Adolescence is Traumatic Enough

Mother of the World by Nicholas Roerich

It wasn't until I saw the movie, "Carrie" and identified with her, that I thought it was time to process  a really bad experience in my teenage years. Carrie in the movie was a very exaggerated caricature of  of an extremely traumatic experience of adolescence. The movie delivers a huge punch in the gut packed with emotion that accompanies a tragic reality, one which has been dumped on a girl now and then. This includes me.

The boys next door, a bit older than I, were, like their sisters, me, and my brothers, left on our own for most of the time to figure out how to make our way in the world. The boy next door,  a handsome James Dean of a creative/artistic type, enjoyed sharing stories of his sexual conquests. I was included in these fictitious conquests and quickly gained a reputation as an "easy lay" at the ripe old age of 13.

Another dynamic which came into play about the same time, maybe as a result of nis stories, but maybe not,  were the Flag Street boys. They were a gang of wanna-be studs who were known to brag, also, of their wanna-be  conquests. I was definitely on their most wanted list of prey.

At a school dance, a group of frat-athlete types who ran in a pack as it were anyway, created a line, taking turns breaking in from the other to dance with me. It took exactly three changes for me to realize they were mocking me. I have often wondered why they thought that was a cool antic.

I am not saying I didn't have something to do with the believability of all this. I was needy for affection, as were so many of us at that age. But, not more so than many others in the growing dysfunctional malaise of the end of the Fifties.

As a School Counselor, I encountered this problem in the student body more often than not each year. Empathizing each and every time, I was able, from having worked through my own experience of this   dynamic,  to easily raise the right questions - both to the boys and to the girls.  It was happening in fourth and fifth grade, which I found difficult to believe. But, there definitely was the bragging on  about sexual  prowess - elementary, middle, and high school age.

I suppose a certain amount of this is to be expected, and in today's world it isn't just the boys doing the bragging. The girls are good at keeping a running count of their own sexual acts, too. One difference today is that the conquests are real and socially acceptable - speaking here in generalities.

When a girl, and it is mostly a girl, gets targeted and cruelly exploited, and finds herself hurting as a result, if she isn't already seeing herself as worthless, the emotional damage of this kind of abuse cuts to the core of self-esteem, ripping her heart out, leaving a numb and empty space.

She experiences herself, as in "Carrie",  as deliriously happy to be accepted and to be at the arm of a really cute guy, and crowned prom queen - only to be rained upon by pigs blood.

 It takes a long time and a lot of support for healing to occur.

Today, I can reflect back on it with an understanding of the difficulty it is to be a teenager - victim or bully.  It is all part of the emotional roller coaster and insecurity of  adolescence.

The "Carrie" story was a gross exaggeration, but not so far from real for a chosen few innocents.

 I'm sure this all too common traumatic incidence is one of the main reasons I became a Counselor.

Being a kid was a lot of fun in many ways, too. Pain and joy untold, as Nikos Kazantzakis  put it, however never does take away the scar of being the one so traumatized that is slays an entire self-concept.

These victims might just as well have been gang raped, and, in some few cases, are.

All of us have had to recover from one tragedy or another in their lives, maybe quite different in content. Surely as an adult, the scars are tolerable, but maybe not. 

What was a traumatic experience for you as a youngster?