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When I was a teenager, I was a bit of a tomboy and hung with a mix of boys and girls, I played a lot of sport and hung around youth clubs and the adventure playground.
I never checked the mirror before I left home and I did not care what people thought about me. I experimented with make up, got it terribly wrong and moved on.
Yes, I liked boys, compared myself to others, especially a beautiful supermodel that was in all the magazines at the time. I remember wishing I had her hair, her nose and skin.
In contrast I was a spotty teenager that had an awful fringe to try and cover up some of the spots and thought my skin was embarrassing.
I definitely struggled with identity and fitting in, I remember wishing that I could be just one thing, black or white.
Life was different then and having a diverse group of friends with a melting pot of cultures and backgrounds just wasn't where it was at.
My teenage years were uncomfortable for many reasons, including parental separation, moving to a new country, racism, domestic violence, school and poverty.
Despite all these things I never once imploded on myself, I grew stronger from the experiences and used those experiences to develop resilience.
Friendships were as complicated then as they are now.
Bullying, or being the bully.
Fitting in, confidence and self-worth.
All were part of the journey.
I remember having a physical fight once with my best friend and a day later, we were friends again, and that was that.
We gossiped, played tricks on each other and generally treated each other pretty mean but, at times and when I needed them, my friends were my rock.
As a school counsellor, I hear a lot about friendship dilemmas and desperately try to add perspective to this.
Getting the young people to see that these issues, like everything else in life, will pass.
However, the distress that I see is acute, so much so that even coming to school after a friendship fallout becomes a challenge.
Depression and anxiety can set in, and for the young person it seems like their whole world has ended partly because they feel like they are missing out on things.
This thing called FOMO (the fear of missing out) is so real that it almost has its own life force that they constantly battle against.
I want what they have.
I want to be them.
I want to be with them.
I want them to want me.
I want to be needed and wanted by them.
I want to be having as much fun as they are.
I want them to include me without me asking.
I am sad and depressed because I want what I seemingly do not have - that thing out there, just beyond my reach - the life that they have and I can't have.
I am missing out.
I sometimes wish I had a time machine so I could escalate time and show them how irrelevant this argument is, this isolation that they feel, won't last and that everything changes with time.
The awful sense of dread for some young people, that they are not good enough and are not living their best life because they are not in the friendship group they want to be in. They are not being invited to the parties that everyone else seems to be going to.
Perspective is missing and although I feel confident in my role, I cannot get some young people to see that while they are wanting and searching, they are not in the present moment.
They are not able to find joy in today and the gratitude for what they have, is absent.
We blame social media for many of the woes of our children and young people and the evidence is clearly in the fragile nature of our children and young people and their inability to bounce back from difficult situations and experiences.
The content that our children are looking at seems to be having a massive impact on their view of the world and what is a realistic expectation of their teenage years.
As parents we often want to jump and fix things, make them better so that our children do not experience any distress but unfortunately, life is full of challenges, including moody friends that can be toxic.
All of us want to be accepted, loved and seen, this means that we need to be open to different types of friendships.
We need to have an understanding that every single person has a life experience that informs how they are within friendship groups.
Not all friends have the capacity to give us what we need all of the time - this depends on their own understanding of relationships.
Life is full of difficult and uncomfortable dilemmas, love yourself, love your possibility and look to those that can offer guidance and perspective, this is not always found in your friendships, it may be a school counsellor, mentor, older sibling or family members.
We all have stories of distressing teenage experiences, some we can even laugh about now, others might give us the shivers.
Just remember to love yourself first and lovely people will love you back.
What you don't heal you pass on.
Be well,