The dilemma girl: I’m a 13-year-old girl who is overweight. I’ve started to feel very uncomfortable and lonely in my own skin. All my friends have boyfriends and are living a wonderful life. I’m very close to one girl, but whenever I try to discuss problems which worry me, she immediately changes the topic. My only other friend has been ignoring me for two weeks. I’ve always been extremely good academically and have been the teacher’s pet for as long as I can remember. My counsellor has diagnosed me as someone with social anxiety and hypersensitivity, and now I feel like I’m depressed as well. My mother fails to understand my problems and I don’t know who to go to.

The Expert: You’re not alone, even if you feel like it. I’d be far more worried if you were writing to tell me your life couldn’t be more fabulous! At 13 years old that would be seriously weird. Instead you’re at the epicentre of one of the most turbulent periods you’ll experience, and I can promise you, no matter how it may look, all your friends are experiencing similar emotions. Teenage angst is legendary and comparable only to another equally hormonally busy phase in your early 50s, and that’s a lifetime away right now. Judging by your letter you are articulate, intelligent and literate and, believe it or not, those three qualities will come to matter far more than anything else as you mature.

In the meantime you have to negotiate the trials and tribulations of being an adolescent and, sadly, this period of hormonal turmoil comes with its fair share of physical manifestations, too. It’s a cruel twist of fate that when you are feeling at your most emotionally vulnerable your body decides to play havoc with you. Weight and moods fly up and down like a playground seesaw.

When I was your age my relationship with my physical attributes was totally in flux. One minute I considered myself fat and bloated, the next I was bemoaning the absence of anything vaguely feminine, like breasts or hips, on my boyish frame. My parents certainly couldn’t keep up with the helter skelter of my mood swings and, to be honest, neither could I. It was exhausting and debilitating to be trapped in my own head, a place where anxiety and insecurity about every aspect of my being fought for space.
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The truth is that it doesn’t really matter how you look at this point, because you won’t feel it or see it. You’re a cygnet blooming into a swan and it’s a process that you simply have to be patient with, which I know is little comfort. We all know the story of the ugly duckling; it’s a fable that directly tackles the teenage condition. Even supermodels talk about their gawky teens as having been a period of misery. They were too tall, too skinny, and stood out from the crowd in a way that takes confidence and maturity to cope with.

To add further layers of complication, just when you most need a friendly shoulder to cry on, your girlfriends are acting oddly as well. Remember that they are experiencing similar mood swings and sensitivities and it’s all too easy to cause offence or be obscured by a new favourite. Girls go through a period of volatility with their friendships which unfortunately coincides with the time when a trustworthy pal would be worth their weight in kindness.

I know you’re feeling equally frustrated with your mum, but she could be your greatest ally at the moment if you invested a little in your relationship. Just as your moods change frequently, your behaviour can be irrational, so you need to be patient when describing what you’re feeling. It’s a further irony that during a period when communication with others would help assuage your growing pains, you are perhaps unwelcoming to those best placed to help? At this stage in your development, friends will come and go, but your mum is right there, within arm’s reach and wanting only the best for you, even if she expresses it badly or doesn’t seem to fully understand.

Most of the time when people don’t get what we’re on about it’s because we’re explaining it badly, not because they lack the ability to see things from our point of view. In your turbulent early teens the best way to struggle through is to try to encourage the people who love you to support you rather than push them away.
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Don’t let the torrent of hormones flooding through you dictate the experience of your teenage years. I still regret how little fun I had during a decade of my life where self-indulgence and irresponsibility were tangible possibilities and how much time I spent fretting about the future.

Your academic tendency is a lifeline. You would be in deeper and murkier water without that lively interest in learning. Keep up the good work, talk freely with your counsellor, worry less about the things that will only change with time, and let your mum be your best friend. Finally, keep a diary – it too can be a place of refuge.

Before I finish reading this epistle, its monday already.

falconey:
Before I finish reading this epistle, its monday already.

Neither did I scrutinised the piece, minutely....