The amazing thing about getting older that no one tells you about

I’m stronger now at 28 than I was at 25 or 18

When I was about fifteen, I was convinced something was badly wrong with me. When something bad happened to me, I would get the most overwhelming sensation of terror, despair, and grief. The tidal wave of my feelings would wash over me and leave me shaking, my mouth tightening, my palms dizzyingly numb. I would lie in bed that night and cry, and cry, and cry. Every break up, falling out, argument, or bad grade would feel devastating. I was too sensitive and vulnerable for this world, I thought. My emotions were too intense. Something was broken in me, and made the world hurt more for me than everyone else. I genuinely thought I had some terrible disorder and I was going to end up like Van Gogh or Zelda Fitzgerald, institutionalised and a wreck of unfulfilled possibilities. I was crazy. I was insane. I was doomed.

Reader: I was a teenager.

It really does get easier as you grow up and learn to control your emotions

When you’re very young, your emotions are super intense. You’re experiencing everything for the first time: love, heartbreak, betrayal, grief, disappointment, and despair. What Alex says to you in Year 9 on the school field trip isn’t a bit unkind, it will haunt you for months and leave you staring at your sobbing face in the mirror, wondering if you can…