Do others' nostalgia trips depress you?

Post Reply New Topic

I was recently reading a piece on a popular toy website I go to by a guy who owns a company that makes figures, and how he and his gal were recently in Minnesota, and he went to all the places he loved as a kid,and all the great memories he had as a kid.

Whenever I hear stories like that...it gets me to realize that no matter how much at times--as a kid--I said I was so happy, I was absolutely pathetically miserable compared to my life now.

Yes, I'm a cynical jackass today who can bring grown men to tears, and not even blink...but I love my life today.

I'm living my dream with a career, having an acceptable social life( well, at least for someone who's Autistic), and have a wonderful girlfriend.

Some of my friends talk so passionately about the past, and the memories...several of which I'd forgotten, cause it's not me anymore, and it's really nothing I'm that proud of or that I care to remember.

It just really gets me how depressing I find my past in general, especially thinking that I actually found it passably acceptable then.

The thing is...I can't be mad at myself from the past for thinking that things were as good as they possibly could've ever been; it's just.....very conflicting really.

What do you think?

I didn't find out about AS until my late 20's (I'm thirty now).

One of the things that really called to my attention about how different I am was reading the personal statements in the year high school yearbook upon graduation. They were full of reminiscing about happy events in the preceding four years, and I realized that I didnt really have any happy memories. It made me profoundly sad.

i can't wait for my whole life to just be a distant memory, looking back from heaven.

see, that's kind of where I'm coming from.

Like, at the time, you thought those events were as good as it got; looking back now, you find the knowledge depressing as that time in your life really wasn't that great.

That's how I'm looking at it..and I find it a bit conflicting.

Your attitudes, experiences and priorities in life can change overtime. There's nothing you can do to change your past events, but as you're already doing, you can always do whatever it takes to make your current and future life more bearable, successful, enjoyable etc.

Likewise, I look back at my past and regret the amount of time I "wasted" on TV when I could've spent it doing a casual job, or reading books. Also bad experiences will linger on in my mind, and be unable to be permanently deleted from my hard drive.

Perhaps it may be a blessing in disguise, that we're much more likely to appreciate the good things that'll happen to us, compared to others who often take it for granted (friends, active social lives, food, shelter) etc. Also, because we think so much, we have the tendency to use our hindsight and see what things could be improved in ourselves, deep introspection.

The people who treated you badly in the past are pathetic and worthless, they don't matter to you in the greater scheme of things. If you understand why they behave like that, then you have less reason to be afraid of them. To me, they have nothing better to do with their lives, and are so insecure that they pick on others to give off an impression of superiority.

No no, you misunderstand.

I'm well aware that those people are small and petty.

I'm ill-concerned about them, though; I was talking about how you look at your life in hindsight, and so many things where--at the time--ya say to yourself how happy you were, knowing what you know now, what an overly miserable time of your life it actually was.

I'm happy now with my life; I'm not saying certain things can't be better, but I love overall how things are going right now.

It just feels like I was "happily" willing to accept substandard conditions back then, and am disgusted about it; but at the same time I can't hate myself for it, cause it was a younger, less experienced me who didn't know what he knows now...which leaves me really conflicted.

Here's a really disturbing analogy:

Imagine you were a citizen of the now former Soviet Union, and you got by the best you could as a child, despite the constant threats from Stalin's local arsenal, and all the other hell you were being put thru. At one point you thought to yourself "this is as good as it's gonna get", and told yourself to just be happy.

Years later you look back, knowing the things you know now, and can't believe--despite the fact that you were a young child--the substandard circumstances you were willing to accept as adequate; yet you can't hate yourself for it, because you didn't know then the things you know now.

No, I'm an American-born citizen, and I love my country--that's besides the point.

But I hope you see what I'm trying to say.

No, I don't regret watching loads of TV as a kid; I barely watch it now because I find it mostly too stupid, and I have other things I'd prefer to do. However, my Mom was Autistic and my Dad--while not Autistic--was also a social misfit. My Mom's Autism did drive her to the edge of sanity, and she would yell at me...a lot...just because. I often said as a kid "I wish I had a new mother". That TV--and those action figures--were the only thing I had to shield me from the hell I want thru, and they kept me on the right track; my conscious helped out considerably too, but that TV and action figures were the only things keeping me sane and focused on just getting thru the next day.

If there's one thing Autism definitely did in regards to a positive thing in my life as a kid, it kept me away from drugs.

Folks do drugs because they're weak to peer pressure, and want to be liked. I was barely liked as it is--including by family--so it honestly didn't matter. Why then would I want to start a life-threatening addiction to a substance that was also super expensive? Didn't make sense.

If I have to thank Autism & my easily influential brain for anything as a child, it was that.

I have plenty to thank them for now, obviously.

If the stories are from the 1960s, I'm happy to hear them. Other than that, forget it. I don't need to hear somebody my age, be nostalgic about their childhood, when I've gone through the same thing, but with more anxiety about talking about my obsessions, too much and doing the wrong thing.

what the hell decade does it matter? All the nostalgia trips I hear are from the '80s, and with the exception about hearing about their experiences with pop culture, it's all the same to me.

I like the 60s

I apologize for the outburst, but to this Mod, it does make a difference, whether a nostalgic story takes place in the 60s or the 80s. The 1960s is my special interest.

no no, I know that. That's fine, but it wasn't entirely relevant to the point I was trying to make

they don't depress me they annoy me.

I was pretty alive for the first 5 or 6 years so I like remembering those years even though alot of really bad stuff happened. Then we moved to a new town and I never liked it or felt 'home' there and we were there for about 10 years or so. That was my 'childhood', but it sucked and I haven't been back to that town since we moved away when I was about 15. Then we moved to another state and it sucked too, for another two years. College was MISERABLE for me so I really hate hearing what a great time people had in college. Only lately have I been allowing myself to admit to myself how totally full or suck college was. Because I didn't have any social skills so it was a disaster. When I left college and got out on my own about 1990 was when I really enjoyed my life. I got sober in 92 and it was fun until I moved away in 96, then it started going downhilll fast. So my favorite years of my life were about 90 to 96 or so. I made about 3 or 4 dollars and hour and was really poor and moved every few months it seemed and I was always having to walk into work at 3 in the morning in the freezing cold because my car was broken down (I was a baker) but honestly that was my first REAL childhood of my life. I loved it, I loved the town I was in, the people, everything. I went through some really hard stuff and poverty and getting sober and all that but I think it's because I got away from the insanity in my family for the first time and realized what my life could be like without all that. Sorry to go on so long. And I was in a town that is full of 'freaks' (their word) so it was normal to be weird and weird to be normal and I fit right in.

I've always had a tendency towards nostalgia. I currently have a strong interest in the Commodore VIC 20; a computer that was released in 1981 and discontinued in 1985. This computer appeals to me because my parents had one when I was a child and it packed up before I got a chance to know it.

no

no no good sir, don't get me wrong: I love the things that were popular when I was a child; the franchises, music, movies,...even the slang!

No matter how great great or crappy media is at the time, it's one's life specifically I'm talking about here.

I feel so bad that I went on a nostalgia trip in your thread on how other people's nostalgia trips are depressing.

and it's a simple concept, so it's weird to me you've had to explain it a few times...I know exactly what you mean, and god yes does it make me feel bad, especially ones about the 'wonderful college years'. those were awful.