Adolescence

I remember puberty extremely well. Why? Because it was the worse time of my life.

Until this point, I had been an obedient, loving child. Then the demon of puberty manifested and it was a totally different world! I became angry, resentful, frustrated and determined to seek out my destruction!

I must admit that I had many family issues that needed to be addressed, but the onset of puberty led me to believe that those problems were intolerable. Had I never reached puberty, I probably would have gone on indefinitely as I had been. Somehow puberty determines that we take action, and not always action that creates value in our lives.

Our parents and elders rant and rave, use logic and reason, manipulation and force, all in order to continue absolute control over us as we resist with an equal and opposite response. We will not be controlled! We feel and believe that we know who we are, what we want and have the right to control our own lives and bodies. We are trapped in a place between adulthood and childhood. On the one hand, seeking love and approval and on the other, striving to assert our independence.

More often than not, our guardians don't have a clue of how to deal with us and of course often make more mistakes than not in the process. The secret is, there is absolutely nothing that they can do that would appease us or convince us of the rightness of what they are trying to teach us.

Yes, they have had the experience and been told the same things by their parents/guardians that they are telling us. But in my opinion, I think they forgot what puberty feels like.

When I say ‘feels’, I am speaking of the constant internal turmoil and conflict. Of having the desire to want to be good but being driven to do what we must do, based on the rage of hormones that are taking over our bodies and minds.

How often I remember saying, “why did I do that?” How I remember the tears I shed in a futile effort to understand the whys of my life during that time. How often can I hear the ‘good voice’ in me saying I shouldn't, only to do whatever it was that I contemplated anyway. The feeling of insanity raged on as I was held prisoner by my own psyche.

Perhaps it is not as bad for all adolescents. Perhaps it is worse. What I do know is that there is nothing that can be done about it, except keep the entire adolescent population drugged or teach them about this secondary personality, this demon who will try to exact control over them. I believe with the additional knowledge and the openness of parents/guardians, the power that misunderstanding and ignorance has held will be broken.

Perhaps if I had had the confidence to speak to my parents and they the willingness to listen about these issues - that my parents might have been open to understanding and clarifying this craziness in me - many of my conflicts would have been less traumatic, simply because I was not ‘crazy’ and they somehow would understand what I was going through and not make me the ‘bad guy’ of the moment.

Even if parents share this knowledge, their will be some who can not resist the ‘call of the wild’ to mate and rampage through this portion of their lives. Granted, everyone’s experience is not identical, but the sharing of these experiences might make a difference.

Since control is one of the major issues of puberty, I would advise, create your own individual plan for your life and refer to it often prior to and during this catastrophic time. Set attainable goals, like finishing high school, limit drug experimentation, use protection and birth control if you choose to have sex and always put you first.

These goals should not be your parents are anyone else’s expectations of you, unless you whole-heartedly concur. If they are, when you begin to rebel, than you will just toss these goals out like all the things your parents, mentors, etc. might say to you.

I believe that as an adolescent, you should start with things that you know you can accomplish, such as, taking your piano lessons, getting good grades in school, or better grades than you have been if grades are poor, completing your chores and other things that will win you a positive response from yourself. Set your own curfew, because usually you will be breaking the one your parents set regularly. Sit down with your parents and perhaps say something like: “Mom/Dad, I am 13 now and think an 8:30pm bedtime is a little childish. I would like for my bedtime to be 9:30 p.m. on school nights and 11:00 p.m. on weekends. I promise I will be up in time on Sundays for church/temple/etc. and will get my chores done.”

In this way, you are showing your parents that you are becoming more mature and capable of negotiating your right to more control over your life. Of course you may have unreasonable parents, sometimes this is the case and it is easy to become rebellious and resentful. That is not a bad thing! How you use that anger is going to determine if it creates value or takes value from your life. If you put bleach in the colored clothes or some other passive/aggressive action, than you take away value. If you determine to find an alternate plan, such as asking for the assistance of clergy, mentors or teachers to help you speak with your parents, than perhaps it will become a valuable experience.

It is possible that you can use areas where you have fallen short of your parent’s expectations to negotiate your position. Perhaps you are reluctant to do chores. Therefore, you can say and act in a way that shows you are willing to change what previously created a stressful situation by accomplishing chores in a speedy and efficient manner and in so doing, showing your greater level of maturity.

You should set goals for the different areas of your life that you want to survive this pagan episode of your life. I believe by age 10, a child pretty much knows what they want as a career. They are more in tune with themselves than they will be for a time to come. Set career goals, education goals to support those choices and let nothing deter you! If you get in the habit before puberty, it will be easier to continue in that direction once puberty starts.

If you decide to have sex make a determination not to have children and to always use protection and birth control. I love children; there is nothing wrong with having children, as long as you can support them and yourselves! Protection is vital in this day and time, not just for the purpose of birth control, but also for health reasons. STD's such as herpes, genital warts and HIV are not curable! And condoms do not protect against herpes, which can be contracted through other means than actual sex, including kissing!! Bottom line on that note: THE ONLY SAFE SEX IS NO SEX!!!!

Please go to some of the communicable disease websites and investigate STD's for yourselves. Knowledge Is Power!! Power to make viable choices with correct information.

A Special Note to the Man-children: Do not trust your girl to be protected! Just because she is a virgin, does not mean she is disease free! Remember, you can get herpes from kissing! And as with many STD's there may not be any symptoms! This is one reason that STD’s spread so easily? More than 35% of the sexually active population has one type of STD's or another. Be safe! Cover Up! Better yet, don't have sex!

But of course I am asking the impossible! We are speaking of puberty, the ‘call of the wild’ within which says “SEX NOW!” Even when you DON'T want to have sex, you may find that you just did! That's right! The beastly hormones may just do their thing, if you place yourself in a position that this can happen. The position is; alone in a quiet secluded place with someone you think you love or desire. Pheromones are screaming, “I am ripe and ready, take me!” Your body is responding, “yes, yes, yes!”

Therefore, if you like someone a lot, try to have public meetings with him or her. Double or Triple date. Go to public places and try to stay in them. If one of ‘yo boys’ is driving, pick all the girls up last and drop all the girls off first when it is time to go home.

Ladies, the same applies to you. Pick your girls up first, and drop them off last. Never get caught with you and your boyfriend alone. It is too tempting for the demons of puberty.

You can have control over your life and its' situations. It all depends on how you set things up. Remember, we are not talking about good or bad, but that which creates value. Always make choices that will create or instill value in your lives.

This is what I mean when I say always place you first. Always do those things that place you in the position of creating value for yourself and you will find that more often than not, others will benefit. If you are doing the things that make you happy, that happiness shines a light of positive energy on others and affects their level of happiness as well.

Finally, I would like to introduce the concept of 'Compassion.' Never do to yourself that which you would not like to see done to others and vice versa. If you let others mistreat you in any way, you are not showing compassion for your own life. I think it is easier to have compassion for others. Yet seldom do we take into account compassion for ourselves. We may love ourselves, but we do not always show ourselves compassion.

The generally accepted belief is that low self-esteem, lack of love of self, is why we make so many value-destroying decisions for our lives. It is my personal belief that it is not lack of self-love, but of compassion for self that we do these things. We are taught love, but seldom compassion. Normally we learn compassion through empathy, by feeling another's feelings about a given situation as though it were our own feeling. I believe that we seldom apply this principle to our own lives, hence the abuse that we accept in the guise of love and friendship.

I believe that once we apply the rule of compassion to our own life, that is, don't allow others or ourselves to do to us that which is lacking in compassion, than we develop a greater sense of our self worth.

Adolescence can be a beautiful and wonderful time of growth and accomplishment. Like a bud not yet open into flower, although it does not have the grandiose beauty of a flower in full bloom, it is none the less unique and splendid in its own right. Enjoy your adolescence and bloom in your own time.