Nostalgia for Teenage Years

[Moksha]

Do you have any nostalgia? I was watching World's End the other night (the Simon Pegg film) and it occurred to me that I have none at all. If you haven't seen it, the film is about a group of friends who grew up in a town in the English countryside. When they were 18, they went on a pub crawl, having a pint in each of the 12 pubs in the town (ending in a pub called The World's End). They never made it though. Now, in their 40s (and all moved away), they decide to go back and complete it.

Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright (who directed it) both grew up in small towns in the south west of England, and they sort of based it on the kids they knew, and on the experiences they had. It's a really nostalgic film (apparently, Pegg and Wright spent hours choosing the soundtrack). I suppose a lot of people look back on their teenage years as a sort of golden age. They love listening to the songs that were big in the late '80s or the 1990s, or whenever it was they were teens. They sort of link them with summer jobs, their first kiss, going away to university, etc – all warm, nostalgic stuff. I have none of that. Absolutely none. When I look back, it's just a black void. I have zero nostalgia. There was no 'golden summer of '95' when I did all the amazing stuff you're supposed to do when young.

Is it normal to feel all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic when looking back? Do most people have loads of nostalgia? Or am I overestimating the fun people have when young?

[Jam do Bronx]

Nostalgia is very strong with me. Sometimes I'm a slave to it, but I try not to be as i enjoy embracing the new at the same time.

Over the weekend I was listening to a song that I hadn't heard since I was a child. As soon as I listened to it, I remembered what I was wearing, where i was sitting, and what I was eating (fizzy cola bottles) when I first heard it. It all came flooding back vividly. When I listened to said song the other day, I swear to you I could almost taste the fizzy cola bottles in my mouth.

There are times where I get nostalgic and it makes me feel very uncomfortable, because I've been through a lot of hard times and certain songs/movies/whatever reminds me of them, and I tend to avoid those (I know I shouldn't though).

I suppose nostalgia reminds you of both the good and bad times.

[Orwell20]

Not for my teenage years, no. There is no golden summer that I long to go back to. I've hated pretty much my entire life from late childhood/early adolescence on.

I was born in 1976, so my teenage years coincided with Britpop and the 1990s. Nothing from that period (tracks by Oasis, Pulp, Blur, etc) brings back any warmth or joy. I do have a weird nostalgia for the early 1980s, however. I've turned the period from about 1980 to 1985 into a lost Eden. Anything from that time makes me happy.

As for the majority of people, I'm not sure. When you've got a mental illness, it's easy to believe that everyone who doesn't have a mental illness is happy. But lots of other things can wreck your teenage years: the death of a parent, a sibling being killed in a car crash, an alcoholic father, cancer, sexual abuse, suicide of a friend or family member, a violent boyfriend, bullying, poverty, difficulty making friends (which can be down to just not clicking with the kids in your year group), and so on.

[Orwell20]

Originally Posted by Existential Jam

Over the weekend I was listening to a song that I hadn't heard since I was a child. As soon as I listened to it, I remembered what I was wearing, where i was sitting, and what I was eating (fizzy cola bottles) when I first heard it. It all came flooding back vividly. When I listened to said song the other day, I swear to you I could almost taste the fizzy cola bottles in my mouth.

Isn't that what they call a 'Proustian moment'? Not sure Proust mentions fizzy cola bottle though

[biscuits]

I never naturally think back to when I was a teenager. It was such a challenging and horrible time! I don't even feel like it was my past because I've changed so much. It feels like the past of a stranger.

My childhood brings back lots of fun and happy memories, so I prefer to think back to those memories

[Dougella]

I don't have nostalgia for my teen years no, they were not enjoyable.

[Jen.]

I dislike nostalgia really. I find music boring once I've listened to it to death, so nothing I was into when young does anything for me if I hear it now and I just find it irritating. It's the same with television shows or films - I would get no pleasure now from watching something that I happened to enjoy when I was a child. There are too many new things to discover and enjoy that I'd rather spend my time on. Some things might be fun to think about, but actually rewatching something that was aimed at children years ago feels no different than watching something aimed at children now.

I've never understood how some people can be satisfied deciding "that's it" when it comes to music and then from their late teens onwards being happy to listen to the same few things on repeat for the rest of their lives, banging on about how everything made after that is bad. That seems to be quite common though. I just feel sad for people like that, being stuck in a loop like that sounds so depressing.

My teenage years had good and bad moments, but there just doesn't seem any point longing to return to a time that it isn't possible to return to. It feels like it's important to resist it in order to not become one of those old people who seem convinced that everything used to be good and that everything now is bad.

[LittleMissMouse]

I get a lot of nostalgia for that 2 year period of A levels, not necessarily because of all the good times as I am quite dull, but because it was a time of such potential.
For me, those 2 years are really the only time when the whole "the world is your oyster" and "if you work hard you'll get what you want" was genuinely true because it was all about getting the grades I needed and then escaping to uni and magically becoming some sort of social butterfly, which obviously didn't happen.

And late 90s music was pretty good. Every time I hear Insomnia or Born Slippy I get transported back to the post A level summer when I still had dreams and aspirations and believed in meritocracy.

[Quietman]

Crafty Elf

[Scurrilous Rumour]

Interesting to see how everyone has a different take on nostalgia.

I'm not nostalgic for my teens - it's too long ago and the person I was then is difficult for me to relate to now. It's me, but it was an early prototype version of me that is almost unrecognisable from the awesome being currently typing these words. Sort of like a ZX Spectrum compared with an iMac.

I sometimes get a bit nostalgic for a period when I was about 30 or 31, which would have been just before the millenium, because I was having a fairly nice time. I had a lot of fun weekends around then and don't remember having too much to worry about. But of course, that's the trouble with memory. if I went back I would probably be whingeing about all sorts of things and saying how rubbish my life was, but in my memory the period has a little golden glow around it. I think Proust probably has a lot to say about this, but whatever.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by biscuits

I never think back to when I was a teenager. It was such a challenging and horrible time! I don't even feel like it was my past because I've changed so much. It feels like the past of a stranger.

Yes, same here. When I look back at my 17-year-old self it really is like looking at a stranger. I feel sorry for that poor boy. He was so frightened, so full of shame, and so unhappy. But it wasn’t me, somehow. He is dead and gone (considering that every atom and cell in my body has been replaced since then, that is literally true!!).

I have no happy memories from my teens or twenties. It was all shame and fear, nothing more. But I do miss three things

- The feeling that anything is possible, that time is limitless, and that one day it will all be ok. That might be a delusion, but it’s a pleasant one. Death wasn’t real to me back then. In theory I knew I was going to die, but deep down I didn’t believe it.

- The intensity. When you are young the lows are so much lower (and it was mostly lows), but the highs are much higher. When I was happy (which happened for odd, fleeting moments), I was intensely happy. Now, everything is just meh.

- Physical health. I could eat whatever I liked without being crippled by indigestion. I could sleep. Nothing ached or creaked. And I didn’t spend hours in front of the mirror staring at grey and thinning hair.

[Moksha]

...just a thought, but do you feel there is an upside to being unhappy when you are young? My teens and twenties were so utterly awful that I’m kind of enjoying middle-age. No one is interested in me anymore. No one asks me what I’m going to do with my life. And no one expects anything of me - they’ve just written me off. Some people hate the feeling of irrelevance and invisibility (“attention passes always to the young,” as Larkin put it). They were sparkly stars in their teens, getting dressed up on a Friday night and taking loads of selfies, etc. Now, at 35, or 40, they are exhausted, haggard parents, taken for granted by their kids and ignored by the young and pretty. You hear that complaint all the time. Personally, I love being ignored. At last people leave me alone.

[Marco]

I sometimes get nostalgic, I’ll be honest, but it’s not so much that I miss my teens than that I miss loved ones that have since passed away – my parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. My teens weren’t a total disaster - that came in my twenties - and I suppose, like Moksha, I do miss the emotional intensity of that period of my life and the giddy feelings of hope (dare I say ambition) despite the terrible anxiety I felt. I was so sure that I’d just grow out of my anxiety, that it was a passing phase, and confidence and good things would simply fall into place for me as I matured. Of course it didn’t quite work out like that, but I feel things aren’t too bad for me now (he says, under the influence of fluoxetine) and I’m still in pretty good shape for a 58 year old (apart from my failing eyesight and slight hearing loss in the right ear).

[Dougella]

Originally Posted by Moksha

...just a thought, but do you feel there is an upside to being unhappy when you are young? My teens and twenties were so utterly awful that I’m kind of enjoying middle-age. No one is interested in me anymore. No one asks me what I’m going to do with my life. And no one expects anything of me - they’ve just written me off. Some people hate the feeling of irrelevance and invisibility (“attention passes always to the young,” as Larkin put it). They were sparkly stars in their teens, getting dressed up on a Friday night and taking loads of selfies, etc. Now, at 35, or 40, they are exhausted, haggard parents, taken for granted by their kids and ignored by the young and pretty. You hear that complaint all the time. Personally, I love being ignored. At last people leave me alone.

Yes I think maybe in a way people who have a really good time and lots of happy times when they're younger might feel like life is going downhill in some way when they get older and have more responsibilities and stresses in life. I feel like I was designed to be middle aged and I'm not even middle aged yet lol

[Dougella]

^ Well, we could say that unhappiness serves a purpose. In the same way that when we feel pain it's our body signaling that something's wrong when we feel unhappy it can be a sign that something in our life isn't right, and often it might be something we can't change and just have to suffer through, but sometimes it is something we could change or get help and support for.

On a slightly brighter note I do find that having been through very low times makes me really appreciate small amounts of happiness or enjoyment and try not to take them for granted.

[biscuits]

Originally Posted by Moksha

Yes, same here. When I look back at my 17-year-old self it really is like looking at a stranger. I feel sorry for that poor boy. He was so frightened, so full of shame, and so unhappy. But it wasn’t me, somehow. He is dead and gone (considering that every atom and cell in my body has been replaced since then, that is literally true!!).
.

Yes, that describes it perfectly. Thank you

[biscuits]

Originally Posted by Moksha

...just a thought, but do you feel there is an upside to being unhappy when you are young?.

In a way. But I reflect on that differently to how you have. I had to get very low to suddenly think that things needed to change. It got to the point where I couldn't cope with feeling anxious/sick all the time. I put lots of things in to place to try and overcome anxiety/selective mutism etc. I wonder if I didn't have such bad anxiety and depression... would I have just carried on as I was? Would I still be mute? That's difficult to know!

[limey123]

I sucked as a teen (some people say I still do). I was awkward, geeky, had zero musculature (so was picked on and felt super self-concious) and had few friends, especially after I changed school. A real misfit. I didn't do many of the things teens are supposed to do. I have no nostalgia.

[humphrey]

I have no nostalgia for my teen years, it was the worst time of my life from 13 -17. Massive bullying, causing me to with draw into myself, find that the few friends I had were pulling away from me in the social scheme of things.

[Tembo]

I have no nostalgia for my personal life as a teenager. It was frankly just a horrible time. I try not to think about the absolute hell of school.

I have a little bit of nostalgia for some of the programmes and music I listened to then. There are cherished memories of my pre-teen years too, particularly with family holidays, and also with my grandparents who died just as I was becoming a teenager (and I so wish they could have been around into my early adulthood, so I could really get to know them)

I suspect in the future I may be nostalgic of the few years after Uni where I began getting professional help, did lots of things with friends, and did quite a bit of travelling abroad. I think I’m already getting nostalgic for that period actually.

[Orwell20]

Some people are definitely not suited to being teenagers. And it isn’t just SA sufferers. Many confident, assertive types also hate being young. I have heard several people say that when they turned 30 or 40 something went ping in their brain and they felt comfortable in their own skin for the first time.

When you are young, there is just so much pressure and attention. People constantly ask personal questions - they want to know what you do at the weekend, whether you have a girlfriend, what career you intend to pursue, etc. Even worse is the pressure from your own peer group. You are expected to have lots of friends, to go out at the weekend, and so on. If you don’t, you are a weirdo and a loser. It’s much harder to do your own thing. Now, at 45, no one cares if I spend every Saturday evening on my own wearing a cardigan and watching Songs of Praise. The kids I grew up around, and went to school with, have moved on. Some have even emigrated. I can sigh with relief and do what I want to do. Growing up, I felt like there was a bright spotlight on me and everyone was laughing (a delusion, of course, but that is how it felt).

[Mr. Spaceman]

I feel a lot of rose tinted nostalgia for the period up to my teen years. I've recently been going on eBay and buying old 70s editions of childrens and YA books, there is something I find so comforting about looking at them and (re)reading them. Teenage years and beyond I just feel sadness at what could have been had I at least somewhat socially adept and not filled with so much anxiety and shame.

[Appear]

Not really. It had some benefits - less responsibility, more of a social life(ish). But I was way more insecure, struggling to manage anxiety and depression and was still in the wardrobe (because we don't have closets in England, thank you). I was also very much more in thrall to others' opinions of me. On balance I'm happier now.

In a way I wish I could go back and tell younger me to give less of a shit about people I'll barely remember in a couple of years, and try to convey the fact that there's a world beyond where I was then. It might have reduced all that worry and despair I was so good at. But then things have turned out alright, so why change it? And some of those 'bad' experiences have probably made me a kinder, more tolerant person (at least in some respects and towards non-knobs).

[girlinterrupted]

I do have some nostalgia for being a teen, not at all because they were filled with happy 'normal' teen stuff (the opposite) but I suppose because I still had my family intact then, and that feeling of seemingly endless years and decades ahead to turn things around. I am basically an optimist, so still have that hope, but the shortening of time ahead is no fun (cue midlife crisis any second).

Plus I think I just miss being young and full of energy and health. On the upside tho, today I am the youngest I'll ever be! Which is either positive or really sodding depressing depending on your outlook

[Mr. Nobody]

In a sense, yes, there is a form of nostalgia for some of my teenage years,
...but for a slightly dodgy reason,

I had some indescribably beautiful experiences when I was taking mushrooms as a teenager,
Those experiences were so different from the normal things that were happening,
I felt very blessed to have such things revealed to me,
It was as if nature revealed all her secrets to me, and me alone,
It certainly helped me get through the detracting elements of having SA, I think I was on quite a strange high for a number of years, getting into music, nature, art, mysticism,..
Ahhh,.. *gets all nostalgic again*

[choirgirl]

Oh yes, although not in a golden summer sort of way. I always felt I'd missed that. More like, the world seemed to be opening up, there was so much to interest me, I thought if I kept trying I would become 'better', I would find my way in the world, that feeling of having your whole life ahead of you. The highs are high, horrible stuff hadn't happened to me, or at least not all of it. Not feeling I'd gone irrevocably off track. Not feeling so lonely. Feeling if you put the work in, you'd have a good chance of getting the results you wanted because that was mostly what was happening for me. It was before I was broken. Although, I suppose my head was ****ed with so I was sort of broken, but I didn't feel broken. I thought I'd be all right. The only times I had depression about my future was when I was having mini gay freakouts, although not always even then. (Recovering those memories years later is weird.) I was prone to nostalgia for a bit for my childhood at some point though, maybe in the late teens? I'm quite a nostalgic person in general. I sort of count pre 18 and post 18 but still youth periods as two separate things because I left home at 18 so it was a very distinct change.

[Candleholder]

No, I don't have any nostalgia for anything. I did have some nominal friends when I was a teenager and I worked really hard at doing supposedly fun things which I thought would give me some good memories, but that's not how it worked out. When I look back to those times I just see a shameful idiot tagging along behind his social superiors and never managing to fit in. I would do anything to be able to scrub that stuff out of my mind. My memories of earlier childhood are not much better, just confusion and fear really.

[firemonkey]

i was bullied quite badly during my teenage years. That's lead to decades of SMI. It was not a good time.

[Percy]

I was badly bullied during my teenage years which led to my mental illnesses, i have no nostalga for my teenage years