The thing that jumps out at me is the demands for feedback. (Not “praise”, feedback.) I mean, yeah, I’ve got some minor learning disabilities and major mental health issues, I’m in that “can’t stop worrying” cohort so when I start a job or take on a new task I want feedback to know I’m not messing things up. And this is read as entitlement, rather than anxiety and conscientiousness, because…I was born in the ’80s?

I wish I’d taken in the economic good times that we’ve had in the past 20 years, because I grew up to a drumbeat of “recession, recession, recession, you’re f*cked.”

(And the whole “everyone’s on medication/using laptops/cell phones, etc” thing is just ridiculous. It’s called “technology and the advancement of medicine!” If they think it’s an “easy fix”, then what are they doing using regular phones, driving cars, and taking antibiotics? Those were, I’m sure, leveled with the same accusations at some point. Big ugh!)

My parents understand it perfectly well; in fact, my mom is perfectly OK with me not driving because she only learned to drive in her 30s. It’s my peers who shame me for it. There’s a bit of personal guilt, too, because it is incredibly frustrating living in a town with subpar public transportation and only having one bus per hour go to the grocery store.

But I’ve tried learning to drive. Repeatedly. And in a small town with barely any transit, no less. It’s not gone well any of those times.

I just cannot process things that quickly– especially spatial stuff, like judging where other cars are relative to me. Busy in-town streets are overloading enough; freeways are just plain nightmarish. I have enough trouble crossing the street as a pedestrian, but at least I’ve been making some progress there (and there are still some places I just refuse to cross).

I seriously wonder whether my only option is to move to a town with decent transit.

Re: kids today – I lost all respect for this kind of attitude when I read some of those texts from the seventeeth century, ancient Greece, etc. complaining about kids in their day! It really *is* something every generation seems to go through, so I don’t believe any of the grumbling for a moment. And, yeah, I also got told growing up “you’re smart, you can do anything!” One of the hardest things to come to terms with re: disability was that actually, intelligence does not conquer everything. And it’s something a lot of the people around me don’t seem to have learned (remembering a discussion I had with my friends where they just could not understand my suggestion that a certain brilliant mathematician might not have been able to hold a job – “but he’s brilliant, of course people will hire him!” well no, they won’t if he can’t manage to keep working hours, come in for an interview, arrange his own housing, manage the paperwork of getting hired, etc. it doesn’t matter *how* brilliant he is.)

Anyways, my mom has told me I need to be more independent (see: driving) and that I’m an adult and whatever I want to do. Well I don’t know, I’m only 21, why are we expected to know how to navigate the world (especially the world of doctors) as soon as we turn 18?!

My mom didn’t know everything at 18 – she learned it by joining the military. College has taught me a lot about getting around – very few things are set in stone, TALK TO PEOPLE.

But again and again, you need to be more independent. paraphrase (b/c the pain and meds have messed with my memory) – “You shouldn’t NOT drive just because of your medications.”

How many of you generation Y kids have heard “be more independent”? “Yes, we acknowledge your depression (nowadays), but get a damn job!”

And aside from the disabilities and illnesses, I never felt part of any generation – I started school on a base in Iceland! So no, I didn’t “grow up” with XYZ, like everyone else did. And because of the illnesses, I missed most of high school and thus the trends that “made” my generation.

Generational things are so weird – technically, my mom’s a baby boomer (1962), but she definitely doesn’t remember the ’60s as a party time – her sex drugs rock and roll (Loverboy) came in the ’80s. So what is she? Too old for generation X, too young for Baby Boomers.

In 10 years you’ll have a similar post about whatever we call the next generation and how they grew up hearing the economy was terrible and now they’re hard-working even though jobs are handed to them on platters. (One can dream.)

But there’s no point learning to drive when you go into information overload with the stress and the sheer volume of data you are supposed to be processing – especially when your supervising driver is getting on your case about all the little things one should be paying attention to instead of letting you get the big things first and then add little things to it! Or if your supervising driver is the kind of person who will yell at you to try to get you to get up to speed when you’re practicing on a quiet side street – and then yell at you when you freeze with overload. Or put the handbrake on instead of saying calmly “brake”. Or is the kind of person who is distractingly stressed themselves and goes into overload.

People don’t get how anxiety levels screw with your judgment – like fatigue or alcohol, it makes you less safe to drive.

And fatigue! If your medical issues make it so that you are too fatigued when you get out of bed to navigate a doorway safely, you cannot drive in that state!

And Kaitlyn- YES! on the driving thing. I didn’t learn to drive until a year ago and before then I was constantly told that I was lazy for not learning how to drive, never mind my anxiety level spiking constantly every time I thought about getting behind the wheel.. But oh no, I was just plain lazy for not driving! /sarcasm.

When I did learn to drive, it wasn’t because I was suddenly ‘motivated’ and not lazy it was because my anxiety levels were under better control and I was in a small town where driving is much easier than it is in a large city with horrid traffic and rude drivers.