I’m 22M and I’m honestly tired of pretending that I’m just a little behind. I feel like I missed the years where people normally build a life. Friends, school memories, relationships, confidence, basic independence, stories, mistakes, all of that. I don’t really have much of it. My life for years was mostly sitting alone, being stuck in my head, and watching time pass. School was a big part of it. I didn’t fail because I didn’t understand that it mattered. I knew it mattered. I knew I should study. I knew I would regret it. But I still couldn’t force myself to do it. I would make plans, panic, feel guilty, tell myself tomorrow will be different, and then repeat the same thing again. After years of that, you stop trusting yourself. You start feeling like you’re broken. People see laziness, but from the inside it feels like being trapped in your own brain. I also grew up without a dad and without real guidance. No one really taught me how to handle life, pressure, confidence, dating, discipline, or how to become a normal adult. I mostly just survived and isolated myself. Now I’m trying to fix things. I lost weight, got a job, and I’m saving money. I want to get my driver’s license and maybe go back to school next year. So I am doing something now. But mentally I still feel like a teenager who somehow ended up in an adult body. The worst part is being around people my age. They talk about normal life experiences and I feel empty. I have nothing to add. I feel like I came late to life and everyone else already knows how it works. How do you stop feeling ashamed when you’re years behind? How do you build discipline when motivation never worked? How do you stop feeling like your past already ruined your future? submitted by /u/ClassroomOk7243
Originally posted by u/ClassroomOk7243 on r/AskMen