Have you always grown up gradually, changing a little at a time, or have there been points in your life when you've changed suddenly?

Wow: my vote for best question of the month.

I don’t know how much I want to share in an open forum – but regardless of the intimacy of my, or others’ posts here – it certainly was asked in a way as to make one think and reflect.

I was a little boy of average intelligence and baseball skills. Make that a genius child who was the fastest in his grade, enjoyed pulling pigtails and reading the newspaper at four while speaking 5 languages and climbing walls. Pretty much like today. Fast forward to realizing I was being abused and that it was not normal.

Teen rebel, but psychological rebelling against my parents – something I still do. It has shaped my mind I think; I am this way because of nurture, or lack thereof, and not nature. I take responsibility – but when I’m a jerk you can probably trace it back to a few things in childhood.

The army change me completely, but luckily, in my thirties the next wake-up call would be my divorce – going from hero to zero in 10 seconds flat.

In my forties, I am rediscovering my childhood dreams as well as fears all iover, as I watch my children grow – tweaking here and there, probably unnecessarily but I can’t help it. Fortunately, it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.

I have noticed that whenever something traumatizing happens, I grow and it changes my perspective almost immediately. There have been times in the last year that I have sat back and said to myself “WOW, if I only knew then what I know now”. I think I have always been “old” for my age and that maturity helped me to recognize when I needed to reevaluate my thoughts and goals. I think that the biggest changes I have seen in myself have happened fast over just the last 3 or 4 years. Before that they seemed to happen more graudually.

@seazen Wow, thanks for that answer, really. I’m at a loss as how to respond, except to say “Good for you!” I don’t think I did much maturing until I hit my 30’s. Some of the shifts/changes have literally been overnight changes. I can remember one day, not too long ago, sitting there and it was like this massive lightbulb went on in my head, saying “Hey, wake up, you’re a grown up now and you need to take charge and change some things”. That lightbulb burned so hotly that day that I think it singed my hair.

Hmm, I think the first major change was when I was 14 and raped. That caused a major shift in who I was and it definitely had me grow up in a way. I was a lot more cautious about people and I had a completely different view about sex at that point.

The next big change was when I graduated high school and went to basic training. That was the first time I was away from my family for a long period of time and definitely lead to some growing up on my part.

After that I would say the day I found out I was pregnant was another big change and probably the most immediate. I started paying more attention to how well I was taking care of myself and how I would be taking care of a baby. Within a few months, I moved to a better living situation and had a better job so that I could support my little one when he came.

Most recently, I would say that my husband’s deployment also caused even more of a change. I was a single mom for a bit before, but this was different. Instead of just taking care of myself and my son, I was taking care of ‘our’ house and ‘our’ family. It seems so much more important than what I was doing when I was a single mom (even though most of my duties are the same).

Now that I am pregnant with my second child, I feel more of an urge to be settled. Moving around has been fun, but I’m really ready to settle in one place and raise our family.

I was in a foggy cloud until I reached grade 4. Then I went from being an average student to one that excelled.

I had to pretty much fend for myself from the age of 8 on. That made me grow up really fast. Too fast really. Then I had a pretty traumatizing teenagehood.

When I was 24 I suffered a pretty bad breakdown. I stayed in the same place for years. I had to process all that had happened to me up to that point. Little growth happened as I was just in survival mode.

I have always seemed to just plod along until something dramatic happens. And it still takes a couple of whacks over the head for me to get it. Confrontation by the criminal justice system convinced me of my alcoholism, and got me sober 24 years ago. A realization that my marriage would never get better but would remain an abusive hell got me to first get into therapy and then get me to walk away from the marriage but stay to protect my kids from their mother.

Through it all, though, there has also been a lot of gradual learning and maturation. I think most people grow the way I do.

The most sudden change I had was when half my hair fell out and the rest turned pure white from an allergic reaction to some medication.

Hm. I think that things just build and build really slowly, but suddenly there was a moment in my life when I made a fully formed decision in an instant. The decision to divorce my X, for example. I remember exactly where I was (on the couch reading) when the decision just crystallized…..

People have always told me that I seem older because I am maturer than people my age. Or older ages actually. Once, a woman thought that I (15) was older than my 34 year old sister. I keep my journals too, and I go over them, and I see how my writing style has changed, and as I get older, I find I am more quiet.

[mod says] This is our Question of the Day!

I seem to go along until something smacks me upside the head, either an inner epiphany or an outside event. When I was 17 I realized I absolutely never wanted to marry. Since that went against everything I was supposed to feel, it took a bit of work to implement.(Engaged 3 times, got away in time.) At about 25 I realized I wanted to have children; I soundly thrashed the system that said no until I had my daughter. At 45 I had cancer, it was as life-affirming as all the cliches say. When she was 13 my daughter got run over (she’s fine, now) and that caused another huge paradigm shift in my world outlook.
There’s more that I don’t want to go into.

What an excellent question and a worthy choice as question of the day.

I was quick to mature intellectually and very slow to mature socially (at least among my peers). Most of my closest and best friends were adults of various ages. My intellectual growth alway grew very quickly until in reached what is technically the ceiling for this attribute. Socially I grew unevenly and still in my later fifties I feel as if I am still playing a catch-up game. While I could address, perform for or instruct crowds, I felt and feel socially uncomfortable and someone inept socially in crowds. The contrast between how I process written versus orally presented information probably played a bit role in this discrepancy.

I was a late bloomer sexually but I became an enthusiastic learner who pursued learning opportunities with great dedication. That is why I feel confident to offer help to others in this area.

I did and do well in counselling others in a one to one situation and did even better functioning in the role of consultant in my career.

It is fairly common to learn a great deal very quickly in response to a crisis, whether it be financial, social, medical or in response to sudden changes in family situations.

I often feel that I have had my fill of “character-building” experiences.

I’m so honored and pleased that this made “Question of the Day”. Thank you so much!

I believe that every little things that happens to us makes us who we are today. I have never experienced something so drastic that it’s turned me upside down.

I’m definitely a fits and spurts kind of girl:

I feel like I pretty much skipped the whole “childhood” phase of my life. For many unpleasant reasons, I grew up way too fast. At the age of 13, I put a stop to the sexual abuse I’d suffered throughout my childhood, at the hands of an uncle. I’d long known that no one else in my family was going to help me, but on that day, I realized that I could stop him. That was a huge growth spurt, right there. By my teenage years, I was much more a mother to my own mother than she ever was to me. I paid my own way, including rent, from age 15 on. At 18, I had to tell the rest of my family that I’d no longer be attending family functions, as long as said uncle was present.

Married at nineteen, a homeowner at 21, then I coasted for a bit. The next big change was definitely motherhood. I had my first child shortly before I turned 27, and my whole world changed. I had three children within a 4 year time period, and yeah, that’ll do it!

Getting divorced after 17 years of marriage, and living on my own for the very first time in my life was another big spurt. Finding the love of my life and remarrying, yet another. The most recent leap came about several years ago, when I finally decided that I could no longer have a relationship of any kind with my mother. It took a long time coming, but once it did… eureka! I’m 43 years old, and I finally feel pretty well all grown up. :)