March 26, 2012

  • Surviving your Awkward Phase (Possible Triggering)

    I read a post from a reader I won't name about her eating disorder. One thing I was struck with is how hard it is to survive an awkward phase of growing up without coming away with scars.

    My own awkward phase: me in eighth grade. I think I still had braces or they were newly off. So I am hiding part of my smile.

    Examples:
    "Oh, I'm really fat right now. I'll always be fat like this unless I lose weight" = eating disorder
    "Oh, my voice sounds awful. No girl will ever want to date me" = porn addiction
    "Oh, my skin is so bad with this acne. I hate my flesh. I'm a bad person" = cutting
    "Oh, I'm not going through puberty yet and every other girl in my class is boy crazy." = sexual confusion or dysfunction

    I don't have very good answers on how to solve this. I quite honestly feel that trying to tell people it gets better is kind of a cop-out. The teen will say "Sure, easy for you to say, it won't happen to me!" We are telling people that magically in a few years their acne will disappear, or their voice will be normal. But it's not happening yet. We are asking people to have faith in nature, and time, and what happened to others, but right now, they feel awful and ugly, and no one is telling them different.

    And to be honest...this post isn't just about teens. This is about taking 6 years to finish your degree and wondering if you'll ever get a job afterwards. This is about being 25, 30, 35, and unmarried. This is about being married for 5 years, 10 years, with no child of your own. How do we not internalize the pain of waiting? How do we, as awful as it sounds, avoid turning on our own bodies while we wait for our awkward, unfulfilled phase to be over?

    I'm not really sure. It takes up quite a bit of counselor and minister time to figure it out.
    *There has to be faith in the process, even if the outcome takes too long.
    *There has to be a forgetting of the cruel things we were told when we looked ugly, felt ugly, or had nothing.
    *There has to be a willingness to try again, even if we failed before.
    More? I'm interested in reading how you got there, and what it took to make things better.

Comments (18)

  • I was suicidal for a long time. What healed me was repeated encounters with God. Only God taking the pain from my past memories made me able to recover and survive. 

  • I'll let you know when I figure it out.  I did everything the "right way", and still got screwed along the way, am still 30 and unmarried, didn't sleep around, wasn't rebellious...but it just didn't matter.  Everyone else?  Yeah, they sinned and slept around and partied and are now married with kids and highly respected in their churches.  I have few options left.  Oh, and fat?  It doesn't get better.  You just have to work harder to fight it. 

  • Let me know when you figure it all out.  I'm sick to the awkward phase.  

  • I think a huge part about self acceptance at any part of your life is understanding where your desires insecurities and expectations for your self and for your future are coming from. Sociologists would encourage one to think about the institutions we grow up with and how we are influenced by them. Media, schools, religions, government, family-- they all give you these concepts that you have to look a certain way, act a certain way, feel a certain way and often people are given the impression that certain things happen at certain points of your lives of normal people (graduate in 4 years, maintain your physical appearance for your 10 yr. reunion, marry by 30 have a successful career and 2.5 kids etc etc) but I think what we should start reminding people of is that going through the motions and doing things because you think that's what you do next says much less about you and your journey and your wants and goals than it does about who you think you should look like. The fact is no one is raised with the same opportunities as the next person, no one actually knows what they're doing-- we're all just trying things until they work and then trying to make it look as effortless as possible. 

    Awkward phases are totally objective.

    You look back at your "awkward" middle school years and remember "Oh yeah, puberty. That's why, not because I was ugly, but because I was still growing." and who cares if you're not the perfect physical ideal according to western culture? My god, the priorities there. 
    I wish people would just say fuck flattering and just focus on the fact that they're functioning, whole people and don't NEED to be validated by other people. 

  • I didn't get there. I'm still awkward. I embraced it that pain as a means to write, to pretend, if even for only a moment, that what I have to say matters, even if it matters to no one else but me.

  • for me, it's been several things and continues to be. First: seeking a relationship with God, Second: some self-prescribed time in counseling, Thirdly: making a conscious daily decision to exercise the authority I have over myself - my thoughts, my choices - instead of making excuses out of circumstances. Many things in my life are not what I thought they'd be, are not what I wanted them to be, but I'm still breathing and in that there is always hope for growth!  But it's hard. Perhaps we never outgrow our awkward phases tho, it certainly feels like just as I'm getting over one, I find myself headed into another!

  • I had an awkward phase... I was the band geek. I owned it, my friends made fun of me, and I became one of the best musicians in the greater cleveland area. They still tormented me, made fun of me for wasting my saturdays downtown, doing what I loved.  I even got left down there one time and it turned into a boyfriend and joining the only orchestra of its kind in the states, quite possibly the world. I got to go places I'd never imagined because of my "awkward" phase. I guess I didn't have it so bad though.

  • My awkward phase (age 17-ish)  was all about not feeling good enough--not feeling thin enough compared to my peers, not feeling smart enough compared to everyone else in my honors classes, and not feeling cool enough to talk to guys.  I always imagined that when I got older, got a job, and got out on my own, I would feel more in control and less conscious of how out of place I've always felt.  The truth is, I'm still awkward...I'll always be awkward.  There I some things I can embrace, like my tendency to talk too much and laugh too loud, and some things I need to change, like my poor eating habits that lead to me feel uncomfortable in my own skin.  

  • I would love to be serious for a moment and actually digest your blog, but right now I'm too distracted by your picture. OMG! Not only do I love the picture, but that you had the guts to share it. made my day! I might actually have to do the same... anyway. sorry to ruin your serious post. Once I recover, I'll come back and try again! :)

  • Come to think of it, all of life is an awkward phase: tweens, teens, young adult (aka YA) transitions, single/married/divorce phases, midlife, etc. There's a constant cycle of entering or leaving a phase, hoping that the scars and lessons learned in each will prepare you for the next one.

    I definitely had a difficult time as a teenager, which is one of the motivating factors for my career choice. I want to make the transition or process easier, just a little bit lighter. But I think one of the hardest ones now with the economy and job market is the YA transitional stage - all the "American" dreams of getting a job and moving out have (by necessity) be post-poned 3, 4, 5 years into the future. And all the people who are transitioning with YAs at this time as well also have to adjust like churches & ministerial professions, employers, parents, etc.

    The strength to keep on moving? Look back at what you've already accomplished in other hard/dark/dreary times. What were you able to do then to keep going? Can you implement some of those same ideas, supports, and strengths now?

  • It's a constant battle, but once you've known what it is to be satisfied in and with Christ, everything else becomes despicable. Yes, you'll run back to other things at times, like a dog to its vomit, but once you've tasted and seen the Lord is good (Psalm 34), once you've known the all-surpassing greatness of Christ (Phil. 3), there's NO COMPARISON whatsoever.

    Psalm 73:25  Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And there is NOTHING on earth that I desire besides you.
    26  My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

    Psalm 27:4  One thing have I asked of the LORD,
    that will I seek after:
    that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
    all the days of my life,
    to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
    and to inquire in his temple.

    Your life begins to center on Christ alone – and almost as soon as you start to make yourself the focus once again, it sickens you!

    I began to enter into a real sense of this as God took me down, down, and further down, and crumbled me, and showed me the exceeding sinfulness of my sin – and it was then I was able to begin to see how glorious and amazing God's grace in Jesus Christ was! (And He continues to humble me as necessary, when I get too full of myself again!)

  • I'm 28 and still have acne. Took accutane when I was 21 and that worked for awhile, or pretended to. Apparently it never goes away.

    And I'm underweight and want to gain 8-10 pounds. Very few people understand that; my mom says I shouldn't worry about it because she was skinny at my age. I don't know how skinny she was but there's a difference between thin and underweight, I don't want to get fat, just less bony and healthier. Besides total strangers tell me I "need more cheeseburgers". :-r I do not have an eating disorder and don't want people to think I do. at least my fiancé is supportive.

  • My awkward phase ended about a year and a half ago when I went back to college and got my life straightened out.  I have great self-esteem compared to when I was 18... my perspective on everything has changed sooo much.  So what if I weigh a few extra pounds and my face breaks out every once in awhile... it doesn't affect how the people I love think about me, and it doesn't have to change how I view myself.  :)

  • lol. U really did look stereotypically nerdy And awkward! Nothing to add but I hope I become self posessed by the end of next year.

  • I think I am currently in that evil "awkward phase" right now as I am an extremely short, slightly overweight, unmarried, unemployed twenty-eight year old *bah* I have a plan though: I will exercise for three months to look gorgeous for my friend's summer wedding, keep looking for a job even if it isn't in my field, then go to Ireland on holiday where I will fall in love and then can live happily ever after I guess the way to get by is to adjust to your situation, make flexible plans, and just keep hoping for the best.

    SUMR

  • Welcome to humanity...haha.

  • Oh my gosh my most awkward phase lasted from grade two until grade ten.

    I was painfully shy and awkward/nerdy looking, and teased pretty relentlessly for being both (kids can be so MEAN, man!). It was hurtful and really affected my confidence; I couldn't take a compliment, I was anxious about meeting new people, I hated group assignments, and don't even get me started on GYM CLASS. I just wanted to slink into the background and be unnoticed, that is so much better than being picked on.

    Helpful people tried to give helpful advice.. and you know what? It really meant crap to me. Unless you had to walk a mile in my shoes, you know, take detours on your walk home from school to avoid certain kids, I was pretty sure you didn't understand me.

    What did I find helped me? Surrounding myself with positive people who I looked up to and who liked me back. Realizing that even if I wasn't well-liked at the time I was a likeable person. That even if my hair looked like a rats nest, and I had braces, headgear, acne, bushy eyebrows, and I couldn't put an outfit together to save my life, that didn't make me ugly. That sometimes people are just mean to others because they can be.

    In all seriousness there's no catch-all answer on how we should avoid turning on ourselves in times of pain. I know I have multiple times in multiple ways. I still remember that lonely period but I don't think of it often; I've tried to fill my life up with positive, happy, fulfilling things and be proud of where I am and who I am. But that's taken years - It's a lifelong process.

  • @steph843 - Mine was pretty much exactly identical time. Really good thoughts there, and yes, you've blossomed quite a bit since then outwardly. But I bet inwardly you were likable then too :) Too bad we couldn't have been nerd friends back in the day. 

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