Yes, you've articulated it exactly! I think the first two to five years of early adulthood are the worst and most difficult, because they're just so different from everything that has come before, and nobody talks about that (at least they didn't when I was experiencing those particular ages), and everyone gives the impression that they're getting by just fabulously. I found the whole thing really unsettling and frightening.
I wouldn't say it was a hugely difficult situation: I was living at home rent free with my upper-middle-class family, I got into my first choice university, and I think I may be the only person to have actually saved huge amounts of money while an undergraduate (seriously, I was the richest I've ever been during those years, probably because I had no expenses, three jobs, and no social life because depression). But it was as if I decided that all the changes were too much, and one thing had to go, and that was my social life. It was as if I thought I could cope with university, and part-time work, and moving cities, and not being a child, but socialising as an adult without the structures of school and after-school activities was a step too far, and I sort of gave up on it. I'm astonished that my friends from that time still talk to me, because I didn't explain what was going on (I just didn't have the words, and I felt like they wouldn't understand, because they all seemed so well adjusted, which I know now wasn't the case), and treated them appallingly.
I only worked at the drug-dealing bakery for about five months, before I moved into another job at a supermarket. That was awful in a different way, but I had the good fortune to find a job in a different, awesome bakery about a year after that. I stayed in that bakery for the next three years, and even after I graduated uni and moved back to Canberra to work full-time as a newspaper subeditor, my younger sister took over my job in the bakery, but whenever I came to Sydney I'd take her shifts. I even worked there over Christmas one year when I was visiting from the UK, I loved that bakery and my colleagues so much.
I also worked in a bakery on weekends when I was in the final three years of secondary school. I guess I really like bakeries?
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I wouldn't say it was a hugely difficult situation: I was living at home rent free with my upper-middle-class family, I got into my first choice university, and I think I may be the only person to have actually saved huge amounts of money while an undergraduate (seriously, I was the richest I've ever been during those years, probably because I had no expenses, three jobs, and no social life because depression). But it was as if I decided that all the changes were too much, and one thing had to go, and that was my social life. It was as if I thought I could cope with university, and part-time work, and moving cities, and not being a child, but socialising as an adult without the structures of school and after-school activities was a step too far, and I sort of gave up on it. I'm astonished that my friends from that time still talk to me, because I didn't explain what was going on (I just didn't have the words, and I felt like they wouldn't understand, because they all seemed so well adjusted, which I know now wasn't the case), and treated them appallingly.
I only worked at the drug-dealing bakery for about five months, before I moved into another job at a supermarket. That was awful in a different way, but I had the good fortune to find a job in a different, awesome bakery about a year after that. I stayed in that bakery for the next three years, and even after I graduated uni and moved back to Canberra to work full-time as a newspaper subeditor, my younger sister took over my job in the bakery, but whenever I came to Sydney I'd take her shifts. I even worked there over Christmas one year when I was visiting from the UK, I loved that bakery and my colleagues so much.
I also worked in a bakery on weekends when I was in the final three years of secondary school. I guess I really like bakeries?