Ever experienced delayed adolescence rebellions?

What I mean by that was that I was raised by a nmom (who divorced dad when I was a toddler), and she was pretty much high-handed.

What food she liked, I had to like it. What activities she preferred, I had to do the same. She never encouraged independent thinking despite encouraging me to read even thought provoking books.

If I wanted to get something “different” in clothes shopping, you’d think end of world was occurring, nmom having an adult tantrum right there on the department floor. If I tried to share a different view of point, I ended up having bruises.

After visiting grandparents in another state (annually and I was so thankful for those grandparents since they treated me as normal kid!), I came home only to find nmother had gone crazy, doing a whole haul of my bedroom. From a simple twin bed frame, wooden shelves all the walls containing my collection of books, Breyer horses and Star Wars action figures and posters of Star Wars characters and horses, I found the bedroom redone in PINK. White canopy bed with frilly pink cover, pink comforter, lace bed skirt, the book shelves all gone and replaced with a dollhouse (I was 12 or 23, obviously too old for that), pink or white stuffed animals and collective vintage dolls, wallpaper plaid in pink and green, and worse of all, she dyed the carpet PINK. Now I find myself easily triggered if I see PINK- it took family eventually never to give me anything pink.

So I dared not to have those adolescent experiences- you know, driving my first car, or dating, wearing cool outfits, all that. I was pretty much a pink yuppie girl back in 80s, I was pretty much her doll to dress, and I HATED IT ALL.

So I managed to escape and started seeing a therapist. In my 30s, I started to wanting to experiment adolescence rebellion, so I dressed in goth as I had always wanted to, went to a science fiction convention, started to collect vintage pins and experiment wild ideas such as ghost hunting, etc.

I still find myself now and then checking off an imaginary box competing an “adolescent rebellion act”.

Hope I’m not alone in experiencing that