For the people who got hit by Covid when they were in their teenage years, do you feel like that when it ended you got thrown into adulthood "losing" part of your youth?
29d 15h ago by feddit.it/u/Rich_Benzina in casualconversation@piefed.social
When Covid hit i was 17, i'm italian and we had it pretty rough. After the lockdown i was left with anxiety problems i never suffered before. The last year of high school was like a fever dream, we would do like 2 weeks of school in person and 2 online and the rules changed constantly. Social interactions as i knew them before, in school and outside, changed and became more difficult. The fact that you lose a lot of friends due to everyone going to different cities to study for university didnt help either, i was basically alone for the first time in my life.
To cut it short, with highs and lows, i feel sometimes like i'm not supposed to deal with grown-up problems. Like i missed part of my life. I mean, when you enter high school youre basically still a kid and the years where you kinda are more mature are the exact ones i spent dealing with covid and its consequences. Could be because the first high school years were under my expectations and i counted on the last ones to give my youth a turn, and that's why i feel i got robbed but idk.
In general its like i arrived where i currently am (last years of uni, then who knows maybe i'll have to start working) too much fast. Like i speeded all my way in some of the best years of my life. Maybe its not totally because of covid but still, it feels like i found myself at a point far too close to the end of my youth (i mean the moment you still study and are much more free than when you will be working) and looking back i struggle to see how i ended up here.
Just a thought i had for some time, curious to see if everyone feel the same.
I can't speak to your exact situation but I'll tell you a secret, grown-ups don't know how to deal with grown up problems. It's mostly just fighting to survive and figuring out how to deal with the next most urgent problem.
I guess it is. It's kinda shit no?
Depends. There are good parts, there are horrible parts. The ratio is determined mostly by luck and some effort to improve yourself. Become a homeless alcoholic... Yeah it's shit. Become a successful business person with a happy family? Not shit. Enjoy your source of income? Not shit. Need to cry every morning before forcing yourself to crawl into your office to be able to afford peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Shit.
I don't know how much "childhood" anyone is supposed to get. I think different people get different amounts.
If you got to 17 without experiencing severe trauma, you're pretty lucky. There are plenty of people who didn't need COVID to screw up their youth.
last years of uni, then who knows maybe i'll have to start working
Maybe? Hell, you still seem pretty damn lucky if you can say maybe.
I graduated decades before college, and there was absolutely no question that I had to get a job and start working. My daughter graduated college in January, and within a month she was working and responsible for her life.
So, that's the prick's point of view: You got 17 years. Be grateful for that and move on. Do what you need to do to get over it. You're an adult. Be one.
Well yeah of course, i recognise im very lucky compared to others, i don't want to pass the idea that i think im in the worst place i could be and neither i write this in hope to get others to feel sorry for me. I was just putting my thoughts outside of my head.
About the work part, i probably gave the wrong idea. It's not like im rich or smth that i can think of not working. I would like to continue to stay in university and get a Phd and maybe who know become a professor, but for my subject of study, which is underfunded compared to STEM, and in Italy in general it's hard to get accepted if you don't get a little "help" from a professor. If i cant pursue in this career id have to search for another kind of employment, and i guarantee you, here in Italy they aren't anxious to give a job to somebody fresh out of uni which hasnt graduated in engineering or IT. Thats want i meant with "i'll have to start working".
Anyways yeah you are right, i was lucky thats, for sure. I try my best to do what i think is better for my life, maybe im just nostalgic.
If it makes you feel any better there is a phrase that "youth is wasted on the young". You can be "youthful" for a long time afterwards. My early 20s were the same as yours (a long time before anyone had heard of covid), and I felt similar to you, but by my mid 20s I had realised that my age was only a number and I could still have a word time if I wanted and the only thing stopping me was myself. That was freeing and the years have only got better since - lots of challenges too for sure but can look back and say my early 20s were some of the worst years now. I am an anti-capitalist now though!
Yep at one point I realized, hey, theres no rules except those I put on myself, and limits imposed by my environment.
If I want to go out and play in the mud I can. If I want to stay up and watch movies I can. If I wanna go for a drive to nowhere after work I can. If I want to read more than 1 book at once, I can!
Its actually really great when i think about it. So many others have self imposed limits ("thats kid stuff, I'm too old, its embarrassing" etc) when they could do so much more.
To OP:
20s aren't that great because usually, your friends are dumb, or you're dumb, and probably dont have much money. And if youre in school you have that to worry about all the time.
Also, we are all children in adult bodies. People act grown up but its all for show. No one knows what they're doing and are just as scared as you.
Just keep in shape and eat somewhat healthy in your 20s at least. Even 15 or 30 minutes of workouts a few times a week will save you a lot of pain! This said from someone who "made fun" of gyms and health nuts my whole life. Still do. Or find an activity to get you moving, lije biking or climbing.
Yeah i agree. I'll just have to stamp the concept that i can have meaningful experiences even if i feel like im not in my "youth" anymore deep in my brain haha. Btw glad you got better and became anti-capitalist. we have nothing to lose but our chains! :)
Wait til your 4th or 5th "once in a lifetime" event. It tends to speed up as you get older just like time does. My son had it pretty bad. He was in kindergarten that year and struggled with it. Got held back with a lot of other students and is still struggling to read. By the time it hit, I was already jaded and ready for the collapse that never came. And guess what? I was told I was "essential" and I had to keep going to work throughout. Don't dwell on it, remember the things you learned, because your next "once in a lifetime" could be right around the corner.
In these times it feels we get a "once in a lifetime" event every other week hahaha. I guess one will become accustomed to that sooner or later.
We see it in our schools - babies who had only virtual visits and had delayed diagnoses, kids who have disabilities but didn't get to do pre-k, kids who missed kindergarten, kids who didn't get much middle school between elementary and high school, ...
Yeah and he had ADHD the whole time on top of it.
This is literally my life. Same age. Same shit.
Sometimes it is hard, but we can do this. :)
Experiences vary, but I can tell you the best parts of my life have been since my mid-thirties. I was too dumb in my twenties and mostly went wherever the wind blew. Once I knew myself well enough to work toward goals that were actually meaningful to me, life got a lot better.
Now I've largely achieved them. Some brought lasting rewards, others were ephemeral, and still others didn't turn out the way I expected, but overall I feel pretty good about life.
So don't sell life short by imagining the brief period where you can enjoy both agency and minimal responsibility is automatically the best part of it.
That doesn't really address your core concern, which is the feeling that part of your transition into adulthood got scrambled by Covid. I just don't think it robbed you of your chance at a meaningful or fulfilling life the way it can sometimes feel in your early twenties.
I'm glad you're doing good :)
I think you're right, it's just sometimes is hard to imagine that the best part of your life could come in a different period than the one when, as you said, you got both agency and minimal reponsibility.
Maybe i feel this way cause my dad kept repeating that i shouldnt waste my youth, and i probably got stuck comparing what he did in his twenties and what little i feel like i did in mine. retrospectively i probably did what i could back then, what i felt okay doing. We'll see what the future reserves us
I lost my teenage years to a mental health episode and then lost a lot of my progress and recovery due to covid, having to stop working on certain things, and loosing access to my therapist.
🫂 its rough feeling like you missed an integral chapter of life and development. Sending love, my friend