Really really struggling with nostalgia.

[Stressedafff]

Just that really. I was born in 94 and recently, I’d say the past 6 months, anything from my childhood is upsetting me.

Even music from a time I wasn’t born (70’s/80’s) I’m finding really upsetting
I don’t know what’s causing it. I’m going through an EA relationship at the moment and I’ve lost 3 close family members this past 7 years so I’m mostly putting it down to that. But I miss the early 2000’s, I miss family parties in social clubs with 70’s music on, I miss how simple life was, everything is just so damn crap.

anyone else feel this too?

I'm so nostalgic lately and I think it's because I have teens/adult children. I was sat with them the other evening and they were on their phones and my daughter came across an"influencer" and said "she's really made it, her house, cars money, etc" and my son was saying "ahh did you see so and so's watch and car". It made me so sad that they are so materialistic and admire people for what they have because it's so unnaturally shoved in your face on social media all day every day. I was born in the 80s so lived my teens through the 90s/00s and I don't remember anyone being materialistic (well none of my friends/ social group were) there was less judgment about what someone owned or wore. My daughters take a hundred selfies and pic the best one and worry about posting it on Instagram so edit the pics. In my day you took a photo on a disposable camera and you only got one take. No editing no angles no worries. Life was so much easier and more fun then, I feel sadness that my children will never experience the life that I lived 😞 I sound like my dad now reminiscing of the good old days.

I watched a Top of the Pops from 1994 at the weekend (I was a pre-teen in ‘94!) and I was a bit weirded out by how I felt watching it. Nostalgia certainly, but also looking at how the audience were dressed and remembering how my parents would never let me dress in anything remotely fashionable and how that made me feel at the time. I always felt they did the bare minimum to make sure I had clothes when I hit puberty age, like it wasn’t something they didn’t need to sort for me anymore.

Nostalgia often makes me feel sad unfortunately. Agree with PPs about Christmas, I often get a bit upset at Christmas as I miss family and friends that have gone over the years.

Oh gosh, now you've started me off!

I was in my mid thirties in 1994. Both of my parents and my parents-in-law and one of my grandmothers were alive; my children were still at school - and I was young and carefree! We had lovely family get togethers at Christmas and went on family camping holidays in the summer.

I do look back on those times wistfully, I must admit. My children are now in their 40s and their children are the age that mine were then. Perhaps they will all look back to the 2020s with fondness and nostalgia in the future.

I love the song, "The Way We Were". It seems so perfectly to describe the exquisite pain/joy of nostalgia. Here is my favourite version, from Gladys Knight.

shadow I was very materialistic in a way...as a teen, I'd have pictures from Vogue etc stuck to my wall. The difference was that I knew it was a dream. There weren't any cheap copies to buy. But there were definitely kids at school competing for who had the right trainers etc. I think I was lucky to live in that era where enough parents said "no". Now I hear my colleagues worrying about how they'll afford a particular brand for their kids. Then they are surprised that childfree me is planning to retire at 50!

There was a thread on here recently that boggled my mind about a non-expensive option to eat out. I didn't read all of it but most of what was suggested was far beyond what I'd spend. I miss that too - just inviting people round and them being happy with quiche and potatoes and salad... I notice that it's much easier to get people to go out if you suggest a posh place.

I don't think it's nostalgia, I think you just have very clear memories of a time when things were "better".

Your early teens would have been during the golden eara of free credit, the country was awash with money and jobs, we had the Internet and mobiles, but not social media, ot the toxic elements of the technology.

We are heading into the abyss in terms of tech having a largely positive effect on our lives, now it's used as regressive, coercive control measure. We gave away our privacy and our autonomy. Very soon everything you buy will be logged and the data stored, every single penny that moves through your accounts will be available for scrutiny by the authorities. Every message you send, every email, every text, every Internet search will be available to the police and other government agencies to look at.

Smart meters will record when you make a cup of tea, your car will send a log of your movements to the manufacturer, who will store it and make it available to the authorities on request. They are now even putting cameras inside your new car to record your face as you drive.

"Connected" vehicles will all have a remote shut off "switch", which can be activated by the manufacturers, currently the US Government is passing a bill which will force car makers there to allow Police and other agencies to access this tech so that they can shut down those vehicles themselves, they say its for "safety" to stop stolen vehicles and to help combat terrorism, but we all know what it really means. The government now has the ability to literally turn off the ignition on your car to stop you going anywhere. It won't be long before Geo Fencing will be used (they will say its for environmental reasons) to stop you driving during particular times or through specified areas.

The world you knew is never coming back, no wonder you feel sad.

I know what you mean OP. Some days I actually ache for the 70s and 80s, when life was so much more simple, and the music and TV was so good. Even in my working life I preferred the time pre computers everywhere. Life has changed so much, and not always in a good way.

I have had cycles of this ever since the age of 12, when I discovered a box of holiday photos dating back a few years to when I was 7/8 (long hot summers of 1975/76) and started reading the Recollections section of my children’s poetry anthology.

(Beats me how some of those poems were ever considered suitable for children, BTW. They included such gems as Oft in the Stilly Night, The Last Rose of Summer and I Remember, I Remember. The last of which is a masterpiece, but OMG it’s devastating. Absolute kryptonite for an impressionable 12 year old girl struggling with hormones and change.)

Do you know what helped me in the last bout? Finding my old diaries from 20 odd years ago. They showed me my life wasn’t all that. The 1980s were pretty horrible for many, the early 90s were a real struggle for graduates entering the job market and for those who did enjoy themselves, they weren’t burdened by the constant awareness of doom and gloom events that social media, rolling news etc. gives us today. This stuff’s always been there, we just haven’t always known about it.

To me it sounds like you’re reassessing your life and gathering the courage to make changes. All you need is the faith that things will improve. Just remember, the past was very rarely as great as we think at the time.

Do you think it is your brains way of reminding you that your life does not have the way it is now, and proving this by showing you better times, before you were in your current relationship? This is great because it shows you are not accepting that life just can't be better than it is now. The next step would be trying to picture how your future could look if you got free of that relationship.

Imagine looking forward and confidently expecting the same kind of simple and totally achievable enjoyment you had in the past, but in your future - wouldn't that be great?

@Kennedydavenport youve hit the nail on the head there. It’s that carefree feeling I miss. Dig the heels out well go nostalgic clubbing together!

I think the nostalgia for me is more of a reminder I’ve lost a lot of my early 20’s carefree time to abuse. I lost my chances of going to uni and I’ve ended up so depressed I can’t do anything anymore. FWIW I am making the steps to leave so hopefully change is coming x

I know exactly what you mean , both my parents are dead now , the last one just last year . Most of my aunts and uncles gone, there is just us cousins left now . It is weird when a whole generation gone and you've moved up , we're now the oldies 😢 .

I too am feeling crushed by the weight of nostalgia. I wish there were no phones, no internet, no reality tv.

Me all the time. I wish we could live a simpler life without computers and mobile phones and everything on line. Drives me mad. We might as well be robots.

I wish I could time travel and redo events from when I joined university.

I was born early 80s and I do get nostalgic for specific things from the 90s/2000s, particularly the freedom of playing out (which my kids don't have) and smartphones.

However my biggest pangs of nostalgia come from when DC1 was a baby/toddler. He's only 9, but it seems a lifetime ago.

I was born in 1969, every single one of my teenage years was in the 80s, I had a blast in the 90s, and the 2000s. What didn't I do! I get so nostalgic and would do anything to go back. I feel like I've been plonked in an era I don't belong in now.

Like other posters, I'd love no smart phones, Internet and social media and a , personally connected life.