Honoring The Needs of Our Teenagers

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“Every human being has a true, genuine, authentic self. Trauma is the disconnection from it, and healing is the return to it.” – Gabor Mate

We are in a moment in which every single young person who identifies as LGBTQAI+ is hearing messages that they are unworthy of love. Either explicitly through hateful rhetoric, or implicitly through legislation that denies them their right to self-actualization, they are being told that their authentic self is unwelcome. The message is that in order to experience love and connection, they should change themselves. These amazing teenagers are being told in some way, shape, or form, they would be better embraced by society if they hid their authentic self.

In the book The Myth of Normal, physician and author Gabor Mate posits that being in touch with our gut feelings, our bodies, our emotions is essential for all beings to survive. The awareness of, and comfortability with, those gut emotions requires a connection with one’s true authentic self.

“But what happens if, for the sake of fitting in with the family or with a culture that doesn’t particularly support our authenticity, we have to give up our connection to ourselves, our authenticity, for the sake of attachment?” Mate asks. “Then being inauthentic, being out of touch with ourselves, is how we survive.”

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He states that if one is to hide their authentic self, one’s authentic self cannot be known. And if genuine connection requires the experience of being fully seen and known, then the person who hides their authentic self will experience great loneliness.

“If you are not known, you’re going to feel alone; it doesn’t matter how many people surround you,” Mate says.

We are living through a particularly lonely time. Last year, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation” in the United States. How many of us have been taught to change who we are, disconnect from our authenticity, in order to fit in?

So if hateful anti-LGBTQAI+ messaging is the inciting incident, we must now do everything in our power not to leave teenagers with the belief that they should change themselves in order to experience connection. It’s our job as adults to help teenagers stay true to their authentic emotions, feelings, and needs – even in the face of forceful and unrelenting messaging telling them to do otherwise.

It’s up to us adults to counteract these messages and to honor the expression and needs of teenagers. It’s essential to create and protect spaces that encourage youth to stay connected to their authentic selves. And that’s what I believe our camp can do for these teens.

By tuning in and listening to teenagers and their authentic emotions, I believe we can limit the amount of trauma that will stay with them and help them stay true to their authentic being, so that they can be really, fully known and seen.

Photo by Toby Osborn on Unsplash

The mission of Odyssey Teen Camp is to provide a safe and welcoming space where every teenager is accepted, embraced, and celebrated for being exactly who they are. OTC endeavors to provide a lasting and profoundly positive impact on the lives of our campers as they continue their personal journey of self-discovery.