Do you ever recover from an awkward adolescence?

completedit

If you were uncool in your teens can you really escape the skeletons in the closest of an awkward teenage years?
I feel I never recovered. I saw a recording of myself from when I was 13 and the dread and shame I felt for my 13 year old self was stomach churning. The face, the voice, the clothes, the awkwardness in myself, ugh it was just brutal. No matter what I do I always feel like that 13 year old try hard and see myself through him.

biko

Nope, no-one does.

slavetothegrind

get out of here before the comments come. Wrong forum altogether!

S_D

Not sure who looks back at being 13 and goes " I was cool" Everyone cringes

bee06

Early teens is the worst! God, you couldn’t pay me to relive it. But I don’t think much about it any more. In my late 30’s now and a lot of happened since then!

completedit

Are most teens super aware of themselves at that age? I remember never feeling in the moment and just like I was following the crowd to fit in. I never had the zero ****s given attitude that the other lads seemed to have. I was too neurotic or something.

PsychoPete

I bury the skeletons, keeping them in your closet is just asking for trouble

OP of course you do. It's a whole new world out there and you get to choose who is in it. No one gives a **** what anyone does in their teens. Most of the bullies of that time now have grown up and acknowledge that they didn't treat people fairly and reflect on their behaviours with shame.

We are super conscious of ourselves at that time and most people cringe looking back. :-)

completedit

I always feel my status was cemented at 14 tbh. Like a member of the untouchables in the Indian caste system, condemned to a bleak future because of the past.

odyssey06

If you've seen any of John Hughes teen movies you might get this quote:
“A nerd will be a nerd all his life. ... A geek is a guy who has everything going for him but he's just too young. He's got the software but he doesn't have the hardware yet.”

Potential-Monke

Nah, I don't think you do, you just learn to accept who you are and move on. It can happen instantly or take years. For example, it took me about 30 years to finally start being myself. The picked on small red head stayed that way until I was about 15 and changed somewhat, but I was always still trying to fit in, trying to do what other people do and pretend to like it because that's what everyone did. Took me 9 years of seeing the worst in society to make me stop and re-evaluate what's important to me and what's not. Won't say the then-change made me 100% happy, I don't think anyone can ever be 100%, but far better now than I was then. But I still have traits of that awkward child/teen. I'll never lose that. I believe if I were to look for a label for it, it would be social anxiety. But I don't need a label, I just avoid the situations I know will make me feel that way, and no one is any less for it.

Still don't know what I'd like to do with my life though. I believe that will come to me on my death bed, so no point worrying about it now!

odyssey06

sugarman wrote: »

Nope, not since accidentally I called the teacher "mam" in first class. Everything has been downhill since.

If only you had doubled down on it and kept it up all year but with the American ma'am pronunciation...

completedit

completedit wrote: »

If you were uncool in your teens can you really escape the skeletons in the closest of an awkward teenage years?
I feel I never recovered. I saw a recording of myself from when I was 13 and the dread and shame I felt for my 13 year old self was stomach churning. The face, the voice, the clothes, the awkwardness in myself, ugh it was just brutal. No matter what I do I always feel like that 13 year old try hard and see myself through him.

By the time you reach your 60’s, you’ve
(A) Forgotten your teenage years or
(B) No longer give a damn.

BrianD3

I remember a school video from when I was 14, about 20 of us sitting at a long table and being filmed with seemingly no awareness of the camera. Camera pans along showing various people looking "normal" and then it reaches my big awkward googly head, terrible stuff!

30 years later I would like to see that video again to see if my perception at the time was correct or not. If it was correct would I cringe now, I'd probably laugh it off.

Laughing at an old video is one thing but can you recover from a consistently awkward adolescence - you can mostly recover but never fully IMO, they're not called formative years for nothing.

SEPT 23 1989

Keeps you grounded

Look at the stars who were actually cool in their teens and look what happened to them

Church on Tuesday

I suffered from fairly bad anxiety for most of my teens through to early twenties so that coupled with the awkward phase made for a fair amount of cringe looking back.

Some clothing and hairstyles were...questionable looking back, but it's all part of growing up and trying to figure out who you are as a person.

Your Face

Nothing to recover from here - I enjoyed my teenage years.

completedit

completedit wrote: »

If you were uncool in your teens can you really escape the skeletons in the closest of an awkward teenage years?
I feel I never recovered. I saw a recording of myself from when I was 13 and the dread and shame I felt for my 13 year old self was stomach churning. The face, the voice, the clothes, the awkwardness in myself, ugh it was just brutal. No matter what I do I always feel like that 13 year old try hard and see myself through him.

Jeez, that sounds upsetting, sorry to hear this.

Also sorry to play the armchair psychologist here, but to a lay-man, this sounds like a standard case of anxiety?

I was very awkward as a teenager, and I could mention a long list of old embarrassments, except they aren't that embarrassing anymore, they're mostly forgotten. As you grow older, you will ideally have empathy (and a sense of humour) for your younger self. You might think of yourself as a different, perhaps immature version of yourself, who deserves a bit of patience and kindness (like any teenager does). You also learn to say "ah sure, IDGAF".

It sounds like you very much still give a f^ck, because you mention words like "dread" and "shame".

But you won't want to be in your 40s or 50s and having intrusive thoughts like that, so my suggestion is that you work through them with a professional.

The bottom line here is that it probably isn't normative to have any overwhelming thoughts of shame about yourself, except maybe if they are fleeting. Anything sustained or intrusive sounds like a medical issue. Nobody should find themselves "stomach churning", seriously.

PetitPois89

I think it depends on the individual really. I was a very shy, quiet teen and very self conscious. As the years went on and I got more life experience in college, then work and meeting new people I gained confidence and stopped caring as much what people think. Even moreso, now in my 30s. Cutting out toxic people from your past helps too.

Wibbs

I'd look back at my teens with an overall fondness tbh. I wasn't one of the "cool kids" or anything, but had good friends, most I'd still have today. That makes a huge difference. Looking back, and my friends would have the same memories, there seemed to be a lot less bullying going on compared to the impression I get today. And sure there were some cringe moments, but that's part of the job description of adolescence. Being pre social media made a major difference though. I don't know how I'd navigate it today. It's a lot more intense and oft confusing world, and worse, your cringe moments run the risk of more permanence. That said every generation runs through their own maze and the vast majority find their way through it too.

My teen period is mostly a black hole, since I've avoided thinking about it for decades. Horrible experience, and while I've avoided thinking about it, the scars remain, and have affected my personal growth since then. So, I've adapted, and compensated, but I wouldn't say I've recovered entirely from it.

Such experiences form a foundation from which later development arises. So, it's always there to a degree.

GreeBo

I think you can alright, mostly because no one was actually cool as a teenager.

If you were to look at videos of the people who were the cool kids back then your reaction would be the same, they also look dorky and stupid.
Also plenty of the people who I would have thought were cool grew up (or didn't!) to be complete nothings.

completedit

completedit wrote: »

I always feel my status was cemented at 14 tbh. Like a member of the untouchables in the Indian caste system, condemned to a bleak future because of the past.

I was something of a state in school and college. I have written about it often on this forum before. Spent most of my college time on the sofa in my rental share. Avoided most school parties. Had no friends in school. All sorts. In school I walked home for lunch just so I wouldn't have to be around other kids. Even though the walk was long enough that I was left with slightly less than 5 minutes at home before I had to turn around and go back. That's how awkward I was.

It was as you say yourself bleak.

Most of my outsiderness and poor outlook and so forth was self created though. I had a terrible tendency to compare myself to others - a terrible need for validation which even when I got it was never enough as I then felt I did not deserve it. What professionals or semi informed armchair psychologists would call a "deep external locus of evaluation".

One day some time after college was done I just - decided - I was not going to be that any more. I made a few very specific changes to my outlook and my behavior and I've never looked back. I am a totally different person in a totally different life now all these years later. Unrecognizable to the person I was before.

So to answer the Thread Title - I think you can recover. But for me at least it involved essentially murdering the old me dead and starting new. Probably somewhat literally as if I had not done it - I was probably right on the cusp of doing myself in.