Your own life timeline

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Might get lengthy for obvious reasons.

1952: born
Age 4: attended nursery school, got kicked in the eye during play break, parents told I was making noise so I deserved it.
Age 7: asked to leave the (private) school I was attending because I had been kissing a girl during a science demo.
Age 9: suspended for 2 weeks for criticizing a new approach to teaching multiplication with subtotals, that was being demonstrated (during the demonstration).
Age 11: recommended for a program that would allow me to skip 8th grade (turned out not good for me but possibly a way to get me out of the school sooner).
Age 11: went into puberty
Age 13 (approx.) discovered masturbation
Age 14: entered a new private school. Years later, was told by Dad that he and my Mom should have let me attend the public "polytechnic" school I had been interested in.
Age 15: was tongue kissed by a 17 year old girl on a transatlantic crossing, who didn't know how young I was.
Age 17: began undergraduate school in another state, "majoring" in Liberal Arts.
Age 17: had panic attack from smoking weed. Continued to drink plenty of alcohol though.
Age 18: spent Spring session in Vienna (Aus).
Age 20: spent Autumn session in Western France, after which I spoke French rather well as I didn't socialize with other Americans from my school but almost always just interacted with French people. German was also halfway decent.
Age 20: after returning from the previous, met my first girlfriend (who had just learnt her boyfriend was with someone else).
Age 20: met up with first girlfriend the following Summer (in Germany). Lost virginity.
Age 21: got BA in Liberal Arts, then lived with parents and worked at a hotel bar (cultural note this was a bar at an actual hotel, not the sort of hotel they have in Australia).
Age 21: girlfriend and I traveled to Israel with a group from her school interested in Archeology. I spent a month on a Kibbutz after she went back home. Did not see her many times after that (although we never formally "broke up").
(note) the last time I saw her she bragged about having discovered that she could go to bars and get guys to buy her drinks and take her home for sex.
Age 22: had first casual sex, in Boston, with a young lady who had gone through undergrad with my first girlfriend.
Age 22: attended a University Summer Program in Austria where a recent Law graduate (probably autistic) made plans to have sex with me then changed her mind.
Age 23: dated a woman 6 years older than myself who had Schizophrenia.
Age 23: returned to undergrad to study Engineering.
Age 23: attended another University Summer Program (this time an American University) in Germany and met a 22-year old who basically used me for sex.
Age 24: Met the girlfriend I talk about in this Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/confessions/comments/1pmd05v/happily_married_for_decades_but_i_will_never/ and left the person referenced by the previous line item for ever.
Age 25: Got BS in Engineering, took god-awful job in N. Virginia, leaving girlfriend on her own.
Age 26: above job ended and girlfriend finally dumped me. I travelled on my own to Argentina and South Africa (I posted my thoughts about what I observed in Apartheid-era SA on WP a couple of years ago).
Age 27: began a job doing assembly-language programming, which is mostly what I did until the end of the Cold War.
Age 27: began dating a slightly older divorcée, who had once worked as a model and posed in a bikini on the cover of a diet magazine at age 18, after we got drunk and had drunken sex. Later she got pregnant but miscarried.
(intermission) my "love life" or whatever we might want to call it gets a bit more muddled and probably less interesting so I will mostly skip details until getting to when I got married. Might provide more details later as an appendix.
Age 32: Met wife.
Age 33: Married wife.
Age 34: wife and I traveled to Israel with a group from a Reform synagogue
Age 35: (wife) had first child.
Age 37: (wife) had 2nd child.
Age 35: began a part-time MS program in Computer Science.
Age 39: (roughly) got my first long-term job that didn't involve assembly language.
Age 40: Awarded MS in Computer Science (perfect grades)
Age 47: Began working in private industry (financial services) this went on for 10 years.
Age 56: Had operation for prostate cancer and was laid off by private industry job.
Age 56: began a job in DC to which I commuted by rail
Age 60: began current job supporting a civilian government agency as a contractor.
Age 61: Joined WP
Age 70: didn't retire.
Age 73 (today): still haven't retired.

12 months – first single word
14 months – toilet trained
15 months – walked unaided
16 months - putting 2/3-word phrases together
(nursery at some point)
4 yrs – infant/junior school
(puberty 11-13 ish)
12 yrs – period
13 yrs – first job
15 yrs – left first senior school
15 yrs – second job
16 yrs – joined second senior school
16 yrs – first proper job
16 yrs – GAD, depression & OCD
17 yrs – sixth form college
18 yrs – passed driving test
19 yrs – university
23 yrs – second university
22 yrs – met future wife
23 yrs – got engaged
24 yrs – first house
(25-31yrs... 2 other houses, eclectic jobs)
32 yrs – got married (tics started on my honeymoon)
36 yrs – tourettes
37 yrs – first and only suicide attempt
37 yrs – stopped working (for the first time ever since age 13)
37 yrs – BPD
37 yrs – what I know now to be an acute autistic burnout
38 yrs – 18mth therapy for BPD
39.5 yrs – ASD
40 yrs – first interview since 2022
40 yrs – Here I am now

-December 1988: Born
-1992: Went to Florida, was involved in accident that almost killed me while there. FL is cursed to me. lol
-1999ish: Was diagnosed with ADHD.
-2000: I joined band! (on trumpet. lol)
-Early-to-mid 2000s (generally): Learned thoroughly how "different" I am and how people in general did not like me despite my best efforts. I was "annoying".
-2004: Got high speed internet and a PC in my room for the first time. I became hopelessly addicted to the internet because IRL socialization was too much for me. Also tried to come out to my mom in this time and she wouldn't have it. *sigh*
-2005: I became more obsessed with band and wind instruments. I wanted to play so many! But clarinet was my first love and then I moved on to wanting a bassoon. lol.
-2006: Met a friend who would in the future become my first girlfriend. At the end of the year I got my bassoon and started learning the instrument. =D
-2007: Graduated high school, started college. But the year left me distraught by the end with the loss of my childhood dog, my grandpa having a heart attack and the beginning of some symptoms I was having in my vision and hearing that scared the heck out of me.
-2008: Came out to my first friend IRL and then she became my first girlfriend. My family got our first English bulldog, who really helped me become a dog person.
-2009: The relationship ended. =/ Ugh. Depressing year, but despite that I tried to keep my head up. I don't remember much of this year otherwise.
-2010: My grandfather, who had a heart attack a few years before, passed away.
-2011: I finally graduated from community college. This sounds like a ridiculous amount of time to get an Associate's, and yes, indeed it was. But to fully understand this one has to look at how the events of 2007 shaped me and put me in a bubble where I wanted to make community college drag out as long as I possibly could, to keep me in denial about my health issues that scared me so much.
-2012: Fully deconstructed from Christianity and theism. Got my very first job (in retail). Got my tenor saxophone! Returned to college and got to play in an orchestra for the first time. But the commute and job combined with college burnt me out majorly.
-2013: As hinted at above, college ultimately did not work out for me. I left dejected and went full time at my job. During this time, though, I had reconnected with my ex and thought that things were looking up there. I had given up on my dreams, but at least things may work out with the person I love. Or I guess I should say I fell for her again this year as I had really actually moved on beforehand as far as I could tell.

I had told myself "no buying an oboe until I graduated from university", because I wanted to focus on one instrument (the bassoon - the tenor was for marching), but having given up on all of that, I ended up buying an oboe at the end of the year. lol.
-2014: My grandma passed away at the beginning of the year. This year I sunk further into nostalgia and didn't really want to look forward at all. I clung to nostalgia for ten years before this, and this is, in part, why you see me today with a G3 MLP avatar. My ex and I's reconciliation stalled. Long story. Anyway, that made me more depressed. I hated my job, it was so stressful, it was an awful shift (nights), my work ethic was taken advantage of, but on the other hand, I had spending money like I'd never had before.
-2015: This year was... a lot. Midway through the year, the beloved dog we got in 2009 passed away completely unexpectedly. It was devastating beyond belief, I wanted to curl up in a ball and die. It felt like he was the best thing that happened to me after 2007.

But then after that I ended up getting reinspired to get into music again. Granted, I was playing in a community ensemble (since late 2013), but I wanted to do more again. I was inspired by this lady on YouTube who was (and still is) amazing but back then focused on covers of VGM and other OSTs. I was so blown away by how beautiful her playing of oboe and English horn was and I wanted to be like her. Hence, of all of the instruments I had, I decided to try to play the oboe (of which in 2013 I struggled with because of issues I wasn't aware of) and got connected with another lady who makes reeds who easily fixed the issue. She didn't just make those for me and send me on my way, though, she went into full therapist mode and got it out of me that I really wanted to go back to college for music (history). And then she became my teacher and started working me toward that goal.

-2016: Thanks to two women mentioned above (the recording artist and the teacher), I ended up following the plan and ended up returning to college for music this year, moved into my first apartment, got my French bulldog who I adore so much. But the election sure did sour my opinion of the year in the end. *sigh*
-2017: I remember this being the first year that my parents mentioned wanting to move to the Northeast. Back then it was New Hampshire believe it or not. But before this moving to New England was but a pipe dream for me, but here it gradually shifted from that to eventually becoming a reality.
-2018: Graduated from university with a bachelor's degree. But the biggest story of this year was the onset of my arthritis, but it not being diagnosed or treated as such, and me trying to return to my retail job, but struggling immensely with the pain.

Sadly, I became a bit dejected with music again. I felt like there was something psychologically off with me that limits by ability to be a good musician and I wanted to investigate that, but after graduating from college, my focus had to go all in the other health issues and that went on the sideburner.

-2019: A year of physical pain and uncertainty. The year closed with a surgery to treat my pain, but they still didn't know it was arthritis, thus the surgery didn't do me any good. On a positive note, I did finally get acceptance from my mom for being bi.
-2020: I started the year suicidal due to my pain not being treated, a surgery that didn't do much, and having to return to retail work after that surgery only to suffer more, without any hope of getting an office job (because I applied a ton but got nothing). But then the pandemic happened and I was allowed to quit my job by my parents, and then my doctors finally realized that my issue was arthritis and I got treated for it. 2020 started off rough, but was good by the end.
-2022: Finally got my first office job. I went to the ENT doctor and found out that my ears are okay (a big deal for me, something I had worried so much about since 2007) and I returned to community ensembles this year. Made it to my first IDRS convention (double reed instrument convention) in Colorado. I got to play a Baroque oboe for the first time! Yay!! ! Learned that a woman I had really fallen for is actually very straight and I was devastated. The year ended with a very scary health scare that thankfully was taken care of in time. This was the year that I began scrambling on finding out where to move to, because Oklahoma was too anti-freedom (they took away reproductive freedoms and rights when Roe v Wade was overturned) and unrepentant in its support of the man-who-shall-not-be-named (who is a convicted felon and an unrepentant sex predator). The removal of freedoms as well as the unrepentant support of such absolutely disgusting depravity did me in. I can't live in such a disgusting place.

Also... Family drama happened. I don't want to go into details about this because it involves people other than me. But it's been a struggle for every year since.

-2023: Took my first trip to Connecticut at the end of the year, and officially then and there decided it would be my new home. This was also the year when I finally became less scared and got my eyes checked.
-2024: Moved to Connecticut, only to watch the country as a whole fail in November. Had two emergencies, ended up with my gallbladder removed. The other emergency was er...female related and thankfully didn't turn out to be anything. The move was great, but also change was hard, very hard. I was all-out grieving the move even though I hated where I lived and loved where I was moving to.

Also of note, the very beginning of this year was when a light switched was finally flipped and I began to realize I may be autistic. It's crazy how it didn't dawn on me earlier. The social issues, the sensory issues and everything for all of those years but I was just so ignorant.

-2025: Got my current job in healthcare, but only at the very end of the year. Also got fully settled into CT at the beginning of the year.

@Harmonie - Some forms of arthritis are more treatable than others. Were they able to help you?

Yes, thankfully in 2020 I got prescribed a biologic that has done wonders for me.

(Although now I'm having to fight with my new insurance to keep it. )

Update:

46 (current age): got my AI engineering certificate from Coursera. Given my work experience and my degree being in geography/urban planning, I don't know if those things would clash or not.