Some Hidden Costs of Adulthood: A Personal Journey or Rant🤪

What Is It With Growing Up? 🤪

I remember when I was a teenager, not quite 13, I had a friend in her mid-twenties. She wisely told me, “Don’t rush growing up; have fun because it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. You have to pay bills, find a job, and take care of yourself, and it sucks.”

Even as a child, I was more the adult than my parents (except for paying bills and working), so I tucked that information away for another day. She was right, though, because once out on my own, I worked jobs I hated for the most part and for low pay. I was naïve, thinking I would be paid what I was worth. Nope ~ they knew I needed a job and didn’t have a degree. So I worked, worked, and, not thinking I was smart enough to get said degree, continued working for less. I once had a supervisor tell me, “If you had a degree of any kind, I wouldn’t have been able to touch you salary-wise. With your abilities, skills, knowledge, and being able to pick things up so fast, there is no way I could have afforded to hire you. But since you don’t, I can hire you even at a lower rate than those who are clueless but have degrees.” Of course, he didn’t tell me this until I had worked for the company for a month or so and he was leaving. I hated that job, but I was supporting a niece, four dogs, and myself. I needed the job, and it sadly paid more than the others I’d found.

That job was a sore point for me because it also seemed as if 80% of my medical issues began there, some from the stress and anxiety I felt while working there. I’d only had one other stressful job like that, and that was when I was a welfare case worker in Vegas with over 600 cases. I couldn’t handle that job because I wanted to ‘help’ people, but instead, I was a glorified paper pusher. Now, back to this other job where my health took a downward turn. This job was at an auto auction. It was okay in some ways because I like cars, especially classic cars, and we put on a yearly classic car auction (that was fun). The co-workers, for the most part, were okay, but it is a back-stabbing business. I actually got in trouble for being too helpful. My stress levels rose so high there I developed an eye twitch, Raynaud’s syndrome, had two knee surgeries (one on each knee), high blood pressure, the beginning of stress-related memory issues, and the list goes on.

You may be asking what has brought this rant on ~ well, I have come to realize that stress is the main culprit for a majority of my health issues. Stress affects everything – your heart, brain, lungs, kidneys, nervous system, liver, and well, everything. Recently, I learned from one of my doctors that just because you think you are not stressing at the moment; if you have had daily stress, especially major bouts of stress, it doesn’t just go away. No, it lingers in your system, tissues, and organs and can have long-term results.

Now that I am past the age of *****, doctors want to say things are “age-related.” I say BullShit… it’s a lifetime of high-level stress-related issues. Yesterday, Saturday for those who don’t read this every day, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, which will now put me at nine meds to take daily. Most are from stress-formed issues, not age.

Sooooo….. my words of (hopefully) wisdom to anyone reading this ~ Take care of yourself early on, and if not early, start now. Meditate, exercise, eat for health and longevity, not for the moment of taste good. Healthy things can taste good too. And when the doctors (or anyone else) say it’s “age-related,” after a moment of reflection on your life, you might just say, “Nope, it’s stress-related. Age is only a small part of it.” I do wish my childhood adult friend would have mentioned taking care of yourself as in health being more important. But I don’t think she had really been able to truly be an adult in that sense at that time in her life. We lost contact, so I can only wish her the best and hope she did.

I’ve also known people that had low to mid-level stress in their lives or had learned how to de-stress, and when they were in their 90s (yes, I said 90s), they did not have a lot of health issues. They had learned to take care of themselves and not let stress be their life’s roadway. It’s possible to change, maybe even reverse some problems, which I am working on. Now if genetics are involved, well, that’s a topic for a different day.

A quick goals update before I leave you (especially since this was a long rant). Goals are going really well; I have kept all my daily and weekly goals. I’m improving my diet and have begun getting more than my goal amount of exercise in. I’m working on logging my time for writing, art, and exercise. Possibly even doing a daily meal log.

Thank you all for your patience and for reading my rant. I do hope you get something from my experiences, and maybe they help in some way.

If you ever have questions, suggestions, ideas, or just want to connect, please feel free to email me or message me on one of my social media sites.

Take care and may your week be filled with lots of love, laughter, hugs, and blessings. 🌻