To feel in complete denial about the passage of time?

[FloralLove]

Does anyone else find themselves feeling completely in denial about the passage of time? I really struggle in being present and I feel like life is just passing me by. I feel like I barely connect with what day of the week it is, let alone month, season, year, etc. I struggle with accepting what stage of life and age I am at. I am in my mid 20s and I feel like it is something I need to rapidly get my head around before more of life passes me by.

I feel like deep down I feel like I will get a second chance at everything. I know that is wrong but I cannot shake that belief and it is affecting the way I treat my days, weeks, months and years.

I read a book and it mentioned death anxiety and one of the ways it manifests is with the belief that "so long as I do not enter the game, the clock has not begun to tick" (Nathaniel Branden, Honoring the Self, p.193). I feel like that is how I treat my life. I haven't let myself "start" it yet even though it already has started and is going by without me. I find it strange that some milestones/seasons of life have already gone by for me - being at school, being at university, graduating. It feels like those were just practice runs when that obviously isn't the case. I have felt like this for as long as I can remember. I remember being 10 and thinking I would never go to secondary school, I would just start back at reception and go through primary school again.

Does anyone else feel like this? Also I want to apologise in advance for coming across as naive and for taking time for granted. I know it is silly and foolish and that is why I am trying to process why I am like this so I can make a change.

I totally relate to how you feel with the waiting for your real life to begin. It is very hard to explain though. I also have real trouble letting go of things reminding me of times (not just special, but also the mundane), so with me, I do know I won’t get to experience them again but yearn to. It isn’t a healthy Attachment though. I can end up in tears thinking how I will never live this day again with DDs.

I was thinking this yest when looking at pics of my kids when they were little. The time has gone so fast

I’ve always felt like this. Is it some sort of existentialism?

I’m late forties now. In my head, life is full of exciting potential, but in reality, I’ve done most of it and I won’t do it again.

School, university, first house, engagement, wedding, honeymoon, babies, children starting school. Career.

It’s hard to explain. For example, I walked past Mamas and Papas and there was a lovely cot in the window, and my core being thought ‘I’ll buy one like that.’ Then I realised I’ve bought my cots, used them and they are gone. I’ll never need another. Yet deep inside I still think Life has all that potential.

I (50) really relate to the skim-reading feeling - also of having a terrible memory. I struggle to get excited and do things properly - could this be some kind of adhd or executive functioning problem? I've also spent (in my youth) too much of my life with my nose stuck in a book, and now online! Perhaps that's why life doesn't seem real.

This just reminded me of the friends episode when one of the guys (was it monica) realises she will never sleep with anyone new again cause she is marrying Chandler. I dont want to be with anyone else but when I got married I realised that the hunt for my (hopefully) forever companion was over.

I looked at my baby this morning and remembered when my first was like that and then realised I couldnt remember her being a tiny baby cause life was madness and i didn't embrace it.

Wow this resonates so much - I am mid-40s now and have done everything I ever wanted to so far, and am happy with my life as it is. And yet.....there are still those “Sliding Doors” thoughts - how a slight difference could have triggered a different path. That somehow I can retrace my steps and have another go at it all. Realistically I wouldn’t change what I have now, so why do I do this? It’s mentally exhausting and futile. Perhaps it’s a way of rationalising decisions already made and processing the next decision in our path.

OP, you're describing me as well. :) Particularly at that early-mid 20s age.

In fact, I distinctly remember driving home from work one day, when I was maybe 24, and it suddenly hitting me like a ton of bricks. "This is my life..." Get up, go to work, go home, watch telly, go to bed, repeat.

I think the realisation that time is passing "and what have I achieved?" is VERY normal, and a bit of a product of the "always aim higher/brighter/faster/richer" culture we now live in.

Something that helped me, just a small thing, was to learn to appreciate the small, pleasurable moments that make up my life.
Every time you are in a nice moment, consciously stop and think to yourself "if this isn't nice, I don't know what is." It can literally be anything, and the smaller the better. A bite of a really nice meal, sitting on a bench with your face to the sun, laughing with a friend.

It's these little moments that make up a life that you can be happy with.

I've settled with myself that I'm probably never going to achieve the big, but directionless, aspirations I had for myself in my teens. But you know what? I'm living a happy life. I have people whom I love, and who love me. And that's enough.

Can relate, but I'm 56. Really regret the wasted years. Those of you posting in your 20s and 30s, get hold of life and live it the way you want to. You will regret it if you dont.

Just as an after thought, it may sound odd, pick yourself a theme song, one day like this by elbow is mine, it gets me going it makes me appreciate the day, it makes me want to live it not let it pass by without much input.

What Zingally said. I can understand this feeling and I have moments of it myself , but I think it's sometimes a form of denial based on a kind of performance anxiety brought on by having always been made to feel you have to achieve lots and 'make something of yourself'. But rather than making you want to achieve stuff, that feeling is often paralysing.

You don't have to 'make something of yourself' - you already are something! Self-improvement is all very well if it's something you actually want to do, but it shouldn't be a stick to beat yourself with.

I am not an ambitious person,but I'vemade peace with that. I have an Oxbridge degree and pretty much all my peers from university days are big earners or doing something impressive, unlike me. I'm happy though, and wouldn't swap places with them.

Anyone else singing this now?

I can relate OP. I'm 51 now so I presume I will always feel this way.

I'm in my late 60s and relate OP!

I'm from a generation where introspection and self analysis was strongly discouraged - we were encouraged to just 'get on with things' so I envy your self awareness in dealing with your feelings.

I also have always had a poor memory and my childrens' growing up years seem to have sadly completely passed me by, thank goodness for the photos I have as otherwise I wouldn't recall much at all about their childhoods and teen years.

I too have wondered about ADD or similar.

I too have wondered about ADD or similar. Me too.

It is so interesting to read all of these replies and realise that I am not the only one who thinks like this.

It is strange though. When I look at photographs of myself from childhood is when it really hits me that those are all me, in the past in a form I'll never take on again. Like right now there is a photograph in front of me from my primary school's sports day and deep down I believe I will relive those years again. I will have another school sports day.

I remember sitting at my year 6 leavers assembly and thinking it was ok, I wasn't really leaving primary school, I would never start secondary school I would just go back to reception and go through it all again, over and over again.

Yes,I get it op! Mine is more like a yearn to revisit though... 50 now but in my early 20s I lived in Putney and had a group of great friends / regulars from the local pubs. When I've been back to London with work recently I have this overwhelming urge to go & see everyone - as if I could just revisit that time with no regard to the fact that 30 years have past & there are probably none of them still about doing what they were doing then!! It's like a part of me can't believe any chapter is gone forever & that those times will come round again!

OP I've read your posts and had a kind of vertigo, because it describes how I've always intrinsically felt - that this is some kind of dress rehearsal and I'll get to do all this again, but properly next time. I've felt this way since I was a young child, with very stoic and detached thinking, and living in a kind of disengaged way because I don't have to really participate since my life will start for real at some point. I have no advice for you. I'm 10 years older and my life hasn't "started" yet. It's a shame, because it's meant I haven't really enjoyed any of it.

I think I have the opposite problem, I live very much in the moment, and so if the moment is happy, that's great, but if it isn't, I find it hard to remember what it's like to be happy, I hate being ill for this reason, I feel like I'm going to be stuck in it forever. I realised I don't think the same as others as they often talk about past times, whereas I would never think about the past if left to my own devices, it feels like it happened to someone else and only the me now is the real one. So, the opposite I guess

I'm exactly the same!!

What do you want from your life? To travel, a career, to do some good in society, have a family, achieve inner peace, financial stability?

Make a list.

We're here for a good time, not a long time so stop worrying and start living.

Make a list.
Doesn't work. For me anyway!

@Planesmistakenforstars Yes, you've described it perfectly! I have also felt like this since I was a young child. I really relate to what you say about living in a disengaged way. It's hard because I have always recognised that I live in this way but I don't really know how to change?

@Hyperion100 I will try and be more proactive about getting the things I want in life. I have never been very proactive with my life. A huge part of that is because I cannot imagine my future. It kind of feels like I live in the present moment without being able to contextualise that in terms of my past and future and where I am on the 'timeline' of my life.

Does the feeling stem from a particular time OP? I ask because I've heard that experiencing trauma can sometimes lead to feelings of dissociation. May not apply to you but a thought.

Maybe everyone feels weird about time because it doesn't really exist or at least not in the way we think about it. Its something we invented to control our lives (business, trains etc.) But I may just be having wacky thoughts cos it's late at night and I can't sleep!

I'm 48 and feel like this. My self esteem is non existent so I've become accustomed to just puttingvmy wants and needs last. I don't have the energy or confidence to say no, actually I want to do this instead.

I have a lifetime of regrets and at a massive crossroads in my life (my husband is shagging someone else for the 2nd time this year) that could be a huge fresh start but im paralised with fear to seek the legal advice and move forward. I still keep thinking it won't matter if I don't push forward as if I have all the time in the world. It's just the passiveness of this in my life of ....so what, I'll sort it out next week!
Why don't I ever grab anything by the horns and embrace it?

I have literally found my people. I feel completely disassociated from my life, totally confused how I have arrived at nearly 60 - when I see my childhood photos now they look like someone else, like a Victorian picture rather than 60s/70s - quite scary really. There was so much I thought I could have and achieve, and now I have maybe 20 years, 25 if I am lucky, and some of that I assume my health wont be great (its not good now so fair assumption) ... I suppose its a panic that I was thinking "hey any minute now this will start" and now I am thinking "hey any minute now this could finish".

So I think I am saying I felt like the OP and others until maybe this year and then all of a sudden I thought fuck. I've got that wrong.

Did anyone see that Alan Bennett the other night where the protagonist says she always thought she'd be a wonderful woman but realised that she was too late to be one now, as she'd not already achieved the requisites. That's me.

I'm 34 and your OP resonates with me.

I used to buy things and then not use them so they would be there when I needed them/for best. When I watched my toddler trash through and separate sets of things I realised buying something and not using it was pointless and akin to not bothering. Now I like using things up.

I was in the process of making a friend in another country a birthday card and thought to myself, just need to finish it off, mount it, and then send in the post. Her birthday was like 2 days away. I hadn't factored in time at all.

I’ve been feeling this too. I wonder if there is a name for it?

Only since this year and not sure whether it’s related to hitting a milestone birthday or the lockdown situation. I’m older than you OP. Can’t remember thinking like this is my twenties at all.

Weirdly, feels like I should have died at some point but didn’t and now I’m just here existing and life is passing by.