23/02/24 Advice to teenage self.

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

Teenage is such a wonderful period of self discovery and learning. You ‘think’ you are an adult, but you really are not, you want to belong to the ‘in’ group but you also want to fly under the radar, you ‘know’ you have a lot to learn, but you don’t want to ask for help. Everything is new and confusing and in all this chaos, you are also trying to get used to the frequent hormone surge you go through.

I set off into my teens being excited and curious. I was raised to speak my mind, I grew up with like minded friends on the street, and we used to help and support each other from the older bullies. There were the one and only M, who used to just hound us to stand still, and to us, this was an absurd waste of time, specially when running errands for the family. Imagine asking a teenager that is always running around to stand still, crazy!! I remember scaling walls from the back street to head home from a different direction, because I did not want to get ‘caught’ by M. The dislike of bullies is so intense thanks to this person, I react very strongly against bullies. I remember classmates hanging out with me, because I never got ragged in college, and they hung out with me to escape it.

There was the time, when an adult I trusted, helped us, and then proceeded to misbehave with me. I knew it was wrong, but I did not know I could walk away and had no idea I could have asked for help. Lesson: you can choose to walk away. Respect does not mean that you have to deal with abuse-emotional or physical. The lesson to walk away has been a difficult and very slow lesson to learn, but has been a very important one. It helps me step back and view things objectively.

Then there was that time, when I asked for and did not get permission to go to a club, and then I sneaked out, got caught, and then got punished! Grounded for the next year! A truly amazing time of discovery. Lesson: don’t sneak out. The grounding did not help, and I have since learnt that this same lesson can be taught without hurting the fragile egos of teenagers. Mine was hurt, and the only thing it helped build was resentment. I now know that trust is something that has to be earned and reciprocated.

Teenagers are prone to acne, hormone surges and stupid decisions and the first two cause a lot of trauma for every teenager. Perception is so important at this age, how will I be seen? What will they think of me? With this thought in mind, the best advice you can give a teenager, is the gift of logic, walk them through scenarios and give them options to choose from. Don’t make them feel stupid by taking away their right to choose. And I’ve never found violence or ‘grounding’ them will help them understand the scenario. I use these instances as lessons, and taught my teenagers that instinct is that sixth sense that will give you the courage to walk away.

“Trust your instinct. If you think something is wrong. It is. Walk away.” And this is the only advice I would give my teenage self. If I knew then that I could walk away, I could have avoided a lot of trauma growing up. And if there is something teenagers today can learn, it’s the same: ‘Trust your instinct and walk away.’