| User | WolfStar | | Topic | Being young | | Message | My response to dismentled’s suicide thread made me think a lot about why it is so difficult to be a teenager.
I have always believed that it is an issue of identity. Our inner turmoil over not knowing who we are makes us afraid. We join groups or cliques to feel like we belong to something. We become rockers or goths or gangsters or join the military. But these are never the people that we are. We try so hard to convince ourselves that this is who we are, that this is what we want and believe in.
But is any of it true? Do we always have to learn by trying all the bad choices before we come to the realization that we just have no idea who we are yet?
Two people have died at my school this past year. I see kids with guns and butterfly knives. I see switchblade scars on my friends’ arms. I see people in the quad separated by race. I see girls smoking cigarettes in Elmo socks.
And all because we cannot see the fact that we cannot see. We cannot see ourselves yet. I get so sad when I think of all that.
Please share your thoughts. |
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| User | Blue Monk | 2006-06-28 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | Teens are being subjected to a lot of changes, both physically and emotionally over a relatively short period. It can be very confusing and can either be some of the best days of your life, or maybe not so good but you got over it eventually. Teen girls in junior high can be particularly cruel just as much as the boys can be seemingly wild or just the opposite.
Often there seems to be no sense of direction or purpose that matters. Take comfort in that others are in the same boat and take a peek at what seems to matter to any of those that actually impress you as having their act together, not being self-destructive, being like something nurtured. There is a future, seek what you want from that and sail in that direction, even if it’s against the wind sometimes.
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| User | mae | 2006-06-27 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | Every passage of life has its high points and a lot more lows. Personally, I think it would be really sad, if at the end of the REST of your life, you looked back and said that the teen years were the best time of your life. mae |
| User | insphered soul | 2006-06-26 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | to be honest, i only said it was the best part of your life because that’s what everyone else says, i dont really believe its the best part |
| User | darkness | 2006-06-26 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | i think kids are just finding it hard to deal cuz some of em cant deal. |
| User | mae | 2006-06-26 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | A lot of the unhappiness of teens in today’s society (or at least Western societies) is a result of biology in conflict with that same society. Studies of adolescent’s brains have shown that at the onset of puberty the most active part of a teen-ager’s brain is also the most primitive. The frontal cortex is still in the process of forming, and now it gets this giant wash of hormones. The stress is amazing, so the primitive parts take over. Judgment plummets and risk-taking behaviors soar. This is the reactionary part of the brain, not the cognitive reasoning center.
Now, all that would be fine if we all still lived in caves and we had to get dinner by bashing a mastodon over the head. Gather the teen-aged boys! But risky behaviors now don’t get us dinner, they just get us in trouble - like road racing or drugs. And we don’t we really find our modern identity in these behaviors.
Teen-agers look and sound like adults, so most adults expect them to act that way. The fact is that teens aren’t adults, quite, and are ill-prepared to face a world that doesn’t really have a ’teen place’. In this society, you’re a child or you’re an adult, engaging in adult behaviors and expected to think like an adult. I raised five teens and I for one can attest that they do NOT think like adults.
Teens are especially subject to addictions because of their still-forming brains, plus, the teen-aged years are when schizophrenia shows up. Ouch! Adolescents in urban areas have shown higher rates of schizophrenia than rural teens, probably because of the increased stress involved in urban settings.
Because their brains are growing and changing at the fastest rate since they were two, teens also need more sleep - which they rarely get. Jobs, extra-curriular school activities and socializing all take up time that teens in more natural settings would use sleeping.
Risky behaviors, stress, addiction predilection, schizophrenia, lack of sleep - facts of life for teens. It’s not hard to see why many teen-agers feel overwhelmed, some unhappy and some downright suicidal. It’s a wonder anyone makes it through!
mae |
| User | WolfStar | 2006-06-26 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | i don’t believe there is any one "best time of your life" in terms of age. some people never find happiness until they’re 40. others have it until 19 and then never have it again in their lives. it all depends.
what kills me is that i see even people in their twenties carrying on this image of knowing who they are as if it were never a question. so much of life can be pretense if you allow it to. |
| User | GiveMeTheGun | 2006-06-25 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | I read a shitload of books.
And whenever the author writes about adolesence years or teens, they always refer to "zit face" or something similar.
Not every teenager goes through tortured years of acne, jerks.
But yeah, I dont think being a teenager is one of the greatest time of your life. I can’t wait to leave it. |
| User | dismentled | 2006-06-25 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | " best part of your life." No offense, but I don’t think anybody wants adolesence to be the best part of their life. I know I don’t, and if it was, I’m more fucked than I thought. Anyways, think about it, do you really want to go through the majority of your life knowing/thinking that the best part of your life is behind you, that it’s all down hill after you reach 20 or so? |
| User | insphered soul | 2006-06-25 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | yeah, i’m one of the teens that can relate, but not entirely. i see alot of people trying to hide themselve’s and change themselve’s to fit in with the people that really don’t care about them at all. it is sad, very sad that alot of people hide theirself from the people they want to fit in with. it’s this kind of stuff that comes straight to your mind when your out of school and all your so called ’friends’ that you hid your real self from grow apart from you and each other, and it makes you regret that you weren’t acting like yourself for the best part of your life. |
| User | dismentled | 2006-06-25 | | | Subject | untitled | | Message | whoa, that’s pretty deep, and for an adolescent, to me it’s impressive. I know others’ on this site, whether they’ll come forward or not can/do relate. though I’m not a teenager, i may or may not be considered young; irregardless I’ve not forgotten by any extent (nor do I think abybody really does) what it was like being a teenager. For some what you brought up can be more serious than others realize. For me, I wasn’t even an outkast, or nobody; I wasn’t popular enough to be that. I suppose that’s becasue i never conformed or compromised who I was to fit in and be accepted. Hell even the nerds looked down on me. I’m not even in the yearbook for my senior year, and I went to 2 different high schools, and though I graduated with a 4.0 my neither my name, nor my picture is in either yearbook or grad. list. Though I wouldn’t change not compromising who I was/am; obviousily (as are all choices) it was not/isn’t without consequence. And socialization is a key factor in life, and everybody feels the need to fit in with others; I’m no exception, i just see it as if nobody likes me for who I really am, fine, at least they really know they don’t like me, and just think they do because of how I act |
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