Chemical Hearts - Adults are just scarred kids who were lucky enough to make it out of limbo alive

You are never more alive than when you’re a teenager. Your brain is flush with chemicals can turn your life into a story of epic proportions.

And yet, by the start of my senior year, nothing interesting or remarkable had ever happened to me.

When I look at that, it reminds me that people are just the ashes of dead stars. We’re just a collection of atoms that... come together for a brief period of time, and then... we fall apart. When all of this is over, and we’re dispersed back into nothingness... we have a clean slate. It’s like having all of your sins wiped away.

Did you know that, uh, heartbreak triggers the same areas of the brain as physical pain? When I think about him leaving me, my brain sends a distress signal my nervous system. And it elevates my blood pressure and my heart rate, giving me chest pains.

Think about what it means to be a teenager. Okay? Your parents pressure you to succeed. Your friends pressure you to do shit you don’t want to do. Social media pressures you to hate your body. It’s hard, even if you’re a well-adjusted kid from a good family. So, now imagine you can’t be with the person that you love, like Romeo and Juliet or Werther, or you lose the person that you love, like Holden or Conrad. There’s a reason why, when every author, from Shakespeare to Salinger, writes about young people, they can’t avoid the truth, that... being young is so painful, it’s almost, like, too much to feel.

But have I thought about what it would be like to just not be here anymore? Yeah. And I don’t say that casually, but I do say it because hiding that shit and not saying it makes it worse. It should be talked about. All of our shit should be talked about. The teenage years are... limbo. You’re somewhere between being a kid and an adult, and the world, uh, tells you to be mature express yourself, but the minute that you do, it tells you to shut up. The thing is, adults are just scarred kids who were lucky enough to make it out of limbo alive. Which is why... the theme of our last issue be "Teenage Limbo."

I stopped seeing the point. Sometimes it’s just easier to slip into your own dark abyss and forget the world exists.

People change. There’s no way you’re the same person you were when you were 14.

I didn’t ask for your help, so stop trying to help me. Stop trying to fix me, all right?

I mean, I don’t even know if we were actually together. Maybe it’s just a bump in the road.

Well, the bad news is it’s gonna hurt. Your brain has gotten used to a steady stream of dopamine and oxytocin. Here we go again. Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, but that’s what causes all those blissed-out feelings of love. And now it’s replaced with stress hormones. They’re gonna make you feel like garbage. Headaches, tight muscles, tight chest. Your body’s craving those feel-good chemicals. It’s basically withdrawal.

it’s a chemical reaction that comes and goes. Here’s the good news: so is heartbreak. Your brain adjusts. Your body chemistry changes back to normal.

When you’re a teenager, the chemicals in your brain drive you to make decisions that rip you away from the safety of your childhood and drag you into the wilderness of adulthood. A friend once told me that adults are just scarred kids who were lucky enough to make it out of teenage limbo alive. I urge you to go outside and look at the world through that prism. Look at your parents, your older siblings. Look at strangers you pass on the street. Look at them and imagine that, at one point in their lives, they too walked these halls. They too felt the unbearable loneliness, the absolute unbearable powerlessness and darkness of being young.

We tend to think of scars as ugly or imperfect... as things we want to hide or forget. But they never go away. As I write this, my last editorial... I finally understand that scars are not reminders of what’s been broken, but rather of what’s been created.

Grace is a new student at Henry's school. She is supposed to work with Henry on the school magazine, but she is quiet and does not seem interested. One day, Henry misses the school bus, so he drives Grace's car with her. Later on, he finds out she had a car accident with her ex boyfriend before. Things are going well for them, and they are in a relationship. Though they are a thing now, he does not really know much about her family. It is revealed that she is still living with the family of her ex boyfriend. He wants to help her fix the life but she does not want it that way, so they break up.

Adolescence is a confusing stage, and it is painful sometimes. Every teenager has to feel and go through some scars before turning into adult. Every one of us has a story behind that shapes us who we are at this moment. Some of the scars are just hard to be cured, and they are not going to be fixed by someone easily. It is okay if you cannot get over it, but don't try to pretend you are fine and nothing had happened. It is unfair for someone be that rebound and be manipulated by you. Do not start the relationship if any of you is not ready.