Reviving Ophelia - Mary Bray Pipher [139]
Closely related to boundary-making is the skill of defining relationships. Many girls are “empathy sick.” That is, they know more about others’ feelings than their own. Girls need to think about what kinds of relationships are in their best interest and to structure their relationships in accord with their ideas.
This is difficult for girls because they are socialized to let others do the defining. Girls are uncomfortable identifying and stating their needs, especially with boys and adults. They worry about not being nice or appearing selfish. However, success in this area is exhilarating. With this skill, they become the object of their own lives again. Once they have experienced the satisfaction of defining relationships, they are eager to continue to develop this skill.
Another vital skill is managing pain. All the craziness in the world comes from people trying to escape suffering. All mixed-up behavior comes from unprocessed pain. People drink, hit their mates and children, gamble, cut themselves with razors and even kill themselves in an attempt to escape pain. I teach girls to sit with their pain, to listen to it for messages about their lives, to acknowledge and describe it rather than to run from it. They learn to write about pain, to talk about it, to express it through exercise, art, dance or music. Life in the 1990s is so stressful that all girls need predictable ways to calm themselves. If they don’t have positive ways, such as exercise, reading, hobbies or meditation, they will have negative ways, such as eating, drinking, drugs or self-mutilation.
Most girls need help modulating their emotional reactions. I encourage them to rate their stress on a one-to-ten scale. I challenge extreme statements. A girl who comes in saying “This is the worst day of my life” likely needs help reframing her day’s experiences. One of my favorite questions for this reframing is: “What did you learn from your experience?”
Girls are socialized to look to the world for praise and rewards, and this keeps them other-oriented and reactive. They are also vulnerable to depression if they happen to be in an environment where they are not validated. I teach them to look within themselves for validation. I ask them to record victories and bring these in to share with me. Victories are actions that are in keeping with their long-term goals. Once a girl learns to validate herself, she is less vulnerable to the world’s opinion. She can orient toward true North.
Time travel is another survival skill. All of us have bad days, lost days. Sometimes on those days it helps to go into the past and remember happy times or times when problems were much worse. Sometimes traveling to the future helps. It reminds a girl that she is on course toward her long-term goals and that certain experiences will not last forever. Traveling in time is just like traveling in space. Going somewhere different gives girls perspective on the experiences of the day.
Finally I teach the joys of altruism. Many adolescent girls are self-absorbed. It’s not a character flaw, it’s a developmental stage. Nonetheless, it makes them unhappy and limits their understanding of the world. I encourage girls to find some ways to help people on a regular basis. Volunteer work, good deeds for neighbors and political action help girls move into the larger world. They feel good about their contributions and they rapidly become less self-absorbed.
As a therapist and teacher, I have found adolescent girls quirky, fragile and changeable. I have also found them to be strong, good-hearted and insightful. I think of the girls I’ve seen this week: the girl with lemon-colored hair in a rock band, Veal, who is flunking out of school; the girl in forest-green Dr. Martens shoes who insists on nose and lip rings; the eighty-eight-pound twirler who feels too fat and the deaf girl who insists on being sexually active to demonstrate her normalcy.
But all these girls are