Stoned Shamed Depressed, why teens and tweens can no longer hold it together
Wake up, and smell the coffee - a teen or tween in our homes could be taking the cough syrup to lull the pain of being.
When we accidently got a peek into the Bois Locker Room, whose doors were accidentally left ajar, we chanced upon the Girls Locker Room. The locker rooms, the violence of language, the homophobia, the sexualisation of young lives in that story were just the trailer.
Jyotsna Mohan Bhargava’s book Stoned Shamed Depressed offers the full picture of what’s going on with the teens and tweens today who are participants of these locker rooms and also those who are paying the price of not wanting to join in.
Sample this: A boy in Class 6 told his classmate that if she wanted to be saved from bullying, she should let him see what is under her skirt.
Boys will be boys is passe. Girls have caught up with boys in the bullying department in Indian schools. Girls are bullying girls - and also boys. Gender equality full throttle. Take it or leave it.
A girl changed school in Class 5. In the new school, she met another girl who forced her to do her homework. The threat of not doing it was punching. The punches came despite the homework being done. Soon this kid in the new school was being punched and roughed up by several other girls till she would bleed.
Bhargava’s book introduces us to not one, but countless such cases. The problem ain’t limited to bullying. In fact, bullying could be one of the smaller problems.
Children are turning violent towards their parents. Clueless parents are calling the police on their children. Most parents do not know awhat is going on with their children till they themselves have collapsed or caused someone else irreparable damage. They then turn to the shrinks.
The shrinks that the book introduces us to have horrifying tales to narrate. And they all agree – they have never seen anything like this before.
Every generation believes the successive generation is a lost one because the next one almost always treads its own path. The path on which the kids have set their foot is taking them to shrinks. Super achievers with a score inching towards a perfect 100 are struggling to hold on to life or make sense of it.
Unlike alcohol, drugs go unnoticed by parents since there is no smell. By the time behavioural abnormalities are noticed, the child has crossed the point of no return.
To get that Insta-perfect photo, boys and girls are choosing to go through bulimia and anorexia. There is pressure to lose virginity. It is inescapable for many.
Bhargava quotes the perpetrators (if you can call kids that), the victims, the parents, teachers, principals, psychologists and psychiatrists. Many kids have opened up to the author on what happened with them. What they did to the others. What others did to them. There are also those who have managed to buck what looks like the trend and stay afloat.
Stoned Shamed Depressed tells its readers there is no looking away from that which is going on. We have been seeing anxiety-fuelled twenty-somethings around us. They are just one criticism – positive or otherwise – away from total collapse because through their growing up, they have endured more than we cared to notice.
The narration is pacy and the book makes for a quick read. It leaves plenty of time to reflect on the scale of the problem.
Stoned Shamed Depressed serves as jolt; each anecdote hits hard and leaves you aghast. You will pause and think, is this even possible?
Wake up, and smell the coffee - a teen or tween in our homes could be taking the cough syrup to lull the pain of being.