To Teenagers |
To teenagers (and to 15-year-old me),
I can’t promise you it’s gonna be okay.
For the longest time, when I watch a YouTuber
or someone who is in their 20s or 30s or maybe even older, they always say that
their teenage years were difficult. Sure, some of them enjoyed their time in
secondary school cause they were kids and reckless and lot of their actions
didn’t have dire consequences. But a lot of them also struggled for a lot of different
reasons.
Realistically, from a surface level,
secondary school can’t be that bad, right? Especially compared later
years. You still have university or college, graduation, job-seeking, relationships
and so on to look forward to. When you’re a teenager, technically you barely
have any responsibilities (generally speaking from my own experience), so why
does everything hurt?
Well, as a 21-year-old, here’s what I know now
and what I wish I knew back then. Take it with a grain of salt. Again, I am literally
21.
First of all, you’re not different from
other people. You’re not “mature for your age” for being able to feel intense
emotions in such a tragically poetic way. You simply don’t know how to
process your emotions, that’s why everything feels amplified. You’re still
trying to figure out what to call them, to understand what they mean and how to
handle them.
You’ll know yourself better one day. That
includes the emotions that you will experience as you continue to be confronted
by them. Your own identity and labels that you feel comfortable with. Your
personality types and how they affect what you do. Your “language” and how you
communicate with other people. Even the troubles and problems you actually have
that you never really thought about before so you can proceed to heal. And you
will learn new healthier ways to cope with your problems.
And from a more external standpoint, depending
on your current situation; you’ll get out of your house and have a bit of
freedom. You’ll get out of your bubble and meet new people who will help you
grow. You’ll have easier access to professional help, maybe even get a diagnosis
that will help the things you’re going through make much more sense.
That journey has its ups and downs, and it
will never end. But know that in a few years’ time, you’ll know yourself more
than you do today. You’ll understand why you were struggling then and hopefully
give yourself grace for not knowing any better.
Right now, you’re likely to have things
that are still unnamed, unlabelled, unexplored about you. In fact, knowing what
they are won’t take away the pain you’re currently going through. But, not
having that thick layer of frustrating confusion feels pretty good.
I can’t promise you things will get better.
But I promise you will be okay.