![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Symtoms of Youth
Aug. 25th, 2002 12:09 amDon't know what to write.
Kirk called today. He got out yesterday. When he didn't call me right away I of course became hysterically worried. I imagine this is what having a child must be like, a world of constant anxiety: where is he? what is he doing? is he safe? Goddess I hope he is safe. Does he hate me? Actually I just finished reading a memoir on just this subject, but more on that later on.
Anyway, he visited Alan today, and is going out to his mother's tomorrow. So at least I know he is under observation. Monday night he wants to stay over here, and I want him to. I wouldn't mind just cuddling up to him on the couch and watching a movie, even though at this point I have no idea what we are. I surely wouldn't call him my boyfriend at this point, we aren't that close. I wouldn't call him my lover either because, well we never do anything sexual. I know I consider him my friend, and even part of my support team. We comfort each other. I try to comfort him more then he tries to comfort me. But that's just how I am. I try to give as much as I can in hopes that in doing so I will win someone's love. Even though I know he cannot give me his love, and truthfully I'm not sure I want it. He is very disturbed right now. Alan says some of his symtoms are hysterical. I know the only person Kirk can really take care of right now is himself, and that's as it should be. Knowing this is the only reason I am able to remain friends with him. Typically I wouldn't deal with a friend or a potential...whatever, who could not provide me with the same care I provide them. But this situation is a little different.
I've been on a memoir kick lately. As I said earlier I read one about motherhood. The author tells the story of her out of control daughter and how she sent her to all these programs for troubled teens. The end is rather anti-climactic. None of the programs work, and eventually the daughter just grows up, and the mother learns how to let go and stop trying to control her. And all is well. It made me consider how many people I know who have been sent away to programs or hospitals during their teenage years. I think most of my friends have. And I wonder if there really is or ever was anything truly wrong with us, or if our parents simply couldn't handle the trials of parenting a teenager.
This trend of teenage therapy and hospitalization is pretty recent. Every kid these days has SOMETHING and is on SOMETHING to fix it. Reading the aforementioned memoir I found it hard if not impossible to feel any real sympathy for the mother. Her daughter was doing drugs, talking back, staying out all night blah blah blah, and she didn't like it. Typical teenage BS. And she wrote all about how worried she was about her daughter and how she had no idea what to do, which I can understand and even relate to. But she never moves past this initial panic to locate a real solution and that's what makes her so unlikable. She fixates on the idea of being acted upon, she doesn't seem to realize that she in turn can act upon her daughter, and do so in a kind and non-intimadating fashion. She could have learned new communication skills. Could have talked to her daughter like a person, asked her civilly why she was doing the things she was. However this woman is just so hysterical, she is never able to convince herself that there is something SHE HERSELF could do or would have to learn in order to help her daughter and win her respect. Instead she sends her to a school in another state for other people to deal with. And it does nothing.
Reading this woman's words I can see a portrait of my mother. A woman unable to concieve the idea that she may have to work along side her daughter in order to fix whatever the problem is. It sounds like almost every parent I know. A feeling that they are entitled to obedient children, and it is not their responsibility to help foster the obidience they crave. The feeling that they should not have to change themselves, that the problems lie squarely on the shoulders of their children. I'm sure their parents would have tales to tell them. I'm sure the grandparents of the world know that parents are entitled to nothing but a life of work. Teenagers have always been rebellious. But I have to wonder at what point in the last 50 years or so did being a teenager become a mental or character disorder?
Kirk called today. He got out yesterday. When he didn't call me right away I of course became hysterically worried. I imagine this is what having a child must be like, a world of constant anxiety: where is he? what is he doing? is he safe? Goddess I hope he is safe. Does he hate me? Actually I just finished reading a memoir on just this subject, but more on that later on.
Anyway, he visited Alan today, and is going out to his mother's tomorrow. So at least I know he is under observation. Monday night he wants to stay over here, and I want him to. I wouldn't mind just cuddling up to him on the couch and watching a movie, even though at this point I have no idea what we are. I surely wouldn't call him my boyfriend at this point, we aren't that close. I wouldn't call him my lover either because, well we never do anything sexual. I know I consider him my friend, and even part of my support team. We comfort each other. I try to comfort him more then he tries to comfort me. But that's just how I am. I try to give as much as I can in hopes that in doing so I will win someone's love. Even though I know he cannot give me his love, and truthfully I'm not sure I want it. He is very disturbed right now. Alan says some of his symtoms are hysterical. I know the only person Kirk can really take care of right now is himself, and that's as it should be. Knowing this is the only reason I am able to remain friends with him. Typically I wouldn't deal with a friend or a potential...whatever, who could not provide me with the same care I provide them. But this situation is a little different.
I've been on a memoir kick lately. As I said earlier I read one about motherhood. The author tells the story of her out of control daughter and how she sent her to all these programs for troubled teens. The end is rather anti-climactic. None of the programs work, and eventually the daughter just grows up, and the mother learns how to let go and stop trying to control her. And all is well. It made me consider how many people I know who have been sent away to programs or hospitals during their teenage years. I think most of my friends have. And I wonder if there really is or ever was anything truly wrong with us, or if our parents simply couldn't handle the trials of parenting a teenager.
This trend of teenage therapy and hospitalization is pretty recent. Every kid these days has SOMETHING and is on SOMETHING to fix it. Reading the aforementioned memoir I found it hard if not impossible to feel any real sympathy for the mother. Her daughter was doing drugs, talking back, staying out all night blah blah blah, and she didn't like it. Typical teenage BS. And she wrote all about how worried she was about her daughter and how she had no idea what to do, which I can understand and even relate to. But she never moves past this initial panic to locate a real solution and that's what makes her so unlikable. She fixates on the idea of being acted upon, she doesn't seem to realize that she in turn can act upon her daughter, and do so in a kind and non-intimadating fashion. She could have learned new communication skills. Could have talked to her daughter like a person, asked her civilly why she was doing the things she was. However this woman is just so hysterical, she is never able to convince herself that there is something SHE HERSELF could do or would have to learn in order to help her daughter and win her respect. Instead she sends her to a school in another state for other people to deal with. And it does nothing.
Reading this woman's words I can see a portrait of my mother. A woman unable to concieve the idea that she may have to work along side her daughter in order to fix whatever the problem is. It sounds like almost every parent I know. A feeling that they are entitled to obedient children, and it is not their responsibility to help foster the obidience they crave. The feeling that they should not have to change themselves, that the problems lie squarely on the shoulders of their children. I'm sure their parents would have tales to tell them. I'm sure the grandparents of the world know that parents are entitled to nothing but a life of work. Teenagers have always been rebellious. But I have to wonder at what point in the last 50 years or so did being a teenager become a mental or character disorder?
