[This post is excerpted from Why Smart Teens Hurt. To learn more, please take a look!]
Each smart teen is located in a particular sea of circumstances. She may swim there; or she may discover that she is drowning there.
One smart teen grows up in poverty and finds herself living out of a car with her out-of-work dad. Another grows up in a cult. A third must contend with famous parents. One has a high-achieving older sibling, another a disabled brother who requires what seems like the family’s whole attention. One smart teen can travel to Europe, another must work to support the family. Circumstances matter.
One of the ways that they matter is the way in which circumstances can inhibit a smart teen and prevent her from manifesting her potential. It is hard to think if you are in danger, if you are hungry, if the adults around you are slamming doors and warring. Many smart teens find their native intelligence held hostage to their difficult circumstances.
Maryanne, a coaching client, explained:
“There was a lot in my childhood that I’m thankful for. I had plenty of opportunities to read books, build dens, climb trees, draw and learn a musical instrument. There was magic and wonder. However, my parents also struggled with marital issues, with money worries, and with their own mental health challenges, as well as caring for my disabled brother. I was a sensitive kid and my antenna was highly attuned to the stress around me, so I escaped into my imagination a lot.
“I knew from the age of six that I was supposed to be a writer and I also knew that I loved art, music and performing. But I just couldn’t get on with any of that. The slightest criticism from a teacher stopped me dead in my tracks. I couldn’t concentrate. I spent time in my mind but not productively, not in a way that supported real effort or real creativity.
“Something in me shut down creatively because of all that stress and when it did, I no longer had any way of processing that stress. I was an anxious kid and by the time I became a teenager I was internalizing everything and I became even more anxious, socially isolated and dislocated. It was like I couldn’t find my center or settle into my body. I had this phantom self who was a writer, but I couldn’t get her to come and live in me full time—or even a little. This has continued into adulthood.”
It is odd how little a teenager’s circumstances play into how the mental health establishment views her distress. It is a thousand times easier for a psychiatrist to run down a checklist and pronounce a teen clinically depressed than to attempt to fathom the gestalt of her life. This checklist approach takes minutes and leads to an easy answer—chemicals—while teasing out what is actually bringing this girl to her knees might take … who knows how long? The idea that circumstances don’t count is built into the current mental disorder paradigm, for obvious reasons. It is ever so much easier to prescribe than to inquire.
Circumstances matter. Nor can a smart teen do much to change her circumstances, short of running away, which desperate act is unlikely to turn out very well—and will inevitably drop her in yet another set of difficult, or worse than difficult, circumstances. An adult can divorce, leave her job, move across the country, start a business, stay with a dear friend, train for a new life, and create a new life. A smart teen can do none of these things, which means that she must deal both with her circumstances and with the pain and stress her circumstances may be causing.
For parents
Here is an area where you can possibly really help your smart teen. Her circumstances are largely in your hands. If you and your husband are screaming at one another, you could stop screaming. That won’t have solved your marital problems, but that would surely help your smart teen concentrate better. If it is long past time for your smart teen to stop sharing her room with her younger sister, finally clean out the spare room and give them both room to breathe. These are things that you can do.
There are almost certainly things for you to try that would improve her circumstances. Identify them. Better yet, identify them together. Pull out two pads and two pens and invite your smart teen to join you in improving her circumstances. Each of you create a list. Compare notes. Your lists may align or look completely different, they may include far too many items about which neither of you can do a thing, they may be full of cross-outs and second thoughts. But you will have made a start. Could you possibly spend a more profitable half-hour together?
For teens
It would be a mistake to suppose that your circumstances don’t matter, that you are somehow supposed to be so strong, so resilient, and so bullet-proof that you can just soldier along, impervious to what is going on around you. No, what is going on around you really, really affects you.
If you think that some particular change might be possible if only you alerted someone that you needed that change, please speak up. If there are improvements that you yourself can make, please make them. These may amount to no more than a drop in the bucket—or they may do a world of good. You can’t know until you try.
To repeat the headlines of this post: circumstances really matter; most of the circumstances of your life will not be in your control; this will produce stress and other serious consequences; so, try your hand at two things, changing what can be changed and adopting some stress management strategies. Here is an area where you can employ your smarts. What can you possibly do about your circumstances? Bravely challenge your neurons to ponder that question.
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[This post is excerpted from Why Smart Teens Hurt. To learn more, please take a look!]
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
Such a beautiful, caring piece. I was a teen who hurt. There was a lot of pressure to be thin, starting when I was about 4. I always felt wretched and was told “we better not see you eat one more thing today.” In to my teens it was excruciating. I was 5’8′ at age 14 and only about 15-20 pounds overweight but the family taunting was awful – worse than being bullied at school. I wonder what it would have been like to not have that feeling of unworthiness.