Hey Pandas, What’s One Thing You Wished You Had Realized Sooner? (Closed)

I had anxiety
I had autism
I had depression
It's okay to need help
It's okay to be yourself

This is my first post and I’ll be shocked if anyone else even sees this, but I’ll go first with two of my favorites:

1. Our dog, when he was a puppy, knew how to open his food bin. We had no idea how he was getting so chubby until I caught him face first in a bin of kibble

2. You’re allowed to switch therapists if you don’t want to keep working with your current one. It took we eight years, no shared treatment plan, and an insistence that I couldn’t be autistic because I wanted friends to realize this. And we switched not because of that, but because he stopped taking our insurance. 😑

That you don't have to please everyone...

That playing the "I'm so cold and don't care about anyone or anything" card is pointless and stupid. I could've hugged more the people who was so deared to me and now they've passed away, but I always pretended not to care and being "too cool" to show my emotions.

I wish I could go back and time and slap myself real hard.

That family does NOT have to come first! Especially if your family is dysfunctional and/or toxic. "Blood is thicker than water" actually means the opposite of what you think it does - the original phrase is "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."

Born in the American Midwest in 1971, I didn’t have much “guidance” from my parents about how to move forward in life. I mean, no idea how to save vs spend, no clue what to study for what types of jobs, no support in education in general (just a vague expectation of good grades), no idea the type of college that would be good for me. I wish I had known some of this stuff when got out of high school…. It would have helped me to be in a much better position now. Because I was clueless, naive and immature and I got into debt for stupid stuff and spent YEARS getting out and in my scrambling effort to make better choices I got a bachelor’s degree (with massive debt) in what is ultimately an unmarketable field.

People don’t learn that stuff by breathing the air around them…. I really wish I had had some positive influences about that.

That just because some says they love and accept you for who you are doesn't that they actually do.

That I spent 4-5 years doing sleep studies (on and off of course) only to get temporary or incorrect diagnoses.

I also have ADHD, depression, anxiety and potentially undiagnosed autism.

I now have a different sleep diagnosis, but its one with very little known about it.

it's super fun sleeping 9 + hours a night and having to go through my day feeling like I got 3 hours.

I can’t pick one, but the main two are:

1) If I’d been put on appropriate medication for mood disorders and had therapy at a much, much younger age, my first few decades might not have been such a train wreck.

2) If I’d realized sooner that there are no supernatural forces, I would have abandoned the stupid New Age beliefs I grew up with, and would have known to simply work harder on myself and what I wanted out of life, rather than thinking I was cosmically special or looking for “signs” to tell me what to do. I wasted a LOT of time on that bull****.

That I was spreading myself too thin. My late teens and early-mid twenties was a wreck. I had c**p jobs, and between all the cars, guitars, bar tabs and bad habbits I dont know how I ever paid the rent.

That I'm on the autism spectrum and not just a socially inept weirdo (took me 40 yrs to work that one out...)

that girls get horny too

Not everyone needs you to argue with them.

It sounds weird but it’s true. People are always arguing with me and sometimes the best thing I could do was nothing.

That at 20 years old I was absolutely not running out of time and that I did not need to rush into the first relationship that came my way. That just because I got pregnant did NOT mean I had to get married. I could have saved myself a lot of heartache. I could have given my child a better life.
Now I am in my early 40's and finally past all of that. My kid is grown up, and i have 2 failed marriages under my belt. I am single and for the first time in my adult life doing what I want to do and not having to be responsible to or for anyone else. That sounds positive, but the down side to this is that I'm in my early 40's and I don't know who I am. That time I should have spent in my 20's figuring that out was spent being a wife and a mom and so many things to do many other people that I lost myself in the shuffle. So now the people in my life are looking at me like I have gone crazy because I am making all of these changes and doing all of these new things. It's kinda lonely, actually. Which is ironic, because the drive to not he alone was what led me to jump into that first marriage.

1. I had ADhD. It should have been glaringly obvious, but somehow nobody realized so much of my "weirdness" just boiled down to that. Instead of getting treated, I just grew up with the sense of being somehow "wrong" on a level I couldn't even explain.

2. The fact someone says they love you, doesn't mean that they do. And even if they do, it doesn't mean you should put up with the way they choose to express it.

3. Removing your needs from a relationship isn't going to make someone love you. It'll just make them feel unloved.

I have 2

1. Not to offend anyone but homeschool isn't as fun as private school for ✨me✨ (Yes, I went to private school not public 🥴)

2. I wish I knew how to tell if someone was toxic earlier in life. It sucks if you're in a toxic relationship or friendship and you don't know.

Not all people are nice.

It is not your obligation to make other people happy.

When someone tells you who they are BELIEVE THEM.

How good I can do hair styles.
I just found out because my husband has long hair and always ask me to braid his hair. Everytime I told him I can't do that until I was so annoyed that I said okay I will try.
Turns out I'm really good.

I wasted so many years walking around with shIty hair because I somehow assumed I'm talentless.