­ Hello,
I’m a 20 y/o girl from the UK, 21 in December –just about allowed to post here by 4 weeks! (life gets hard after 18/21 because less people are interested in giving any advice!) and at the moment its not going quite as I’d like it to. Ok well a lot of people could say that about their lives, but by that I mean I don’t seem to have the capability to live my life the way I’d like to right now.

Why this is I’m not sure, I could say it isn’t so important, but then again the complete opposite may be true because often you need to know the problem before you find the solution. For a brief history, I left school when I was 14 and was taken out of a normal environment into one where I had no real guidance on anything relevant to real life, and gained no qualifications. I took a few GCSE’s at college at the age of 18 while doing a part time job in the evenings, and I am sad to say that was probably the most productive year of my adult life so far. Lol

Since then, I have tried numerous educational courses and different jobs, and achieved very little, I don’t get the housework done, despite the fact I’m the one person who should really be doing it, don’t even get myself to bed on time, (get distracted, really don’t want to, feel the need to do something else) and therefore don’t get up in the morning. I find it almost impossible to motivate myself to study or arrange work, I keep intending to get myself to the gym to get fit, and for some reason, I simply can’t motivate myself to do any of it. Some of them things I really want to do, and/or enjoy doing, which makes no sense at all.

I was very successful as a child because I always had someone behind me arranging everything, and then all I had to do was do what I was told at the time. Easy. The problem is that I can’t really find any decent reason why I have so much trouble leading a normal productive life. People have suggested to me that its because I’m young, and I wish it were true but I’ve then found myself in conversation with people in their forties and fifties who have said they were astounded at the level of maturity I’ve shown for my age, and though my life appears a mess to me, I always seem to be the one solving other people’s problems, and then when I ask for advice, they have no answers for me. Perhaps I have a level of understanding that’s unusual but life skills that in some areas are no better than those of the average child?

Perhaps it’s the point that people miss, maybe we never do stop needing parents, its only that we only become our own parents when we reach a certain age; something that we’re taught to do in our teens, and perhaps something that I’ve missed out on learning. I hope perhaps that might be the case, as its something I should still be able to learn somehow.

I don’t mean to sound conceited but I’m not stupid either, I’m an intelligent person, which is why it irritates the people around me who see any talent I might have going to waste, though unfortunately they don’t have the level of understanding to do anything about it except nag me. I don’t blame them, and everyone has their weaker points, mine being the reason I’m here lol but it isn’t productive.

I can’t hold down a boring job, but then I can’t get my hands on a good one until I’ve got myself a proper education, and I can’t do that until I’ve managed to drag myself through four or five years of study, it’s a big problem for me, partially because I appear to be useless at doing that, and partially because personally and socially I don’t feel like I fit into the whole university life stage at all, which doesn’t help as it makes a difficult thing slightly more difficult. I’m scared of committing myself (and my limited amount of money!) to a university course when I can’t be sure that I’ll make it through.

Well I’ve been trying to figure out how to do something about me for a long time, I don’t know whether I’m simply inherently lazy, or whether I lack the support around me (I have lots of acquaintances but only one close friend, split up with a boyfriend who was never there anyway and my mother doesn’t understand how to have a proper conversation about anything along these lines and believes just telling me to pull myself together without letting me know how to do it is really going to work...) or whether I just never learned how to live my life properly, or whether I’m just one of those people who needs a kick up the arse though sadly there are very few people who can really do that for me, something I find hard to do for myself, or if I’m in the wrong situation…

…When the house has been empty of other people who are supposed to be responsible I’ve pretty much taken over and done everything twice as fast.. perhaps I need to take a dive into the deep end and put myself under pressure, on the other hand it could be a stupid idea… I’ve had a lot of such interesting revelations about how something is the answer, and then of course it turns out to be absolute rubbish and doesn’t work!!

Somehow I feel like I wish someone could put things in place for me, and all I’d have to do is just do what I’m supposed to, but then I know that person has to be me, and unfortunately I don’t appear to be very good at it.

Lets say if I could choose how my life would be tomorrow (aside from having a fantastic boyfriend a big house and a flash car LOL) I’d want an interesting job and a full life, where I can be bothered to go out and do the things I enjoy, and where I actually get things done productively… anyway, just to say I’m not happy with the way things are and want to change it, this isn’t a question of am lazy like being lazy and want to stay lazy lol well I wouldn’t be writing this if I was would I…

I read what you wrote in reply to someone else, and saw that you’d mentioned that we all get out there and think there will be someone to catch us and make sure we don’t mess up too badly… well that happened to me when I was 14, and though I’d like to hope there is someone waiting to catch most people of that age, unfortunately there was no one there to catch me, and almost seven years later I still haven’t quite managed to pick myself up yet, I just feel that turning 21 soon its time I got myself together, and that 7 years is far too long to let my mistakes get the better of me. I don’t like to believe there is any such thing as too late, everyone should really be able to change things if they’re really open minded enough to look at themselves and their life with honesty and listen to some guidance on what to do with it.

Please don’t suggest counselling because for the first point, counsellors don’t give advice, they can only listen which is of little help, I’ve tried things like that before, and its seemed like the person there is just feeling sorry for me and the conversation goes round in circles as I ask “what do you think I should do about it” and get no answers! for the second point I don’t have any money for anything like that.

I’ve tried to write objectively because I’m looking for objective answers; if you feel inspired to reply, please write what you think. I’m not here to vent or looking for sympathy, I’m looking for genuine opinions. I’d love to say I’m looking for answers, but I don’t think I expect to find them easily as life is never that simple. If anyone has any ideas, please share them!

thanks.