I blinked & missed my 17th year... how was yours?

DX'd - Other
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I had my swan song episode when I was 17 and then I was in hospital and detox and rehab and hospital and detox and rehab again and again. I was almost 19 when I was lucid enough to start thinking about getting out of hospital. So I missed about two years completely.

My youngest brother turned into a party frat boy at 17 and just went sexually rampant. Lost old friends, made new ones, lost new ones, got jobs, lost jobs, crashed a few cars, surfed drunk off his butt and nearly drowned. Got arrested a few times for stupid stuff… (stopping traffic to pee off the I-90 bridge) and other dumb things.

My sis is 17 to 18 and she is loosing friends, different schools, different pools, getting new friends, going through boyfriends faster then I go through a tin of board wax. Crying jags, stress attacks, and a host of rapid cycling. My sisters friends are no better. I just watch what is going on with them and wonder what in the world is happening to the brain at 17.

I was wondering, since I don’t really remember my 17th year on this earth…

What was your 17th like. What is turbulent or was it calm?

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I figure 16-19 is the time to be lost and confused. I recently had a bit of this talk with my 18 year old daughter. She is about to graduate, yah for her as we didn’t think it would happen, and has no idea what she wants to do. Or even where she wants to live since I’m in one province/state and she is in another. Almost on opposite ends of Canada. So she is frustrated, confused and comparing herself to all her peers who just don’t don’t get it. Juggling school, a job, a boyfriend and helping out at home. Wanting all of her family in one place. I wish she could see how awesome she is doing. She has overcome self harm (as far as I know) and possibly BPD and went from failing school to graduating. No more punk phase and spiked green hair. Although I thought the spiked green hair looked great on her. Can’t say I liked the tattoos or the piercings though.

No I would not want to be that age again for all the tea in china.

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Oh boy…you had to ask! When I was 17 I was a straight edge honors student at a prestigious high school, and earned two belts in Krav Maga. I was obsessed with becoming a Navy SEAL and had already planned out ROTC in the Navy. The next year, I started breaking down, was failing a class at one point, had a testicle injury and coudnt move without pain so I just smoked pot every night after school and lost about 40lbs (I had been a bodybuilder at about 180). I was told by my shrink that I would have to wait to join ROTC, and right when I recovered from the testicle infection and got back in the gym, I had already entered my descent into paranoid schizophrenia.

One of my voices was 17-year-old Me. He was often the voice of reason and I almost miss hearing his comments on my behavior and his instructions. I havent heard from him since my meds got figured out, but I also said good riddance to the two malicious voices I heard.

If I often see kids in ROTC wearing their BDU’s walking across campus. I sometimes wish I could be one of them, that was all I wanted at that point in my life.

Now I have changed a whole lot. I am settled into being a psych major and I now plan on going as far as I can in grad school and working in the mental health field, I actually want to give evaluations, so maybe I will just get a masters and work as an intake evaluator or maybe I will do well enough in grad school to enter the Ph.D. program.

My 17th year was challenging and satisfying. It was probably the most productive year of my life. It was a high place to fall from, however, and my next two years were a bitter struggle. My 20th year, which I am in the middle of, has been a year of recovery…medications, back to all A’s, powerlifting, dated a couple girls, a growing interest in my major, it has been good. I really snapped out of it when I got on this new meds regiment…I made all A’s and I stabilized completely. No more symptoms, no more freakouts, no more drama. It’s been a textbook case of self-medication, denial, then insight, compliance and recovery.

I know that I am fortunate to get my life back on track within 6 months of trying medications. I wish it was that easy for all of us. It’s not fair that I am in remission and so many of us aren’t.

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Excellent news for your daughter. I don’t know anything about BPD. I’ve looked a bit up, and it sounds like another bad boy in the head circus. Kicking it out seems like no easy task. Getting over self harm takes a lot of work. I’m glad she’s graduating.

My sis has already said she’s getting tattoos for her 18th birthday. She really wants to cover up the burn and skin graft scars on her legs and shoulder. She’s very self conscious about those.

That’s the part that blows me away. My sis is comparing herself to her peers. Saying stuff like, “I never seem to have it as easy as they do.” But they are comparing themselves to her “You already live on your own and have a job” It’s like a like a lost person comparing themselves to another lost person… They are all still lost. Odd.

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As far as a quick recovery… I do figure for all of us it’s time, place and a bit luck. But you also thirsted for it, you worked hard for it. You didn’t deny your situation, you got help fast and you listened when people they tried to help you.

Me? I just got angry and denied everything and turned my back on help and flushed my meds. You worked hard for what you wanted and you got it. Congratulations.

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When I was seventeen, I was in bed with major depression. I had dropped out of high school at fifteen, and from about age sixteen and a half through twenty I was just in bed and watching TV. When I was seventeen, I tried to commit suicide by sliting my wrist. As my flesh opened up, and I was cutting on the inside, I started to feel something. It was pain, but I hadn’t felt anything for a long time. I felt like I was dead. So a week later I cut myself again, just to feel something. I was covered from head to toe with hives. I eventually went to the doctor who prescribed me steriods to remove the hives, and that worked.

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…thanks :smile:

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At 17 i was depressed, and was failing school. I remember i failed my english classes because i didn’t turn in my term papers.

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It was pretty good. I had a steady girl-friend and was a year from graduating high school. I smoked a lot of pot and did some other drugs. I was working 2 jobs and life was pretty good.

Don’t feel too bad I have a pretty bad memory and can’t remember things exactly but I know around the time what happened then.

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My 17th year involved increasing depression and social anxiety. I was at boarding school studying for A levels and i found it harder and harder to concentrate and study. I would struggle to do weekly tests and would sleep through free study periods. I had increased difficulty in functioning

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when i was 17…
i`d probarly did something wrong… i am now going too hide under a rock…
and yes there is room for some more people that want too hide :skull:

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At 17 I was out of a 1 1/2 year stay in a hospital. I was talking to my parents again + doing things. No social scene for me. I was going through this looming decision whether to go toward science or art and poetry. I chose art and poetry, but I had very little material inside me. I remember taking my notebook down to the woods, but had nothing to say. No natural born artist. I was a wannabe.

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i was going to write something, but all i can see is darkness, the evil ones in this world are lucky i can control myself
take care.

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At age 17 I ended up in the principals office. The principal said “did you know your nickname around here is stinky?. When was the last time you got a bath? When was the last time you washed your hair? When was the last time you changed your smelly crunchy socks”? I ended up at an alternative high school afterwards. :feet:

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ah that reminds me…and takes me back
yes the principals office, he even gave me advice on how to make my nunchaku`s
since he breaked them in half in front of me, sitting at his desk.
at that moment i thought he was the coolest person alive.

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Early 17 I was still having movie nights with the friends I had since Jr. High. A couple of them became cleptomaniacs, so my other friends and me learned to be calm and collected when leaving stores. The second half of that year I hung out with the stoners or the new transfer kids.

The next year I was given a 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix which to me looked a bit like the Millennium Falcon. I called it the Millennial Falcon, because it was the only car my group of friends had.

I had this cat named Jasper, a tabby who would drool on himself.

17
  1. Jobs and partying. My first car. Hanging out and going places with a friend I made at my restaurant job. Do people know what a low-rider is? I had a regular 1966 Chevy Malibu. My friend had a lowered 1966 Chevy Impala. His was fast. We pulled the engine one day, to fix a “freeze plug”. Is that what they’re called? It’s been thirty years.
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