Insecurities

We all have our own insecurities and struggles, no matter what age group it is, everyone is going through something in life. Tweens and teens tend to have the most insecurities compared to the other age groups. During middle school and high school, you can develop insecurities about your body, appearance, future, not fitting in, friends and so much more. These are some of the most common insecurities and how to deal with them.

• Body - Our body goes through a lot of changes in our tween and teen years. It is normal for tweens and teens to gain or lose weight. It can go up/down to 20Kgs. In the age group of tweens and teens, we also hit puberty, and puberty also brings weight gain/loss, acne and a lot of changes and development inside-out. Tweens and Teens can also have mood swings, which may result in bullying and insecurities. There might be a time when you will find people commenting on your weight gain or loss. It is very hard to deal with that, it might hurt you a lot. If some friend, classmate or acquaintance comments on your weight gain or loss, remember that, that's a reflection of their insecurity about their body, therefore they are noticing your weight gain or loss, you can simply tell them that you are comfortable with you body and you are aware of your weight gain or loss. Keep in mind to keep your tone, friendly but assertive. Remember a truly nice person or friend won't judge you for your body, and if they do comment, they will not comment in such a way that makes you insecure. If someone teases you or bullies you for your body, and it is affecting you mentally, stand up for yourself, instead of trying to fit into the ideal beauty standard, stand up for yourself. It's better to stop that behaviour, rather than develop insecurity. Remember your body has many more purposes than looking good. Your diet as a tween or teen should be a normal one. Which is three meals a day( Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner), and 2 snacks. Daily exercise is also important. Whatever decisions you make for your body should only be positive and healthy and with good intent.

• Appearance- During your tween and teen years your skin might develop acne, you might get pimples and a lot of other stuff, remember it's normal for your skin to be like that during tween and teenhood. If you are not happy with your features remember, that your features have a very low chance to change, so it's best to be happy with them, because in the long run that will be more comforting and positive. Many times the things people are insecure about is the stuff other people want. If anyone bully's you for anything follow the method mentioned above.

• Future- Many tweens and teens tend to worry about their future. Wonder if they will become successful or not. As we grow up, society makes us believe that we cannot follow our dreams, I personally believe that if we work on is what we want from a young age, we can achieve our dreams, even though it might be hard, I think if your passionate enough about something and start working on it early, things might work out for you. People tend to worry about exam scores a lot, and it is justified why, but determining your intelligence from your scores isn't really the best for you. Prioritizing your mental during exam season is something which is really important.

experiences-

My friend Anahita used to live in Mumbai, this is an incident she faced there -

Anahita and her best friend were really close to each other and got along very well, a new girl joined the school and Anahita noticed that she soon started spending time with her best friend. Her best friend and the new girl used to talk a lot together. Soon due to that Anahita developed FOMO . Soon she got insecure and she started to believe that the new girl and her best friend are more close, and that she was all alone . Soon that ended, but the emotions she got from that experience were negative.

This happens to many people and is common. FOMO stands for fear of missing out, we think that if we aren't doing certain things or if we don't know some things we are missing out on a lot of stuff.

Anahita felt she wasn't good enough, when the new girl spent time with her best friend, that is also very common. The feeling of not being good enough showed how easy it is to get insecure.

If you are in a similar situation, the best thing you can do is talk to your best friend because, if you express your feeling to your friend, they will understand you, and will help you. and if they don't, it clearly means that the friendship won't workout, out because you tried your best to communicate but the other side did not understand your emotions.

Artwork by Diego Ridao