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Adolescence Is A Time Of Storm And Strife

: : Introduction : : Adolescence is a time of “storm and strife”. Adolescence is a period of time between childhood and adulthood. This is the age when one can either make something of his life or destroy it all, this is the time when a person makes those friends who changes the how he looks at life and how he faces it. An adolescent's main goal these days is to fit in and not be different from their peers. In this paper I will explore the probabilities of the following grievances experienced by the adolescent youth which are drugs, suicide, and homelessness. : : Body of the Essay : : Adolescence is the developmental stage between childhood and adulthood; it generally refers to a period ranging from teen years through 20s. As now life is growing more complex, however, adolescents are increasingly cut off from the activities of their elders, leaving most young people with education as their sole occupation. Inexorably, this has isolated many of them from the adult world and has prolonged their adolescence. Now almost all over the world the adolescent years have become marked by violence to an alarming degree. The phenomenon of teenage suicide has become particularly disturbing, but risk-taking behaviors of many sorts can be observed, including alcohol and drug abuse. Adolescents only want to have fun and go to parties. They get addicted to drugs and start to revolve their lives around drugs. Some get arrested and others encounter death. Addiction is so powerful that it takes control of people's brains and only tells them to do wrong. Drugs are highly Addictive, and most of the adolescents main goal is to fit in the group by doing what the whole group does, this is how they get into crack, booze, pot and crystal. Dr. Nowinski's book in which he states his study of Adolescents drugs and addicts describes specific cases of adolescent drug abuse that he has worked with. He describes the different patterns of adolescent drug abuse and the causes of such type of abuse. He describes causes like alienation, low self-esteem and confidence, stress, and peer pressure. He goes into how developments of new treatment techniques are necessary because adolescent addictions are different from those of adults. He describes the process of counseling, denial and compliance, and surrender and recovery. Nowinski stresses the need for family intervention in cases that involve adolescents. Addiction is the disease that eventually starts to plague the adolescents that decide to take the wrong path. Addiction lurks up on anyone putting aside race, age, or gender because this disease does not care.

Adolescents are not aware of the consequences of drugs and have a hard time listening to their elders, since they think their all night parties in which drugs and alcohol booms are safe until someone dies or they are confronted by the law. These parties take place in warehouses, outdoor recreation areas or any place where more than 1,000 young people can gather. At these kind of parties the trance music is played which is a composition of electronic sounds driven into shape by a DJ. Adolescents see these things just as fun; and do not understand that this road reaches nowhere. In time, this behavior becomes a way of every day life and causes in most case a lot of pain for the adolescent. This is where the disease of addiction takes over an adolescent's body and controls it until someone helps him or her out of it. The sad part is that most of the time help is given forcefully by the law or even by death. (New York Times, 1997) (Fort 209-215) Eventually after all the consequences occur treatment and rehabilitation is needed if death did not already occur. Adolescents need to hear stories and be able relate themselves with the stories. All the commercials and adults talking in schools do not helps our society out of this. Adolescents anyhow do not listen and still do what they want not realizing the results. Adolescent Suicide is a result of frustration and negligence because there is a lot to live for. Each year in the U.S., thousands of teenagers commit suicide. “Suicide is now the third leading cause of death for people 15 to 24 (behind accidents and homicide), and the sixth leading cause of death for adolescents 5 to 14.” (Miller) Adolescent suicide is now responsible for more teen deaths than cardiovascular diseases or cancer. The suicide rate for adolescents has increased more than 200% over the last decade. Adolescent Suicide is a type of Adolescent Depression. Recent studies show that more than one fifth of adolescents have emotional problems and one-third of adolescents who attends psychiatric clinic go under depression. The primary care physician with the support of the family can effectively take the majority of adolescent depression, says Maurice Blackman MB, FRCPC. Adolescence is a time of emotional instability, gloomy introspection, great drama, and discriminating sensitivity. The psychiatrist challenge is to identify depressive symptoms that may be superimposed on the milieu of a more evanescent, but anticipated developmental storm. It is common for adolescent to be preoccupied with issues of death and to consider the effect their death would have on close family and friends. Luckily, these ideas are habitually not acted upon. Suicidal acts are generally associated with intense crisis in the adolescent's life and may involve linked depression.