Potentially Triggering, But It's Really About Working With Young Teenagers Now

One day in Mrs. Prock's seventh grade English class, I asked someone the type of question that makes you a very observant twelve-year-old though even a few years later it would have qualified as ignorant. I had noticed that a good friend of mine had stopped eating lunch or treats teachers provided in class, and I had noticed that she was in the bathroom a lot. I wasn't sure what all of this meant, and I barely knew any terminology surrounding the topic, but I figured that directness and a confident front would be the best way to get a confession. "How long have you been anorexic?" I wrote in gel pen before folding the note into a childish rectangle with a "pull here" flap, creating quite the obscene contrast. I expected denial but there was none. "Not long," my friend answered before further detailing her descent into the eating disorder that still impacts her today, eleven years, three stints in treatment, and one hospitalization later.

Not that that should have surprised anyone. We were, after all, the ripe old age of twelve, and once her eating disorder became more obvious I became aware of many other girls' eating disorders. Later that year I would purge for the first time, and I would also stop eating for 100 hours to see if what they said was true about not feeling hungry after the first couple of days. (It was.) The same friend and I had both self harmed for the first time when we were eleven. By the time I was thirteen I had graduated from erasers to razors, at least a lot of the time, but don't judge erasers as a self harm implement because they can hurt like no other if you do it right, and I did. By the time I was fourteen, not only did I have peers who were drinking, though they had the good graces to not invite me (thank goodness), but I had peers who were drinking specifically to numb themselves by their own admission. I must have had peers who were experimenting with other drugs, though I wasn't aware of it at the time. I also remember having my first sexuality-related thought about a girl (about anyone) when I was about twelve, which was a scary experience.

I bring all of this up because at one of my jobs I work with kids who are between the ages of seven and fourteen. When I look back on these types of experiences and then interact with kids who are these ages, it's a wake-up call about just how young those experiences start to hit kids thick and fast and how ill-equipped they really are to handle them. While I told adults about some of the more troubling behaviors my friends exhibited, I never, ever willingly told an adult about anything related to me until I was in college, and by then I was in a lot of psychological pain and I was having some trouble functioning. It's unrealistic to believe that none of the kids I mentor are facing any of these issues or others that they should not have to face at this point in their lives.

I'm not sure what to do about it, but it is good to remember what can be and let that have an impact on the way I make healthy relationships with these kids. It's good to have open eyes and ears, and it's good to provide a safe place.