What is teenage unhappiness?
It is unhappiness experienced as a teenager that exists for no apparent reason: it has no external cause.
Symptoms
In addition to being unhappy the sufferer is likely to cause more unhappiness for himself by incorrectly labelling an external item(s) as the cause(s) of his unhappiness and pursuing external items (particularly changes in lifestyle) that he incorrectly believes will cure this unhappiness. These actions aggravate the condition. It’s explained in more detail here.
What causes it?
The cause of teenage unhappiness (TU) is hormonal activity, a jump in cognitive thinking and other biological stuff that naturally occurs as part of adolescence.
Can you get rid of it?
As it’s a biological thing it’s logical to look for a solution within the biological framework. For a biological problem we turn to items and activities that affect our biology – typically medicinal drugs, but also exercise, diet, sleep and so on. All well and good, but as far as I’m aware there is no such solution for teenage unhappiness.
We have drugs for anxiety and depression, but they’re too extreme for TU, and doctors have yet to come up with some medicine for TU, specifically, that teenagers can pick up from their GP regularly and so on. Perhaps this is because TU is too difficult to diagnose or to analyse, or because it would be dangerous to treat it or because it’s never been considered a great enough ailment to warrant enough research for a treatment. What would be best wouldn’t be some stimulant or depressant to cause your mood to change, but a medication that would just stop the adverse emotional effect of the body’s internal changes. And, as I’ve said, I’ve never heard of such a drug.
So you can’t get rid of it?
You can probably no more get rid of TU than you can get rid of a headache without painkillers. Without painkillers you can still ease a headache by doing certain things and avoiding others, and at times the headache will be barely noticeable, at times unnoticeable, and it will eventually pass. The same I believe is true for TU.
Now you may also argue that you can get rid of a headache without painkillers. I’m not ruling out the existence of a cure for TU, just as I’m not ruling out the existence of a cure for a headache that isn’t two pills to be taken with water. It’s just that suggested solutions outside of the biological framework are more theoretical than practical and definite, and, especially since this is a personal development blog and not a health one, I’d rather write an article on how to deal with TU in a practical way than muse on the salvation offered through chi, chakra, karma or whatever.
Thinking your way around it
There is no external thing that will rid you of the source of your TU. You see, even a drug would only numb the feeling of unhappiness – the source, your physiological processes, would endure. To be rid of the source you would have to not go through adolescence – an enormous extraordinary physical change would have to take place to halt it and replace it with something else.
You can only do something about the unhappiness itself – and this is fine, really, because that’s all that matters.
It’s like watching a scary film: if you put your hands in front of your eyes you can lessen the effect of the film. You’re still scared because the film is still playing but this action has reduced its effect somewhat. You’re acting on your response to the film, not the film itself. In terms of dealing with teenage unhappiness this can involve using external means to act on the emotion.
The first of these external means is books. When I was in my mid-teens I found reading stories about unhappy characters around my own age surprisingly therapeutic. But the books needn’t just be fiction: psychology, philosophy and, of course, personal development texts are helpful with dealing with urges to submit to peer pressure and rebel. Personal development is particularly helpful because the field is dedicated to showing the reader the light at the end of the tunnel and leading him/her towards it. Literature, fiction and non-fiction, is filled with ideas and emotional truths that make you feel less alone, your problems less individual (and therefore less powerful and important) and the possibilities for your emotional well-being and your life in general more plentiful.
The second external means is film, television and theatre for the same reasons as reading books. I place it second to reading because films and TV programmes don’t tend to offer the intimacy and psychological depth that books do. My favourite TV show is an anime called Neon Genesis Evangelion. After watching this show at sixteen (I spent several days watching all the episodes on DVD) I no longer felt TU.
I was still going through puberty after I’d seen that show, of course, so the cause of TU was still there, I just didn’t feel it emotionally after that. In other words, the show didn’t cure the cause (it didn’t change my physiology, after all) but the emotional and intellectual fulfilment it gave me caused me to go from being quite consistently unhappy to being quite consistently okay. This TV series (and I hope other TV series, films and such can do this for others) changed my emotional well-being to the point that I didn’t feel TU for the rest of puberty.
The third external means is video games, music, art and other media not already listed which convey ideas. These are in third place because it’s much harder to find items in these media that will offer the same emotional and intellectual support as books, TV and films.
Comfortably waiting for it to pass
Another way to deal with teenage unhappiness is to comfortably wait for it to pass. This isn’t quite as passive as it sounds: to be comfortable you need to change your environment to facilitate your comfort and, when your environment allows you to wait comfortably, to sustain it in this state.
I’m not talking about having a tidy bedroom with quiet relaxing music playing in it (though those things certainly wouldn’t hurt) but about environment in its fullest sense. Don’t watch crappy TV, don’t eat sugary foods – because the short-term high won’t be worth the long-term low, don’t comfort eat for the same reasons, don’t make social plans if you suspect that you may not enjoy them as feeling down when everyone else is having a good time just makes you feel worse (and it doesn’t do your companions any favours either).
I had days when I felt particularly crappy and I would spend them mostly in my room. Just the acceptance that you feel down makes feeling a down a little easier to deal with, and allowing yourself to wait it out, to let it pass it its own time, makes the ordeal even easier.
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