What advice would you give to your teenage self?
I have spent a great deal of time lately reflecting on this very topic. I yearn to go back and have a conversation with my teenage self. As I have been reading and sharing my journals from that time period, I see the girl I was and I hear her crying out for a mentor. For somebody to give her advice and talk her through what she’s experiencing.
I want to tell her to stop being so obsessed with boys and finding love. Thirty years later and you won’t remember most of the names of the boys you were obsessed with. Besides, you don’t marry any of them like you think you will. Instead, I want to tell her to focus on friendships and being a good person. Don’t cave to peer pressure. Stop trying to impress people by doing things you think will make you look cool. Those things will backfire and rumors about you will swirl until you graduate.
She also needs to know that all of the trauma she is enduring at home is temporary. There will come a time when her mental illness is treated so well she no longer needs to cut herself.
The list of advice goes on. And as much as I want to tell her these things, I know she won’t listen. Actually, she might listen, but she won’t believe me. She can’t. Developmentally, teenagers are in the phase where they can’t see past themselves in order to understand the bigger picture. It’s like my grandma always telling me not to be in a rush to grow up and to enjoy being a kid as long as possible. I heard her, but didn’t believe her. I just wanted to hurry up and be older. I see what she means now.
Teenage Sarah needed advice, but I suppose it’s true that what you go through shapes who you are in the future. What becomes of you isn’t always so positive. The trauma I endured has had a profoundly negative impact on my adult life, but therapy is helping with that. It’s interesting to wonder though, had I been able to give her advice and she actually listened and took it, how would my life be different now? Or would it be different at all?
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