Am I beyond my years?

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This topic has 7 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 1 month ago by Anonymous.

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October 22, 2016 at 12:45 pm #118711

Aubree
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I’m not too accustomed with this site, I’ve actually just found it recently and decided it wouldn’t hurt to share some things. So, let me introduce myself first.I’m a 13yr old girl named Aubree, and I’m different from the children of my generation. Or so I believe. While everyone I have come to know is egotistical and close minded, I am interested in things like poems,short stories and even illustrating. I understand things most kids at my age don’t and probably never will. The problem is I am diverse in too many ways so no one would want to hear things from perspective anyways. I am a minority and I enjoy things and see things in ways that others find taboo, and since I am alienated from my own generation I go to the extent of seeking comfort from teachers or starting up conversations with them because I was sure they’d understand. Even with them though, I feel as I stick out like a sore thumb, immediately wanting to fleet from them as well. My “friends” or Rather, acquaintances often compliment my ways of writing and sometimes even my art work if it’s skimpy or appeals to them, but that doesn’t change the way I feel because at the end of the day they still deny everything I do. I stopped seeking approval from them and eventually began to ignore every gesture or glance sent my way, because I understood that they were toxic and were too young. Yet I fail to realize how young I really am as well, I think that maybe this has gotten so bad that I forget to see myself as something human and more like an apparition who speaks wisdom only when she is needed. Or randomly spouting out in depth words at random, although no one can see her, she still wants to be heard for something other than deep insightful words and advice. I think I may have gotten off track here but, let me just be frank. I feel like my self awareness is a curse. My ever expanding knowledge of things only deepens my wounds for I realize that I can no longer pretend to niave in certain circumstances that acquire it. With unrequited love to body language and how people are whispering while glancing over with eyes glazed in judgment. I tend over analyze things. And dealing with my anxiety and depression has become so mundane now that it’s practically the foundation of my personality. I am aware of that as well, and it only pains me more when I realize this has been going on for 5 years and It’s much too late to get the me I was back. I don’t even think I had time or was old enough to form a real personality before my depression came. Leaving me to believe I am doomed and that I’m the only child who thinks about things like the ways smoke blooms and diminishes or the way the sunlight glares off of things, only intensifying it’s unwitnessed beauty. And maybe I’m different I often think, perhaps I am too different. But my appearance comes off as cold and unapproachable, therefore no one would even guess I had these thoughts. So I believe that if I were to remove myself from familiar settings, it wouldn’t change a thing. But I am now torn between what I want and what I should do, I don’t understand who or what I am and therefore am trying to seek out something that could possibly change me. But I don’t know what that ‘something’ is, I really need help here. I’ve fallen off the deep end before and am barely resurfacing, so could someone help me before I fall again and never come back?

October 22, 2016 at 4:17 pm #118720

Learning
Participant

Dear Peja, reading your thoughts i can say I definetly didn’t think that way when I was 13 but wished I had. I’m 28 now, and only a couple years ago I started wanting to be more mindful, have more self awareness. So for you to have unlocked that knowledge already is special and beautiful. I think you should definetly seek where your love for poetry short stories and illustration takes you. Maybe it’s a sign for your true calling, and it’s amazing you already know what your interested in. Hold on to that and act on it even if other people might not get it, you need to find out for yourself, other people are not going to share your dreams only you will.

October 22, 2016 at 7:38 pm #118729

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Aubree:

Would you like to share about your home life: your relationships with your parents? Siblings?

The answers are there, I believe.

anita

October 23, 2016 at 9:38 pm #118788

Jen
Participant

This cycle is ending now, where spiritual awareness was triggered in a percentage of the population. For me being aware is a curse because I see so many people in pain, but we do not have the power to help anybody else. Use this awareness to have an amazing life, as with Learning, I too took until last year to realize. Research the Law of Attraction, and I’d recommend a book called The Four Agreements. Spread love and truth and always be your true, authentic self. Reject rejection because you only have to base your merit on your own opinion and no one else’s.

October 25, 2016 at 2:39 am #118873
Rock Banana
Participant
Nope, it’s not too late. While you are alive it is not too late to drastically change who you are being.

It sounds like you are making lots of judgements about who other people are and who you are. These judgements are not reality, they are thoughts. If you are associated with your thinking then you will believe your thoughts about the world are “reality” as opposed to just thoughts. If you understand the nature of thought (judgements about reality, NOT facts) then a lot of your problems will become clearer. For example, “they’re too young and toxic” is thought, not reality.

It may be that you’re very intelligent (my judgement – that I’ll own, but I’m aware this is not reality, only a way of seeing things that I am choosing to adopt right now) when it comes to being creative with poems and so on, but you lack social intelligence. Which is something you can absolutely learn. Improv comedy classes would probably serve you, as would making the decision to engage with the people around you. There’s a pretty good chance I think (though I’m “willing to be wrong about this”) that you are actually scared of the people around you, rather than feeling superior to them. I wonder if they treat you differently and you actually feel out of place and lost in a feeling-inferior kinda way. I don’t know. Or maybe you actually think you’re better than everyone else (which is THOUGHT, not reality – you can’t really be better or worse than anybody else, because good and bad are concepts, judgements, that you are imposing ONTO people in your mind, not inherent facts of the universe). Either way, some professional help would be really useful IMO. When I was your age I had social anxieties and felt very out of place too, looking back I just wish I had helped myself by telling more people how I felt, by organizing some kind of therapy or coaching for myself. What I DID do and what was really useful was reading a ton of self development and self help, psychology, philosophy books, and immersing myself in all of that. Also I started doing other activities like tai chi and yoga and stuff, that would help.

BTW, one last thing. There’s this myth that we form a personality that then stays consistent as an adult. NOPE. Just not true at all. Some adults change d-r-a-s-t-i-c-a-l-l-y throughout the course of their lives. Look up neuroplasticity. Your brain has the ability to change, change, change. You are kind of in flux, your “personality” a made up concept that you cling on to to tell yourself stories about yourself, these are all thoughts. Checking out Eckhart Tolle and people of his ilk would be a good idea to get your head round that a bit more. Mindfulness meditation would fit into that nicely alongside everything else.

Good luck, is it too late? Haha, it’s not too late to change at 60, let alone 13. If you get into self development and self change now, you couldn’t be much more ahead of the game. Not that there is a game, or a competition, because you’re doing it for you and for the greater good and relationships with the people around you, not because you’re trying to be better than anybody else. Which you can never be anyway. You can think you are, though. Donald Trump thinks he’s better than other people. Interesting guy but I’d never want to be much like him.

I’ll just add one last thing here: you are absolutely fine. There is nothing you need to change about yourself in order to be OK. You are OK now. Your worth is the same as any other human being on this planet. You are not ‘broken’, you are working perfectly as an organism – you are living, breathing, I assume your body is holding up nicely. Yes you are caught in a cycle of negative thinking that you are believing to be true, and you have made a few habits and models of reality that are not currently serving you, but none of that is “who you are”. You are not any of your thoughts, habits, behaviours etc. I know, crazy :O I don’t know what your relationships with other people are like but you are absolutely loveable. There is nothing “wrong” with you. There can’t be because that’s a judgement that exists in the mind rather than an inherent feature of reality (have you noticed a recurring theme here? If more people understood this there would be a lot less suffering in the world, for a start). Just relax a little and take it easy. Don’t make any brash decisions because in 10 or 20 years when this is in the distant past and you are living a totally different life you will quite possibly be all the stronger for it and have your stories to tell, your art to produce, for the greater good.
- This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by Rock Banana.
October 25, 2016 at 7:35 pm #118922

Aubree
Participant

I believe that I am inferior to others,actually. I often envy the fact that they can openly ingage in intimate or close contact with friends or even strangers. While I, on the other hand, take hours to even conger up the thought of whether or not I should simply pat someone on the shoulder or scoot closer to them. Which almost always leads to lost opportunities and disconnection between friends. I contemplate over whether or not I should talk to person. Be it a stranger, fellow classmate or a superior. When I’m lost in thought and torn between the two, out of the corner of my eye I could almost see them staring at me in disdain or pity. These things and feelings only pursue the thought that I’m lower and different from everyone else. They say being different and unique is good but I know this is an entirely different thing. People also mock me behind my back, the so called friends I had claimed to have don’t defend me and even take part in it sometimes. The only thing I can do now is stare into nothing with a neutral look plastered on my face, I’ve become so used to being ridiculed that i n order to keep from being lonely I had made up separate versions of me in my head that would talk to me and loathe me when I verbally attacked. My grades are falling below average, my teachers are harsh and unknowing of anxiety resp me having told them several times that I have it. On top of that I live in an extremely dysfunctional family. My father is currently fighting to get my half brother back from CPS and neglecting his other children in the process. Going to places only to blow off hundreds that could have been used for food or clothes for his children, or spending his nights away piss drunk and absolutely discontent with everything in his life. And I don’t even life with him. I live with my single mother who struggles to help us but tries her damn hardest. She’s terminal and doesn’t have too long for this earth, depressed, the black sheep of both of her families but I just simply sit by patiently and reply to her with thought out words because I know it’s hard for her to keep going like this. But that doesn’t me she has no contribution to my turmoil, in fact, she’s indenial about my depression and everytime I bring it up (which is rarely ” she gets defensive and goes on a rant on how she does so much for us and that when she’s dead we’ll see. Which only makes me feel guiltier about feeling this way or suicidal to begin with. My sister only speaks to me when she has something ironic to say or when she’s free from work, usually snapping at me when I try to seek a bit of solace from her after a hard day. It hurts and it makes my chest tighten ever so slightly. But I can’t cry and I won’t, I’m scared that if I were to cry I’d come off as any other angsty preteen seeking attention, and that’s the least of what I want. In fact, I fear being the center of attention because I’m afraid that everything that I’ve been hiding will come into the light or somehow be observed by my classmates. My knowledge on sex is advanced for my age and extremely innappropriate, bordering on the edge of something demented and twisted; But on the exterior displaying a sense of modesty or shyness because in all actuality I could never think of doing things like that myself. Only in my deepest fantasies,truly. Sometimes though, I crave for my innocence back at random, leaving me stricken with grief and realization trailing not too far behin.But I run to things like that online to cope with the pain of everything, even if I despite I can no longer run away. I’ve been absorbed in the idea of love even though I can never achieve, so I picture myself or things of my creation giving up a love to a friend that is unrequited in order to keep believing in the idea that I am, most certainly, unlovable and unappealing to the eyes of others. Everything only topples over heaps of problems and stress, adding to it and eating away at everything I have left in the process. I rise only to fall, and I wait patiently and silent like someone who is given so many responsibilities is supposed to, only to be disappointed and only to fall out of line and back in again. Trying to maintain a false persona of superiority that isn’t there openly to reassure others I am strong and needing guidance from no one. I’m almost accustomed to this continuous loop of silent sadness and pretense.

October 25, 2016 at 8:46 pm #118930

Anonymous
Guest

Dear peja:

I read some of your latest post. I want to read it attentively first thing tomorrow morning. Will reply then.

anita

October 26, 2016 at 7:25 am #118949

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Aubree:

I read your two posts on this thread attentively.

I see a 13 year old girl who was never SEEN or HEARD. For healthy development, a child needs to be seen by someone older, a parent, an older sibling, maybe even a teacher… someone.

You wrote: “I live with my single mother who struggles to help us but tries her damn hardest. She’s terminal and doesn’t have too long for this earth, depressed, the black sheep of both of her families but I just simply sit by patiently and reply to her with thought out words because I know it’s hard for her to keep going like this. But that doesn’t mane she has no contribution to my turmoil, in fact, she’s in denial about my depression and every time I bring it up (which is rarely”

Here is the key: your mother talks and talks about herself, her misfortune about your father being irresponsible, about her illness, about her childhood, her family… there is no talking about YOU. There is no time spent on YOU. What about how you feel? There is no space for you. She takes all the space.

Therefore, no wonder you “forget to see myself as something human and more like an apparition who speaks wisdom only when she is needed…although no one can see her, she still wants to be heard for something other than deep insightful words and advice”

Because your mother needs so much, because she has no time for you, no eyes to see you, no ears to hear you, it is like you don’t exist. It is as if you are not human. it is as if your only value is saying “deep insightful words and advice” to your mother.

You feel like an apparition, an image of a person, not a person, not human, because to feel like a human, what you feel, what you think has to be SEEN and HEARD by someone.

It is like the question: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it fall, did it fall? Someone has to hear you too, so that you feel you exist, as a human being.

You wrote: “It hurts and it makes my chest tighten ever so slightly. But I can’t cry and I won’t…”- you have feelings, and these feelings make your chest tighten. But you learned not to cry because, with your mother (and your sister) your feelings don’t matter.

The title of your thread is: “Am I beyond my years?” Yes and No. Yes, in that the words of wisdom you say, the way you talk, sound like words of a much older person. No, in that you never got to be a child, you are yet to be just that, a child, seen and heard, attended to, validated (as in: “Aubree, I see you are sad. Tell me about it..? Or: “Aubree, I hear in your voice that you are afraid, what scares you..?)

I can very much relate to you, Aubree, because I too had a mother who was all about her pain, her feelings, her misery and there was no place for me. I too sounded older than I was. I felt like I needed to help her, fix her, make her happy and it was a huge task. There was no space for me.

I do hope you post again, very much so. I do want to communicate with you again and again. I want you to be seen and heard here.

There is more that I’ve seen in your posts, but I don’t want this reply to be longer than it is. I will close with this statement: there is nothing wrong with you. What is wrong is that you need to be seen and heard, because you too have feelings, and needs, wants and dreams, like any other person.

anita
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