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Nostalgia and obsession with the past

Hope

I live in the past. I fear the responsibilities that adult life brings; I endure bittersweet nostalgia for my childhood and schooldays, when things were safe, predictable, structured, choice was limited and my anxieties were safely contained. My past seems like a golden age, a perfect time, like a perpetual summer.

I am immature, emotionally, that is. I don't feel my age, and I am anxious nearly all the time. It is because of my anxiety that I yearn for a simpler time.

Are there others who are trapped in the past?

Parents

  • I am aware that the past was not as golden as my present day imaginings suggest, but I would happily have the past over the present in many ways. For a start, it was definitely better than my life is now - I think this is both subjectively and objectively correct. I lived life as a child, now my life is blunted by my OCD and general anxieties (which are constant and are mentally taxing).

    All I think about are summer holidays in Devon, going long walks over the moors with my parents; the sights, sounds and smells were so vivid, and remain vivid in my imagination. Primary school was fun. Even though I had no real friends, was often disruptive, and had obvious signs of AS (which were not picked up on at that stage, although there were concerns), I  was happy. I loved school, I loved learning about things, particularly the human body project in year 6. I wish I was still at school, but those days are over. My present is lacking in comparison, whatever others might tell me to the contrary. I guess I am very lucky in that I at least had a happy childhood, but I don't have a happy present.

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  • I am aware that the past was not as golden as my present day imaginings suggest, but I would happily have the past over the present in many ways. For a start, it was definitely better than my life is now - I think this is both subjectively and objectively correct. I lived life as a child, now my life is blunted by my OCD and general anxieties (which are constant and are mentally taxing).

    All I think about are summer holidays in Devon, going long walks over the moors with my parents; the sights, sounds and smells were so vivid, and remain vivid in my imagination. Primary school was fun. Even though I had no real friends, was often disruptive, and had obvious signs of AS (which were not picked up on at that stage, although there were concerns), I  was happy. I loved school, I loved learning about things, particularly the human body project in year 6. I wish I was still at school, but those days are over. My present is lacking in comparison, whatever others might tell me to the contrary. I guess I am very lucky in that I at least had a happy childhood, but I don't have a happy present.

Children
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