Running head: Adolescence 1

My Adolescence
Katie Brogan
Wayne State University, Social Work 3510

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Adolescence is the period of time between the ages of 10 to 22 years of age. During the
period of adolescence many major life events occur that help define people as they enter
adulthood. Children begin to explore who they are and what they want to become when they
reach adulthood, they become torn by their own feelings, peers, family, and environment. There
are three stages of adolescence that every adolescent goes through on the process of becoming an
adult.
Adolescence is brought on by puberty, with a rapid growth spurt, hormonal changes, and
the final growth spurt in the brain. (Ashford & Lecroy, 2010) Erick Erickson labels adolescence
as the identity vs identity confusion stage. During the stage of identity vs identity confusion
adolescence begin to question who they are, while exploring other identities. In adolescence
children begin to question their religion, their personal appearance, the peer group that they
associate themselves with, and the activities that they do. Peers play a great influence during this
stage as adolescence look to their peers, no longer looking to their parents for social interaction
or to the answers to all of their problems. As adolescence become more concerned with their
peers they enter a period of egocentrism. Egocentrism is when the adolescence believes that
everyone is always looking at them; they are the main character on center stage. (Ashford &
Lecroy, 2010) Person fable in adolescence makes young people make poor decisions to impress
their peers as they think they are indestructible and nothing bad can happen to them. (Ashford &
Lecroy, 2010)
I grew up in a household with 2 sisters, brother, mom, dad, and a dog. I was the third
child born to my parents. My mother stayed home while my father worked at Chryslers as a tool
and die maker. My mother was the parent that raised me and made all decisions. My father was

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not around much as he was battling his own problems. My mother took on the responsibility of
raising us on her own, even though my father lived with us.
My adolescence period began when I was in the 5th grade. During this time I began to
question many aspects of my life and started to make decisions that affected who I was. The first
major decision that I made was telling my mother that I did not want to take medication for my
ADHD any longer. Through many conversations I was able to convince my mother to give me a
chance to no longer take the medication. During this trial period I knew that every move I made
was being watched. My friends became closer to me as I now spoke up more often and engaged
myself in activities. This was the first time that I felt that I had an opinion on my life and could
make decisions that affected me.
In middle school I entered the period of identity diffusion, which is the period of when I
had not yet experienced a crisis and had no plans for the future. Sex and drugs were never
factors for me in middle school. In the 6th grade was the first time I held a boys hand and thought
that was a big deal. Going any farther than holding hands never crossed my mind. I filled my
time joining clubs and teams. I was part of the running club, a band member, ran track, played
basketball and volleyball. I did not date in middle school; I only liked boys as friends and
nothing more.
In middle adolescence between 14 and 16 is a time in my life when I started to question
myself and question what I stood for. The greatest influence to my questioning arouse from my
sister. My sister when she was in elementary school was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy.
At the time of her diagnosis I did not really understand what it meant. My sister and I did
everything together when we were younger. We would roller skate, swim, ride our bikes together
and now she that we were in middle school she was starting to struggle to do tasks that she had

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done 100 times before. She was embarrassed and afraid that anyone would find out. When she
would get nervous she would get wobbly, I used to give her piggy back rides whenever I could to
help her. She made me look at life differently as I was preparing to enter High School, start
drivers education training, she was struggling to just be normal.
Once in high school I continued to be active and ran varsity cross county for 3 years and
was the schools first female pole vaulter. I played in the band the first three years of high school
to be with my friends, even though I could not read a piece of sheet music. In the end of my
freshman year I met my high school sweet heart, he was a sophomore. When my junior year of
high school started it was not like the last two years prior. My sister was now a freshman and her
gait had deteriorated to the point where she could not walk without assistance. For the next two
years I was late for every class and parked in the teachers parking lot in a handicap parking
space. There was never a word spoken of my tardiness by any student or teacher, it just became
known that I was always by her side. My life revolved around keeping my sister safe. During
this time is when I noticed how the people we went to school with were ignorant children. The
adolescence that was our peers were mean, rude, and disrespectful. Our peers did not understand
what was happening and wrote my sister off. At this point I turned against most of my peers not
caring about what they thought. I viewed high school as something that I just had to get through
to get to the next point in my life. A few friends and my boyfriend were very understanding, my
sister did not want to talk about what was happening and they respected her privacy. During this
time I became more independent as my father was not around much and my mother was very
busy with my younger sister and her disease was progressing. In my senior year I started
working midnights at Farmer Jack as a stocker and cashier. I was still able to go to school and
do other activities while working 40 hours a week.

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During high school I watched my grandmother die from lung cancer, she also had
emphysema. She developed lung cancer and emphysema from being a long time smoker. This
was hard to watch as she was killing herself. She would take off the oxygen to smoke a cigarette
and refused to be put on a list for a lung transplant. This was especially hard for my mother as
she was an only child, the only family she had was her parents. My mother has always viewed
family as her highest priority in life, she would talk to her mother daily. Every week she would
invite my grandmother over for dinner and every week she refused. My grandmother wanted to
make dinner for my grandfather, just in case he came home for dinner. My grandmother made
dinner for him every night and every night she ate by herself. It tore my mother up and made me
question my family. My grandmother stood by my grandfather, when he was not there for her.
Even my own mother stood by my father when he was not there. Watching these relations ships
helped shape my view on relationships, for better or worse I do not know.
I learned a lot during a period know as social learning, I often watched the interactions of
my peers trying to figure them out. What I learned was that I did not want to be like any of them.
I was not one to wear makeup, have the most up to date clothes, or have my hair and nails done.
I missed egocentrism during adolescence; I think because I did not respect my peers I never
viewed myself as on stage. I just did what I had to do to get to the next part in my life. I did face
normal adolescent cross roads. When I was a senior I convinced my boyfriend to have sex,
thinking about it I probably peer pressured him. He would have been happy losing his virginity
on his wedding night. I cant say that I wanted to have sex because that is what my peers were
doing; it was something I just wanted to do. After I had sex the first time his mother went to
change his bedding the next day and his mother question what we were doing. He made up some
horrific lie, which I think the truth would have better than. The next month in school his brother

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had given a speech in speech class telling the whole story but changing our name to names that
rhymed to our names. It took about a day for that story to get back to me, and people I never
talked to question me. I really did not care about what my peers were saying, but was very angry
with his brother and my boyfriend for telling his brother the story.
During Middle and High School I was not exposed to drugs, I did have experience with
alcohol. I would drink boones farms, we would find an empty parking lot and down the bottle.
I did this when I was in my junior and senior year of high school. My drinking was a result of
my peers influence. It was not that my peers pressured me, they just offered it to me and I seen
myself as untouchable, nothing bad could happen to me.
All in all my adolescence has defined who I have become as an adult. My adolescence
was not always perfect but those hard times I went through were for a purpose. I sometimes felt
as if I was alone. My dad always called me the strong one, when he would go away he would tell
me I was in charge and had to take care of my mother and sister, even giving me his wedding
ring to hold on to. My mother was very occupied learning as much as she could about my sister
diagnosis, taking her to doctors appointments, as she should have been. My brother was always
in trouble even at one point went away for a while, I never knew the reason why he went away or
understood. I just remember going to visit him and sitting in a lobby on Thanksgiving one year.
When going through adolescence I was expected to do what most would consider
stereotypically male roles. Whenever there was a spider to bill killed, I was called. I cut the
grass, took out the trash, and was viewed as the tough one that could handle anything. I believe
this has made me stronger and resilient. I rarely was given new clothes, most things I did have
were handyme downs. I still wear some of my sisters jeans that she wore in high school.

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Life was never given to me on a silver spoon, I worked hard for everything that I ever
received and that is still with me today as approach one day at a time with knowing that all of
this sacrifice and hard work will pay off one day. Adolescence is the time in my life that had the
most impact on whom I am today.

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References
Ashford, J., & Lecroy, C. W. (2010). Human Behavior in the Social Environment, A
Multidemensional Perspective 5th addition. Belmont: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.