by Amanda Green
This week we continue college student Amanda Green’s description of some of the stressors she feels contribute to mental health problems in college students.
However challenging it might seem, developing human connections is important for teenagers as they start to live away from home. Unfortunately, building physical and emotional relationships with others can damage teen stability. Take a college boy and girl who sit next to each other in Writing class, and after a few days, begin taking an interest in each other. Suddenly, their minds are consumed by possibilities. However, today even something as simple as dating is confusing. Not only is the boy no longer expected to initiate the connection, he is not even expected to limit himself to one girl, or even a girl, for that matter. With so many factors up in the air, it is no wonder that even though wanting to build a physical or romantic connection is so natural in teenagers, few of them are able to achieve it. In fact, some refuse to pursue relationships because of the stress that comes with it (which I think is part of the fun).
Then there is a related teen stressor that adults often overlook: the difficult position of having to balance fun now versus success later—a tradeoff that has been ingrained in us since our childhood. I remember the first time I declined to go to the park with my mom to walk the dog because I had an essay due. She didn’t know whether to feel proud or disappointed. Now in college, many of us feel that we have to uphold the same standard. This is fine to some extent—prioritizing school work during the week to be able to relax on the weekend can be a good thing. However, continuously turning down hanging out with friends because of looming assignments due next month takes the “work now, play later” ideal to the extreme. Some take it even further: they don’t allow themselves to go to bed until a piece of work is complete. Needless to say, sleep deprivation neither reduces stress nor allows them to produce their best work. Of course, some rebel against this prioritization and preparation and prefer to procrastinate work every week until Sunday night. What some don’t realize is that completing work does more than just free our time and allow us to participate in other activities later. Having work looming over us is very mentally draining and does not let us fully participate in the present moment.
With the rise of technology and social media, distractors are arguably more powerful than in the olden days. However, even older generations experienced this same struggle. Even if the pull away from their work came from going to the movies rather than Netflix, the concept is the same. Teens are constantly stressed by getting distracted from work and feeling guilty for it. Think about it: Aesop’s story of the Hardworking Ant and the Lazy Grasshopper is as old as the sun. Generations have long been raised and guilt-tripped by the very same words.
However, there are still some obvious generational differences. One of the biggest mismatches between today’s generations and prior ones is the number of opportunities available. When my parents were growing up, it was the standard to attend the local state school until the end of high school and then pick a university in the region, at most one or two hours away from home. Now, at least considering an out-of-state college, if not an international school, has become the norm. While this explosion of possibilities can really maximize individual potential, it can quickly become overwhelming. Decision fatigue is real. When faced with so many schools to pick from, so many majors to pursue, and within that, a myriad of classes to attend, it is no wonder that registration week is universally acknowledged to be one of the most stressful times of the semester. For some, it is even more stressful than finals week. At least, for exams, the instructions are clear: there is nothing to choose, except for a seat and a pencil.
When considering the pressures of today’s day and age, namely indecisiveness, uncertainty, reputation and finding balance, it strikes me that these stressors are more or less the same as they have always been. In fact, it is unfair to even say that they affect only teenagers: adults also experience similar emotional strain. One thing is sure: teenagers these days carry around with them a whole lot of baggage. This becomes most obvious during long nighttime walks and inebriated conversations—almost everyone seems to have some internalized tension or trauma to unpack. On our shoulders sit a strange mixture of unanswered questions, internal conflicts and unprocessed feelings, but the steps we must take to move forward are unclear.
However, at the very least, teens should try and resist the urge to label themselves as victims of circumstances. The causes for adolescent anxiety and depression are not external but internal. In other words, teens are not so much affected by the world around them as they think. Some details of the world might have changed, yes, but teenagers are the same as they’ve always been.
As a teenager in college, I believe that the stress that comes with growing up is normal, but we’ve just become too sensitive to it. We should expect ourselves to feel stressed in uncertain situations. We should expect to feel insecure about ourselves. How could we expect otherwise, when we don’t yet know who we’ll grow up to be? At the end of the day, all teenagers want is to grow up to be somebody—and to enjoy the process. If we accept that the pressures and stressors of this generation are to some extent inevitable, then it becomes clear that the best we can do is live with them. Only then will growing up begin to feel a little easier.
Psychology and Stress 