When Mara reached out to me to participate in this year’s Teen Week, I had no idea what I’d say. None of the subjects spoke to me…my teenage years seemed too far in the past, even though last year’s letter to my teen self came so very easily.
How, in the course of just one year between ages 48 and 49, could I go from not only remembering – but also relating to – the pain of adolescence to having it be a foggy memory? A senior moment? Or maybe there’s a whole lot of growing up that has taken place since then. There’s a surprise for you…you never stop growing up!
And then I remembered something.
One day, back when I was relatively new to Facebook, I reached out to a high school classmate, a woman who had been a couple of classes behind me, and asked about her brother, who had been in my class (1980). He had an intense crush on me in sixth grade and had once drawn a beautiful heart with our initials in it and stuck it with tape to my locker. I don’t think we ever spoke two words to each other.
In high school our paths didn’t cross much but I remember thinking that he was a bit odd…and awkward. He was also a great artist. Turns out, he died when he was 35 of a cardiopulmonary embolism brought on by cancer he had no idea he had. His sister also told me that he’d had been diagnosed with schizophrenia while in high school.
At one point, as she I and compared stories about our teenage years, our families, the pain, the dysfunction, and how it felt back then, she responded: “The more I communicate with people from town, the more tragedy I find out. Was it something in the water there for God sakes?”
And I thought to myself…no, nothing in the water, it was just life. Everyone was going through the same stuff and yet we all felt so alone.
Since then I’ve compared notes with many of my fellow classmates…some of whom were close friends, others who were not. One thing on which pretty much everyone agrees, is that adolescence sucks.
The girls all felt “fat, ugly, insecure, and awkward,” even the girls who, on the outside, appeared to be the opposite of those things, and even the girls who were bullies. There were boys were “out of control” and had “discipline problems.” There were boys who, outwardly, were “fine,” but acted out in other ways.
It was a time when getting pregnant was an embarrassing matter and no one had ever heard of ADHD or eating disorders (although anorexia nervosa and bulimia were just starting to be talked about, but were very much misunderstood). It was a time when no one knew that so-and-so’s parents had gotten divorced, or that one’s mother had an affair, or this one’s father beat their mother, or that one’s brother was on drugs. There was so much shame and secrecy, which made it all ten times worse.
Nothing has really changed, has it. Except that we’re much more aware of these issues, and we talk about them a lot more. That’s good.
But there are a whole new set of pressures and variables, from the massive amounts of “information” and images to which we have access, to the way it is communicated and accessed. Bullying seems to have reached epidemic proportions…or maybe it’s just talked about a lot more?
Being a teen generally sucks. It always has and it probably always will. Whether you’re the all-star jock, the beauty queen, the bully, the “smart” one, or the loner. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s impossible to get through one’s teen years (and beyond) unscathed…without hating one’s body/appearance, without feeling insecure and awkward.
My point isn’t to tell you that it’s all pointless…that you might as well suck it up and give up any hope of a “normal,” (whatever that is) happy life full of potential and contentment.
The point is to tell you that the suckiness is temporary.
Between the hormonal changes and brain rewiring that happens in adolescence, the suckiness of adolescence is a given, but it’s not permanent. The key to getting through it is to understand that. To know that even when it feels hopeless (and it will) your feelings are not facts and they can not destroy you.
There will be adults in your life who will try to protect you – to make it all better, to keep you from feeling that horrid suckiness, but they can’t. And what they don’t realize is that it’s IN that pain and suckiness that your sense of self will take root and start to grow. And if they overprotect or overcontrol you, it will take longer. There is one thing I know for sure: nothing is better than coming out on the other side of adolescence having overcome the suckiness…and it’s given. It WILL happen. And the good news is that once you know what it feels like, you’ll be able to do it again and again. That’s where the victory lies…not in never feeling the suckiness, but in being able to overcome it sooner.
“The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain.” ― Madeleine L’Engle
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Lovely post Karen and you reminded me how things ‘were’ different back when (we) were teens. I barely knew anyone who divorced and was shocked in my final year at school when a friend had a pregnancy scare!).
I keep getting Facebook friend invites from people I ‘vaguely’ knew at school, including some former bullies and kids who were really revolting. I actually ignore a lot of them – although with a 30th school reunion coming up in a couple of years, it’s getting harder!
Deb
Loved this idea when I saw at Carla’ FB page & still thinking I might write something for Thursday or Friday because I had some very rough years from early early!
I like your last paragraph & passing on to my middle stepdaughter. I know she went thru some pain as I did too but she is trying to protect her kids.. I understand that but again, they don’t learn how to deal & get thru it.. such a tough thing when you have gone thru it yourself…
Thank you for sharing & being part of this! Love this last part: That’s where the victory lies…not in never feeling the suckiness, but in being able to overcome it sooner.
Oh how I wish I knew then what I know now. I thought life sucked and was so hard, I was so fat and that no one liked me. None of it was true. It seems that women come into their own in their mid to late 20′s and gain confidence in areas they never thought they would. I’m still learning about myself and my strengths. Maybe that is where the difference lies. Back then I looked at all of my perceived weaknesses now I look for my strengths.
<3
There is no area where the differences between our two cultures are more pronounced than our experience of high school. We never had the stereotypes that you (and the movies and hundreds of bloggers) describe, not even in the snob school I attended in 8th grade. Aside from the crap I had at home, I think high school was the best time of my life and I know a lot of my classmates, who I will be seeing for our 25 year reunion in less than a month, feel the same way. I never came across a single incident of bullying in my whole school career – and I’d been to 7 schools since we moved around a lot! I think it had a lot to do with the fact that we all wore school uniforms, with no make-up or jewelry. We were be subjected to regular nail and hair inspections.
Having said that, I did often feel awkward and huge. I developed and grew so much earlier than my classmates. And of course there were kids who were cool and kids who weren’t. Some were more popular than others, but I can’t remember anyone ever being ridiculed or excluded because of it. I was neither “popular” or even slightly cool, but that’s not the reason why I was often one of the last ones to be picked for a team in gym class. I was slow and didn’t have much ball sense. I knew that, and I accepted that about myself. The sporty ones didn’t think less of me as a person. In any other class, I was always the first one picked!
For me the worst part of adolescence was the acne, the fact that I was so imposing (big, but not fat), my situation at home and rampant hormones.
It’s a pity that in America, adolescence was and is most often a time of suckiness. I can’t speak for South Africa in the new millenium, but back in the 80′s that was most certainly not the norm. There were 31 of us in matric (final year) and only 2 said that they weren’t interested in attending the reunion. 25 of us are going and we can’t wait! (Of the remaining 4 we couldn’t trace one, two were abroad and one has a close family wedding that weekend.)
I didn’t mean to write such a long comment, but I’m glad I did, because in doing so I learned that I’d been far more accepting of myself back then. Far more willing to try things. Far more able to laugh at myself and with others. Far more likely to join in.
I think I need to go back to adolescence!
Hanlie…perhaps I didn’t express it quite accurately. My point was to indicate that those feelings of awkwardness were universal and the result of hormones/brain rewiring, which all adolescents go through, no matter where they live, and as you indicated that you also experienced. And the fact that most of us had “something going on at home.”
All families were/are dysfunctional in SOME way-and it gets passed off on to kids in MS/HS and they “deal” with it in aspects of their lives they think they can control. Hence body/eating issues/drugs/alcohol etc. It was tough then and it’s tough for kids now-I work in the public schools and I can honestly say there are many many more kids with issues than when I was in MS/HS in the 60s/early 70s.
My (just barely still a) teen is going through a very rough time right now. I know that “this too shall pass” and one day he’ll look back on this time and realize it was insignificant in the span of his life. But you can’t tell him that and it still hurts while one is living it.
I think you hit it on the head. The first time you experience a certain pain it is so consuming. Each time after it becomes easier if you are not overly protected. But that does not relieve the pain. I know when you are young, if you know there is someone there to talk to and to feel support from who you trust it makes a big difference. An adult. Someone trustworthy. Lots of kids (myself included) often have/had nobody to turn to.
I think with the advent of the internet and ubiquity of cell phones it has become crazy easy to inflict pain on classmates. I have seen my own niece in action (bullying). I almost passed out reading what she chose to write.
This is a heartwarming post. I often think about how difficult it would be to raise children today (I hope I get the opportunity though) in the age of Twitter and Facebook and cameras and video cameras on every single phone. It becomes so much more important for kids/teens/even adults to not behave poorly when out with others. In an instant, a stupid mistake can be displayed for the world to see. Technology has made wonderful strides, but it also presents new challenges to life.
There were parts (friends, lifeguarding) of my teen years that made the rest of the time bearable. I was a mess with low self-esteem, I was highly emotional and of course, I thought I was fat. I wouldn’t want to go through high school again and I don’t like to look back on those years either, so I find that I have holes in my memory.
One of the difficult things from those years is that my Mom couldn’t relate to my experience. She loved high school and was very popular. Me? Not so much. I think she was frustrated because I was so different and so unhappy all the time….
I would have appreciated a post like this as a teen. I think it would have helped. I’m sure it will help some teens today…
“I’m sure it will help some teens today…”
OK, what I actually meant to say it that I’m sure that it will help the teens who read your post….
Same here! My mother was the most popular girl…and had the greatest time in high school. Me? The opposite!
It is funny I was thinking about the exact same thing yesterday about all the feelings of being out of place as a child and a teen and how everybody else was feeling the same. I hated school but not my class mates. I went to a very small and new highschool so we were rather like a bit family. Hanlie I think it may have been uniquely your school and not culture, I am South African as well. Perhaps it is growing up in miserable small towns that made so many kids unhappy. We can never get a reunion together because 80 percent of our classmates don’t even live in South Africa anymore.
Thank you for what you shared. Oh, teenage suckiness, you were a hard one!
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