Question for adults

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When you were 19, how was your life? good?bad?

Well...I was living in a friend's basement after my mom kicked me out of the house (for skipping so many days of high school). Started a job as a cashier that wasn't very fun. Hating where I was & wanting to get the hell out of the area I grew up in were big motivations when I was 19. I was also pissed off at the prospect of working meaningless jobs for the rest of my life. My family had no money for college & anyways I didn't want to go school again after the hell of high school. So I didn't know what exactly I wanted...but I knew I hated where I currently was & what I was doing, so I was fired up with energy to leave and find something better for myself.

Not sure if you wanted to know how we've changed since 19, but I did eventually move out of my hometown, I work for myself now, going to school, and though life is still a challenge, it's mostly a good one.

At nineteen I was drinking excessively, taking lots of hallucinogens and other illegal drugs. I was also having lots of sex, stealing, riding motorbikes with no insurance and pretty much being bad to the bone. I now do none of those things. People change, even autistics.

Last edited by Jute on 20 Sep 2016, 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

When I was 19 I was unemployed and done voluntary work most days to occupy myself until I got a paid job.
I had some chavvy friends that started bullying me.
I flirted around with bus-drivers.
I was doing driving lessons.
Oh, and I was freaked out by the swine flu because the whole world made it seem like it was the next apocolypse.

Otherwise, I didn't have much of a social life. I lived with my parents, but that isn't unusual for young adults.

19 was the year it all turned to s**t for me, I think I was enjoying life and it sounds very similar to Jute but I loved my hallucinogens a little too much and went loopy and had my first stay on a mental ward. If I was to offer any advice to a 19 year old it would be stay away from hallucinogens they can seriously scramble your brain if you are of a certain disposition

I was having a lot of fun. I discovered that drinking alcohol made it easier to "fit in" with the other students at my college. However, my grades suffered and I ended up with a big student loan debt with very little to show for it. I had to go back to school for a second degree and accrue even more debt in order to get a decent job.

In 1976-1977 I was bieng bullied and gaslighted in community college.

The first two years of college as well as 5th through 8th grade were my worst years for bullying. After transfering the last two years of college were the best of my life.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 21 Sep 2016, 5:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

The first half of 19 was bad due to health issues and an unstable living situation. The second half of 19 was better, as my health issues had been successfully treated, I had started college, and my living situation was more stable.

As a general rule, I think about half the population has a positive teenager/young adult experience, and half the population has a negative teenager/young adult experience. It's a time when your brain is still going through a lot of changes, and you are simultaneously struggling to get on your feet in life, so it can be a rough time even if you come from a well off background.

At 19 I was crashing pretty hard into depression and autistic shutdown, and I still didn't know I was autistic which made it all the more difficult. Everything changed too quickly and I got totally lost, then felt like a failure because I'd messed up my first year at Uni, and being academic is a huge part of my personality. At 19 I looked back on all the work I'd put in at school and college to get where I was, and I was powerless to stop myself destroying it all. Back on track now thankfully, but that was a sh***y year.

pretty much this ^, but without motorbikes

A mixture, but mostly bad.

I didn't have much money, had heaps of bureaucracy to deal with, had several failed jobs, and continued to have problems with depression and anxiety and felt suicidal a lot of the time.

On the more positive side, I got out and about doing a lot of cycling and swimming.

better than 18, but also missed opportunities because too shy to participate in anything
living with bf i wasn't too passionate about, but who was a cook so i learned to cook
we had a dog, who's owner was in and out prison, when out he'd moved in with us
and more friends lived with us occasionally, drugs based friendships, work led to using more drugs,
observing, lots of the guys had been medicated as children for behaviour-problems(60's), addiction as a problem of/with the ego? (after that there's similairities with general population and clinging to bad ego-solutions)

ha ha I almost wrote exactly the same

19 was actually a pretty decent year for me.

1. It was right after I graduated high school, which was hell for me. So I was relieved that I was out of that hell

2. I got a haircut. That got rid of my moderate acne

3. I had social problems, and I walked around with broken eyeglasses. But I did relatively okay, because my ambitions weren't high back then.

4. I worked quite a few jobs, quit some, was fired from a couple, then got the job I have now later on in the year, where I achieved success

5. I worked for the Census. I had some Executive Functioning difficulties on that job.

6. I had an on-again, off-again girlfriend.

Overall I did much better than I did at age 18.

Nineteen was the start of a long learning curve. It wasn't great in hindsight, but the feeling of freedom was intoxicating.

^^ Just curious: are you named after Major Major in "Catch 22?"