Hi M.S.
I think
that, unfortunately, the answer to your question is probably at least
as complicated as you mentioned the background is.........there isn't
a single easy answer for me to give.
-The fact
that my family was quite achievement oriented to begin with and so high
marks gave me the attention and reinforcement I yearned for from them
-The fact
that my OCD then "amplified" this desire to achieve to a perfectionistic
mission
-The fact
that I would never have been able to "slip through the cracks"
even if I wanted to
because it was a small town, my sister had done exceptionally well before
me, and my father was trustee and, intermittently, chairman of the school
board. This didn't curry favour (often the opposite) but it DID put
a very large spotlight on me and my performance
-The fact
that I was good at school, and so gave me some self-esteem when I had
so little
-The fact
that I only ever felt good about myself when I was helping others, and
so I decided I wanted to be a psychologist and since psychologists were
doctors I simply had to go as far as one could go in school and that
was all there was to it -- blinders to any other option fuelled again
by compulsion
-Perhaps
the fact that I wasn't diagnosed with anything and so no one even offered
to
lower any bars -- my parents stayed on top of me to accomplish everything
they knew me to be capable of while at the same time allowing me the
independence to accomplish these things IN MY OWN WAY -- in other words
not compromising on the ends, but being very flexible in the means TO
those ends
Etc.,
etc........ as I say I think a lot of aspects combine together to give
a person the outlook they have at a certain point in life: these rather
idiosyncratic ones I mention probably just scratch the surface. If there
is any truism about teens though, it's that 'going through the front
door' and telling teens what they SHOULD do never works.
Along
that line I wrote a response to someone recently around a similar question
to yours and posted it...........I think you should definitely read
it too (at www.lifesatwitch.com/response54.html
... it might give you some ideas as well M.
Again,
I'm sorry my response wasn't as helpful as both of us might have liked
it to be, but hopefully something I've offered may be useful. I guess
bottom line was that I went through most of my academic wrangling in
public school so by the time I was IN high school I was simply in an
academic mode that I've remained in ever since. I think also the TIMES
were very different -- these days teens bring guns to school and smuggle
drugs into lockers. "In my day" being suspended was the absolute
end of the world: something that only happened to the biggest of the
losers and was flat out unfathomable.
So I guess
I would also say then that abject fear is not always a bad thing to
add to the mix -- there were certain respect boundaries that my generation
(and probably yours) simply didn't cross that no one thinks twice about
stomping all over now. That is a difficult pendulum to sway because
that's not just a TS thing -- it is a generational identity which is
firmly entrenched (and probably only amplified by the disorders). I
think that a lot of society runs based on fear -- fear of what will
happen if you DON'T show up for work, fear of what will happen if you
DO hit that person, etc. -- and people about 10 years younger than me
don't seem to be afraid of anything. Some would argue that is a very
GOOD thing, and to an extent I would agree. But not entirely.
Have a
good night M!
Dr. Dunc.
