It's Hard to be Afraid of Teenagers When You Are One
Visual representation of 'the vibe as of late'. Pictured: Dipper Pines, Shinji Ikari, Steven Universe.
This year, I got a new job working with teenagers. I have a lot of experience in this area, and I really do enjoy what I do. Sometimes I hesitate to tell people about it, though. For whatever reason, when some people find out I work with teens, they look at me like I just told them I'm a volunteer prison warden. This is usually followed up by condescension when I explain that I actually do like it. Something like, you'll get tired of it quick, or, you just have no idea what you're in for. I really resent this, for many reasons. Obviously, the first is that when you tell one of your peers what you do for work, the desired reaction is very rarely outright pity. The second is that I take their contempt for teenagers personally. Despite being in my late 20s, I often find myself relating to and empathizing with the teens I work with more intensely than I do with many of my adult peers.
I came out as trans, and began transitioning socially and medically, at age 18. I've been taking testosterone on and off in the near-decade since then. Were it my choice, I would have been able to continue taking it this whole time, but difficulty with insurance, poorly educated medical professionals, and an insurmountable aversion to needles has kept me from being able to do so. This September marks the longest continuous period that I've ever been able to take HRT regularly. A few of the reasons I chose to go back on it were pragmatic: My assumed age based on my appearance was not matching up with my chronological age, which resulted in many humiliating experiences in my daily life. (Most notably: Getting carded at the bar for my cousin's wedding.) I had also just ended a years-long relationship with a person whose own internalized transphobia made them disapproving (mainly expressed through apathy) of my choice to take HRT. However, the actual call to action was this: I had a dream about it. I take dreams really seriously, but only because they tend to give me very clear directions from time to time. So, I booked an appointment at Planned Parenthood as soon as I woke up.
I take testosterone in the form of a topical gel, which means the internal and external changes of my ongoing puberty are less immediate than they would be with injections. I prefer it this way. Not only because injections stress me out enough that they were a reason I stopped taking hormones on my first go-around, but due to the fact that the intense emotional and physical changes associated with testosterone are extremely difficult to balance with the demands of adult life. A few of the emotional changes associated with testosterone are shortness of temper, heightened energy, and reduced patience. This is hard enough to manage with my close friends and romantic relationships, but I really have to practice mindful decision making when I'm working with young people who want to intentionally push my buttons. Having to be emotionally available all day while at work also means that when I leave, I'm in the most inconsiderate and impatient state I can possibly be. It's embarrassing to feel like you suddenly have no control over the way you treat the people you care about; stonewalling or lashing out when yourself from eight hours prior would just say, "I don't feel my best right now, I want to be alone for a little while."
Most surprisingly, testosterone makes me feel incredibly sensitive and fragile in a way that is unique from when I'm not taking it. I've heard some trans women describe their experience of emotional changes on HRT as feeling "sadness in 4-D"; I would say I have a similar experience going up that street the other way. I get tearful very easily. I need to spend a lot of time by myself to reset my emotions. I have more confidence than ever, (mainly due to age and life experience) but I've never felt more physically afraid of sharing how I feel. I say mean things to people I'm close with, realize a second later how cruel I've been, and suddenly have to keep myself from crying. I get overwhelmed and angry, so angry I start to get sad, and I have to physically remove myself from wherever I am before I have a full meltdown.
I see the teens I work with go through all of these things, and then some, every single day. And I am the person who has to keep them cool, help them calm down when things get intense, and prevent them from hurting themselves (but more often, each other). When you work with young people, you frequently have to remind yourself that they have a completely different set of mental and emotional needs and abilities compared to you. When teens say mean things and pick fights with each other, it's very rarely because they are just truly evil and want everyone around them to suffer. They're far more beholden to their emotional peaks and valleys than adults are. When they do things that seem stupid and inconsiderate to the point of malice, you have to keep in mind how much is demanded of them and how little say they have over any part of their life. Sometimes, acting out against the exact rule you just tried to enforce is one of the only real choices they get to make all day.
There are two 15 year-old boys I work with that I really relate to. They both have that kind of, "unclear if sincere or ironic, or both at once" sense of humor that I've had since birth. They're funny and like to make everyone laugh, but can get to a point of over stimulation where they're being provocative to the point of disrupting everyone else's day. When I was in high school, my humorous and outgoing personality could easily get tilted sideways, turning me aggressive, cruel, and obviously unstable. In college, I had matured enough to have far more control over my impulses and actions, but the school environment still aggravated the part of me that can be a totally insensitive little dickhead when I'm stressed out. As much as I tried, full control of my words and actions was always just slightly out of reach. Some people can wear their bad attitude like a prize wrestling belt, but it just made me feel deeply ashamed and unfit to be in any room I was in.
In some ways, it can be deeply moving and cathartic to see my struggles reflected in the people I help every day. It makes me think of the psychological concept of the "inner child", something I have honestly always thought was weird and not applicable to me in any way. I think this stems from some fundamental contrarian part of me, though. I remember learning what a Child Psychologist was when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, and thinking: That's ridiculous. You have NO IDEA what's going on in here. In the last year, I read someone describe the concept of the inner child another way: Your relationship with yourself from the past. Even though it's just a change of language, I find myself significantly more interested by this framework. Thinking about myself like this gives equal weight to my feelings and actions across every part of my life, letting me see myself as a fully-formed person with agency regardless of what my age or circumstances were at the time. It's made me realize areas of my life where I truly was in dire emotional need, but didn't have the resources or support to even know what I was missing.
For example, I spent some time in training programs learning about the necessity of supportive, non-related adults in a young person's life. Thinking about myself in this role made me remember the role models that I had growing up, but it more so made me realize how few and far between they were. I thought about how much less I may have struggled with self-esteem and worth if there was consistently a teacher, mentor, or coach who expressed authentic concern and care for me while I was at my most vulnerable. I thought about how much contempt I had in college for my classmates who got to go to arts-oriented charter and magnet schools, especially when they would talk about their favorite mentors and tutors from back home. I realized that these feelings of frustration, anger, and envy were really the response of a 13 year-old who just saw someone else get exactly what they had been wanting, and felt dejected and miserable about it. It took a long time before I was able to let myself feel through and accept that reality. But once I did, I could finally feel worthy of being that supportive adult, not just for the young people around me, but for myself.
Spending time strengthening this relationship with myself across time has done a lot for my ability to empathize with others. When you are able to forgive yourself for things you did wrong because of how overwhelmed, confused, and needy you were at the time, you're much better able to do the same for the people you encounter out in the world. I really do think that a lack of empathy for oneself is a reason so many people have such outward contempt for teenagers. It's pretty awful to dislike another person purely because they wear their ongoing development on their sleeve. Especially since we've all been there at some point... and some of us still are, not necessarily by choice.
~ Allegory