Advice from the Trenches: Love and Lust

Dear C and Dr. B;

I am a 16-year-old girl and I am painfully in love with Brian, my first real boyfriend. I say painfully because my feelings for him are so strong that sometimes they are like a real physical ache. I do have a life and I am thinking of my future. I want to go to college. I want a career. But none of that seems to make this easier.

My mother got married when she was only 20 and I was probably part of the reason – I was born before their first anniversary … and they were divorced before the second. Because of this, all my mom will say is that I can ruin my life if I’m not careful.

I know I shouldn’t get carried away, but my feelings can be so distracting that there may as well be someone in a gorilla suit jumping up and down in front of me. I can control myself, but all I am doing is controlling myself. The feelings still scream in my head.

All of this is building and I’m not sure how to handle it. Please don’t suggest counseling – our school guidance counselor is an idiot and my mom can’t afford private therapy for me because her insurance doesn’t cover it. What do I do?

Donna Undone

Dr. B says: First, what you are feeling is 100% normal. The problem is that this is the first time you’re having these feelings: lust, love, and longing. There are no guidelines or past experience to moderate them. You need to learn skills to be able to reign them in and use the energy for constructive purposes rather than destructive. Much of what defines a successful adult is finding a balance between feelings and rational thinking. If you let your feelings run your life it will become chaotic. Passion unbalanced by common sense can destroy relationships and allow you to be manipulated by others.  

If you want control over emotions you first have to acknowledge them and admit to them. But keep in mind – they are just emotions, they are not facts. The fantasies we concoct in our heads from these feelings have not yet become acts with consequences. Meditation is a skill that will allow you to look at your emotions from a more neutral place, hopefully gaining wisdom as to how to make decisions from a bigger perspective. Although each feeling you have seems eternal and unique right now, you will have them all again and they will also fade over time. Therapy, medications and meditation are all just ways to get a handle on feelings and a clear perspective.  

I can’t promise it gets easier, but as you get older you do get better at it. It is important to share feelings within a group — either with friends or a therapeutic group. Some groups are free and others inexpensive. I would try to locate one. Studies show teenagers do best in group expression. 

C says: This is all solid clinical advice, but it’s not going to be easy for a hormonal teen to follow through on it. Adults don’t really retain an accurate memory of what it is like to be fraught with budding passions. This is because we reconstruct memories, we don’t re-experience them. As a result, we tend to color those collages of the past with our current attitudes. Any advice an adult can give a teen is much easier for an adult to follow than for the teen. This is probably why teens respond best, and listen to, other teens. I’m guessing their peers are less likely to treat perfectly normal urges as a psychological disorder requiring therapy.

I remember my own adolescence enough to suggest that the feelings you are having need a physical outlet, not just talking or passive meditation. Right now, your sex drive is in high gear. Your passion may not fall neatly into line if you use only your mind to control it. Passion seeks a course of action. I recommend cultivating a physical discipline of some kind if you want better control – martial arts can be effective because it combines physical exercise with discipline and focus.

But here is the most important advice I can give you: If you can’t control those feelings, as many teens can’t, then have the sense to practice birth control. USE A CONDOM! Your mom should have been smarter. Learn from her mistakes, and you won’t have to repeat them.

You can visit Dr. B’s blog at drbrilliantcliche.wordpress.com