long. I don't know why people tell me to hang on either: I see no point in my future, I see no merit in my present, and I see only good times in the past. Seems like I'm always moving against the wind.

All these issues don't seem like the regular growing pains most people go through, they seem more like horrible circumstances that are interrupting the natural growth of a person. Sometimes it just feels like I can't hold out any longer, it's just unbearable trying to breathe, to exercise, to be sitting. My brain feels pretty messed up most of the time, I get these weird spurts of tension inside my head, my teeth clench and start to hurt. What control do I have over psoriasis, arthritis and depression?

From day to day life I get the feeling I'm being boring and whiny. Sometimes it seems like all I talk about is depressing issues, so I've stopped talking to anyone about my lethargy and apathy. Still, my actions feel unrequited, my feelings without the care of another. I don't know what to do with myself anymore. All I can depend on is the knowledge that I've been through adversity before and gotten out alive. I just need to get my feelings out. Maybe sharing the stories of your growing up will help.