Being a Teenager Isn't Hard? by Patience Weir (16, Colorado)

[Content warning: eating disorders, grief, and school shootings]

Being a teenager isn’t hard they say, but they haven’t considered how hard it is to be a teenage GIRL. Wake up, first thing on the to do list is to scroll through her socials and see how much she is worth based on the bikini photo she posted last night with her abusive boyfriend. While she is scrolling she sees the bleach blonde models with slim figures and perfect skin. Why don’t I look like that? She whispers to herself with a tear rolling down her cheek. Next step of her routine is to head to the bathroom. Step on the scale, look at herself in the mirror, and scrub her skin until it is as clear as the photoshopped model she saw earlier. She’s up half a pound because she couldn’t stand the thirst any longer. As she steps off the scale she sighs, picking at her skin as she observes every part of herself in the mirror. 

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Crossing breakfast off the list next, black coffee and a non-FDA approved weight loss supplement that could be the reason her hair has started to fall out in the shower. Breakfast is followed by her morning run, five miles and that still doesn’t feel like enough to burn off the minimal calories from the day before. She stops at mile three feeling dizzy, but that doesn’t matter as long as she looks pretty and her deadbeat boyfriend still loves her. She continues the run in fear of what will happen if she doesn’t, but yeah being a teenager isn’t that hard. ​

​Tell me it’s not hard to be forced to raise a baby that you can’t provide the best for. Or that it’s not hard to work a job while going to school because your mom is dead and your dad is passed out on the couch leaving you in charge of taking care of your younger siblings. Tell me that it isn’t stressful trying to go through college without an example to follow. Convince me it’s not hard going to school terrified not knowing if today will be the day that your school has an active shooter leaving you to send one last text to your best friend. I love you. Preach to me that these are the best years of our young lives and how we are so incredibly spoiled to live where we do. Tell us that we don’t have a right to complain when everything is “handed” to us. Yell at us saying to be more grateful that our plate is full when we don’t want to eat and that we have a roof over our head even though it doesn’t feel like home. 

​When is enough, enough? It’s hard living in a world of constant comparison and crippling fear of what is to come. The shaky ground and unfamiliar thoughts are hard to handle. Coping with the trauma given to us by the people that were supposed to take care of us. Grieving things that we haven’t yet lost. You say we are being dramatic, but have you watched the news? You tell us that it’s all in our head, yet being mentally ill is weak? We as the next generation are being taught that our feelings are invalid and our fears are simply made up. What will it take for adults to hear us? For society to listen to us? For the world to see us? If we are the future, what does the future look like?