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It's a pretty chilling thing, considering that Shakespeare is four hundred years in his grave, and this kind of shit is still going on!
Adolescence and puberty -- when your mind is changing and growing into adulthood and when your body is changing from a child's to an adult -- is about as fun these days as having on thumbscrews tightening one quarter turn at a time.
Look, you hit junior high school, your body starts changing, your friends all change -- the boys become assholes and the girls empty out their brains. Your parents mean well, but have no clue as to what goes on at school and with kids your age. You want your parents to protect you, but at the same time you're sneaking around and hiding things from them. Your mother stutters about sex education and finally flees leaving you with a small booklet with ridiculous tadpole drawings of sperm and all your friends are out there having sex NOW. Tighten those screws another turn.
You used to have all these fun activities and things you enjoyed doing. Now you're suddenly gaining weight, you're swinging back and forth between elation and depression, and everyone starts telling you what you have to do to be accepted. What you have to BE, rather. You have to BE pretty...you have to BE liked...you have to BE attractive. No more of this nonsense about DOING anything, anymore... No wonder you're angry. You have to kill parts of yourself to be accepted but by doing so you no longer like yourself. You do things that you know are wrong or not right for you at this time just because you want your friends to approve of you. And it's going to kill you. You're worried sick about what sex, drugs, and drinking can do to you...at the same time, doing these things can make you feel good, for a little while. And all adults seem to be able to say is "Just Say No" which doesn't do a damn bit of good when it's all around you. Tighten another quarter turn.
Did you know that studies show when people are asked to make up a list of adjectives describing "men", "women", and "adults", the adjectives are the same for men and adults, but the adjectives for women are totally opposite of adults? Here you are, becoming adult, hurtling toward womanhood, which is by definition, in this society, NOT an adult role! It's stupid, insane, hurtful, and your reaction is actually a very common one to this horrible paradox. Well, there ARE women who are strong, independent, and bitchy. We're all over this web site and we're proud of it. If we can do it, so can you.
With all these impossible changes and expectations, it's no wonder girls are turning to more and more self destructive "coping" mechanisms. At best, sullen and angry with their parents, at worst mutilating or killing themselves. Listen, if you are hurting yourself so that you feel better, you need to talk with someone you trust. A web page can't help you further other than to assure you that you're not alone.
If you're mostly doing things that you know are dumb because you want to fit in, you still have a lot of issues to deal with. You need to find out who you are and learn to filter out all those "SHOULD BE's" that society is directing your way now that interfere the most with gaining this kind of self knowledge. Don't get me wrong...this takes time, it is not some overnight thing. You will need to work on it a little bit a day at a time. The main thing is to focus on some carefully chosen set of goals. Where do you want to be a year from now? What problems would you like to solve? What are your resources that you can draw on?
Does this sound selfish? If you don't like yourself, how can you like anyone else? How can you expect them to like you? This isn't being selfish, this is helping you refocus on what is important. It's more of society's bullshit that a woman is being selfish if she stops and takes some time -- any time! -- to think about herself!
Let me talk about some common traps. There are many of them (and you WILL make mistakes, don't doubt that for one second...the trick is to realize you made a mistake, forgive yourself, change things so it doesn't happen again, and move on), but I will focus on the common ones.
09/28/07 at 0:16