Being a teen is hard

Another study on those poor rats. They found that kids who binge drink in high school, or who smoke pot before the age of 16, have higher levels of cortisol, which is associated with high stress levels.

“That is the same type of profile that we see in adult patients who have been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder” and other mood disorders, says Pak. “They are not able to get used to stressors and they have very exaggerated responses to mild stress....Stress can pull the trigger on the genetic gun.”

In other words: that high stress life in childhood might just be the trigger that set off your genetic pre-disposition to depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, or other diseases/disorders.

I know I had a lot of drug/drink use in high school, as well as a lot of external family stressors. They know kids who are lonely are also predisposed to this kind of disorder, and I sure had 2 years in public school where I had one friend, and I was absolutely miserable. I had a boyfriend who was just with me to make his ex jealous, and I still think that some guys are tricking me. Especially with Adam. I thought it was too good to be true.

I wonder all the time if a lot of my bipolar symptoms are actually the result of all that LSD I did in high school. I was up to maybe 16 tabs, which is past the "legal limit" for sanity. I wonder, too, what my brain looks like. And what my poor liver looks like. I should donate my body to science.