The teenage years are a time of freedom and great frustration. By the time you hit your teenage years, you’ll find that you have suddenly become emotionally attached to your electrical devices and find it hard to part from them. You have come to the realisation that people are leading better lives than you as they are constantly updating their Facebook statuses and sharing the delights of being a social butterfly, while you are sitting at home on Instagram, finishing off a pack chocolate digestives. Their lives must be so much better than yours, right? I mean it’s on the internet.
At this time, you may even suffer a mild case of ‘teenage moodiness’, which your parents will take pains to try and distract you from. Side effects include having the urge to throttle a sibling or realising speech capabilities have significantly reduced; you now find your initial response to parental questions have turned into grunts and you’re finding it tough to string a sentence together.
Teenagers tend to be nocturnal creatures, so you may find it a struggle to wake up in the morning. The internet seems more appealing than homework, and you spend many Sunday nights doing last-minute homework, which means lost precious sleeping time, making it even harder to get up in the morning.
On the rare occasion you venture out of your bedroom, you have a sudden urge to go to Starbucks and take a photo to upload to Instagram. Your listening capabilities are selective, unless it’s something you want to hear like “what do you want from McDonalds?” Questions like that are very serious and you spend half an hour strategically planning what food you are going to have. Moreover, the constant grating of your parents voice becomes all-consuming, and you have to retreat to the safe confines of your bedroom; your haven of peace and tranquillity. Well…actually… it’s the place where you play your music so loud the walls are vibrating, and you’re constantly surrounded by a cocoon of dirty laundry that will probably never get washed until your mum comes to retrieve it herself.
If you are suffering any of the above, have no fear, you’ll grow out of it….eventually….hopefully…. That’s what my parents say anyway… so probably not that reliable.
Words and image: Madison Lewis
Hanna 