Section for People 12 to 18

10/13/24 I wish to restate something. You have a whole lot of allies in the Millenial and probably also the older Gen Z age bracket. You're going through some tough shit, and so did we. By all means discriminate based on age when you're looking for help with anything unless you know someone of some other age personally. I can't believe I just said that but it's important.

If you are under the age of 12, I wonder how you got here in the first place. If I'm not mistaken, the world of people older than you is essentially in chaos right now so I hope you guys listen to and trust yourselves. Don't believe anyone older than you when they say they've got anything more figured out than you. Chances are that's not true at all. Old folks (like me, cough, wheeze) do not have all of the answers. 4/14/23 but if you get nothing else from this website, please try to remember this: you have every right to defend yourself by causing harm to those who would or are harming you, so long as you spare the innocent and are ethical. Every right. It's not virtuous to be kind and gentle and merciful all the time unless no one ever is mean to you in any way.

New post 4/18/23 Insight on being who you are This is referring to the trans controversy and all that TERF stuff related to *ahem* a certain franchise. However, it applies to literally everything about growing up: defining who you are. Deciding on the course of your life. Following your heart and doing your best. All that. There's a lot packed into this guy's quote, and I'm (ironically) certain that some people will look at this and go "OOOH SHES TRYING TO MAKE MORE TRANS PEOPLE." No. Just for the record, no. I just think it's important.

Here is how to get legal emancipation from a parent or guardian NOLO article Look into it for your state as well. If you don't need this information yourself, chances are you might know someone who does. EDIT 10/16/23 There are two functionalities on iphones these days that can help you covertly record evidence of any mistreatment. They are the camera app for recording video with audio and the voice memos app. Play around with them for your situation so you can set them up to record things (silently and without telltale noises or lights) with the press of an onscreen button. Back them up to an anonymous email such as a protonmail account and you have evidence. I would imagine there are probably other apps that exist for such things too, so depending on what kind of situation you find yourself or a friend in, research it. And please, be careful.

I used to recommend r/asklawyers or some subreddit like that for legal advice/any advice if you are going through bullshit at school or at home. Turned out to be a total waste of time. Saw this thread today, 4/14/23. It may be worth it to ask questions like this at r/Askreddit or r/narcissisticparents, depending on your situation. I do not recommend anything you haven't thought through fully, because every action and inaction has consequences. And trash generally objects to being taken out of your life unless they've decided to voluntarily leave your life (usually in a hurtful way at the time, but boy is it something that is great in hindsight, hence that old saying about "be grateful when someone ghosts you or similar it is the trash taking itself out"). Think things through, follow through, and pat yourself on the back for doing the best you can with the cards you've been dealt... is my (possibly worthless) advice

If you hate school, there is a chance you can enroll in a local community college and take a GED test instead, or just take a GED test, depending on the state you are in and your age. Do look into it please, since high school in the US is pretty much p o i n t l e s s. Ask pretty much any college advisor or career professional... they'll probably say the same thing. GED test website New 3/22/25 GED Test Prep Book Presumably there are others like this but McGraw-Hill tends to be the best quality textbook-wise. I'll take a glance at this book's contents and get back to you but it should contain what you need to know. My high school teachers all lied. I didn't need to know a goddamn thing from what they taught in my adult life. Junior high and elementary covered it all, and my high school taught me nothing else of value. However it is not clear in each state or federally if someone in high school is legally allowed to take the GED test and if they take it and pass they get a get out of jail free card from the jail that is high school. So I think lawyers in each state need to take this on, for the kids' sake. 5/8/23 Here's another way you can make school suck less. Were you aware that people who are not in school have no idea who to elect for local and state boards of education? How a person publicly presents themselves and how they behave in the school system are two different things entirely. Therefore, those 18 and up who vote for these things need you to speak up. Tell all the trustworthy adults you know who to vote for and why, providing as much detail as possible, please. I've tried to find information for this myself for local school systems and it's almost impossible once you're over 18.

How to cope with heat Some tips for this summer

How to cope with empathy Some tips for that. Refers specifically to psychic empathy, not being a nice person.

Wisdom, Tips n Tricks Some assorted things I learned the hard way, if you want some advice mostly on things not to do

r/askoldpeople A subreddit that is exactly that. Dunno bout you but when I was 12-18 I knew maybe one person older than me who had any sense, let alone wisdom. But this subreddit has wise people in it! Woot!

If I was a mega bajillionaire gazillionaire, I would buy every one of you reading this one of each of these books. But since I am not there (yet), I can recommend them at least. Because these help with basically everything.

• 4/21/23 Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies by Tara Schuster - as of now I'm one chapter in and still recommend it, even just for the first chapter. Don't know what's in the rest of the book yet. It's the textbook on adulting I wish I had.
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, the Penguin version (I have skipped the lecture before and after the actual book, fyi, so don't know what's contained in those)
• The Art of Science by Joseph J. Carr
• Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach
• The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
• The Joy of Cooking, whatever edition you can get
• Ballerina Body by Misty Copeland
• Girl to Girl: Honest Talk About Growing Up And Your Changing Body by Sarah O'Leary Burningham, and the American Medical Association Boy's Guide to Becoming A Teen. Yes, both; how on earth are you supposed to understand people who are a different gender if you don't learn stuff for both? Honestly, I'm reading these both now because I have a horrible (and well founded) suspicion that I didn't learn any of this shit growing up, and I'm pushing 30. So yeah they're important.
• 9/22/23 The What To Expect When You're Expecting series. Teaches you more about health stuff than you'd get otherwise.
• 9/22/23 The entire Silver Spoon manga series. Teaches you more about business and social dynamics than you'd probably get in any high school. Important note: there's nothing about Ainu culture, traditions, or history in volumes 1-11, or even later afaik, which is not right since this is based in Hokkaido. Look into it if you can, it's worth it
• 9/22/23 Horimiya, the manga series. Teaches important stuff about social dynamics.
• 3/21/25 Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley - Of all the cleaning books on the market, and I have read a whole lot, this is the one that you can use in ANY circumstances, and it will make them at least slightly better if you adapt it (and probably adapt it a lot) for your circumstances. This includes limited mobility, limited funds, limited time. To adapt it for any of these particularly limited mobility, you can do: things adapted for what you realistically are able to do without hurting yourself, way less of each thing, do way less at a time, and do all the stuff for a much longer period of time. A little here and a little there but consistently over time - always remembering to be realistic about what you can and can't do without hurting yourself. Now here's the strange part: this is a really weird book. The author's a Bible-thumping person who certainly has her own way of doing things. There are some definitely sexist and ableist things in here too that are frankly cringe, most notably the "you can cope with anything" (Not war crimes or mental illness, guys) and "just think positive, cleaning will make you not sick anymore, and life's gonna be great" nonsense - which in her case I'm actually willing to put up with cause she still has useful info. (In case you weren't aware, it's possible to take the Bible-thumping stuff in here and adapt all of it for your religion, spirituality, or philosophy - gee, for people with odd religions like mine I suspect we do a lot of that once we figure that out.) I guarantee you there will be stuff in here that you either can't use or probably shouldn't. But it has some very useful information. In fact the methods outlined in here are so accessible and doable that you could in theory apply them to anything. Clean up the environment? Probably. World peace? Probably. Change your life or quit some kind of addiction? Perhaps. Achieve some other goal? Maybe. Cleaning, improving something, improving quality of life, this is adaptable to other conditions and other problems you can solve. It's kind of like how if you know how to cook, you can "cook your life" and follow recipes or improvise-cook up better conditions. If you know how to clean, you can clean up your whole life. Garbage out, good stuff in. - Addition 3/13/25: I actually like this author, as a teacher and as a person. If you read her work you might too. And if you are in the military or part of a military family this can really help. Addition 3/21/25: Also contains some mental health advice and adulting advice that might work for you.

Some assistance if you feel you might need it

• Learn How To Adult Youtube channel
• Dad, How Do I? Youtube channel
• Mom, How Do I? Youtube channel
• 12/15/23 Little Reasons To Smile, a Tumblr blog that seems shallow and superficial til you browse it enough to realize it was around since the wave of extremely depressed teenagers in the early 2000s and seems to exist to help people cope
• 12/17/23 Reasons To Love Being Alive, another Tumblr blog with various uplifting activities and mood boosters, in a fairly exhaustive image list. Sort it by tags using the left side of the page, or using the url https://reasonstolovebeingalive.tumblr.com/tagged/(add your tag here) for instance https://reasonstolovebeingalive.tumblr.com/tagged/athletics - the master list is impossible to navigate and might not have everything hence the recommendation to try searching for these using the tags.

Some music recommendations for you, if you haven't yet heard these

• Sweatsuit by Nelly
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
• Along Came Jones by Tom Jones
• Fleetwood Mac in highest possible quality audio; the conversion from vinyl to CD and CD to radio destroyed everything they made
• The Chrono Cross soundtrack

Renew/kill your faith in humanity? the newest comments

Some family favorite movies if you'd like to check these out

• Flight of Dragons
• Justin and the Knights of Valor
• Cirque du Soleil performances on DVD

Some family favorite TV shows or recordings

• The Muppet Show
• Monty Python's Flying Circus
• Cirque du Soleil performances

Other book recommendations in case you're bored and want something to do

• Nature Smart by Gwen Diehn and a lot of other authors - DIY nature-themed projects
• Glorious Country by Tessa Evelegh, Liz Trigg, Stewart & Sally Walton
• 3/13/23 Brain Droppings by George Carlin - oh no, did I just recommend that? I mean, given the social media climate today and all the bullshit on the news I think this is downright wholesome in comparison LOL, bear in mind I have not read most of this book and also love everything George Carlin made by default so YMMV

A List of Stuff from the 90s and 00s that I Really Want To Recommend cause i wasn't around in the 80s waaaahhhhh anyway hope you guys don't miss out on this stuff. Out of all the things you can budget for as what my husband and I like to call a monthly self-care budget, you might consider these.

• Cootie catchers, paper footballs, rubber band balls, finding the most efficient paper airplane design using books for it, and drawing Trogdor
• Post-pandemic, roller skating and ice skating rinks. Damn these things are the greatest you gotta go.
• Post-pandemic, gyms that have gymnastics areas, trampolines, and foam pits to jump into
• Might just be me but sports seemed to be way more popular. See what you can do with a set of sports equipment and a local park. As a kid I wasn't that into it but there are sports anime/manga that can maybe explain to you why people get so interested, such as Eyeshield 21, Slam Dunk!, and Backflip!!
• Camping also seemed to be more popular, don't know if it is now. Frankly wouldn't recommend it until Lyme disease and other tickborne infections are properly dealt with, because I was a very outdoorsy type and uh, am now disabled from tickborne illness. But if they do solve these treatment and vaccination problems, good books to get started with are Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills, and it actually is worth joining the Boy Scouts if you can. Or alternatively getting together a group of friends and an experienced couple of chaperones to go on regular camping and wilderness expedition trips. Leave no trace! And do wear DEET bug spray, religiously, plus sunscreen. DEET is disgusting, but it's better than Lyme.
• Point-and-click adventure games: Oregon Trail, The Secret of Monkey Island, and here's a whole list of them on Ranker
• Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and D&D, because despite the nerdiness factor, they provide a lot of fun and enjoyment, and the fandoms are so diverse and huge you're guaranteed a social life.

If you happen to be LGBTQ+ and are ever in crisis or feeling horrible, please see The Trevor Project so you can talk to someone.

FYI if you come back to this website when you hit 18 to read through it, you might like to know that I'm writing it from the perspective of someone who has done a lot. And I mean a lot. of really dumb shit in my life. If I've been there, done that and got the T-shirt, it would read "I am an idiot." So I hope any info you glean from the site can help you avoid at least some of the gigantic mistakes I've made. Oh and also, I got some extremely bad advice and a lot of attempts to get me to believe in total b.s. which somehow made the disastrous situations of my life even worse. Therefore I have endeavored to avoid b.s. as much as possible. YMMV.

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