WOMEN’S BODIES: EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS DURING ADOLESCENCE
Adolescents are generally under more stress than adults, and they have less experience behind them for coping with pressure. Some young people can take all this in their stride, but many have some pretty rough times.
You read a lot about stress these days, mostly telling you to avoid it. But you can’t avoid it, and not all stress is bad. For example, that nervous tension before an exam or sporting contest can drive you to do better than you would without it. Most of us need pressure to achieve what we want to do.
Bad stress is the constant, prolonged worry or pressure to do things we can’t handle. This builds up to anxiety, which can make you physically and emotionally ill. Anxiety causes the release of too much adrenalin, which can give you a pounding heartbeat, dry mouth, butterflies in the stomach, cold sweats and a panicky feeling that everything is closing in on you. Increased muscle tension can lead to headaches, abdominal pain and backaches. Prolonged anxiety can have more harmful effects when it suppresses the immune system, thus increasing susceptibility to infections and other illnesses, and an increased tendency to accidental injury (because your attention is on your worries and not on taking care).
During adolescence you become aware of the wider world you live in which, compared to the security of childhood, is full of uncertainty, conflict and competition. The media emphasize the bad news. Recession! Crime! Corruption! Disease! War! Riot! Disaster! Everything changes so fast. It’s no comfort that you’re about to enter this chaotic world.
Adolescents are also under pressure from conflicts about what they want and what the rest of the world wants of them. For example, you need to become independent but you also need the support and approval of your parents; the need to express yourself as an individual conflicts with pressure to be one of the gang; the need to compete with your friends may go against your need for them to like you.
Also, you’re getting mixed or confused messages about community values, personal integrity, sex roles and sexuality. Then there’s always the usual hassles with parents, teachers, friends and boyfriends. To top it off, there’s educational pressure and the need to make important decisions about your career. After training you might find your ambition sabotaged by unemployment.
No wonder so many adolescents have a tough time! Fortunately most survive, but about one in ten adolescents develop emotional or psychiatric problems. Some teenagers seem to be more at risk:
• those who experience serious losses or other traumas, such as losing a parent through death or separation; rejection by parents and peers; having parents who are alcoholic or chronically ill; or those who experience emotional, physical or sexual abuse
• those living in difficult circumstances such as remote areas or institutions, and the homeless
• those who are different because of disability, homosexuality, race, ethnic group or religion.
However, teenagers who seem to ‘have it all’ can also become mentally ill.
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