My Opinion on Emerging Adulthood

In 2000, Jeffrey Arnet introduced a new term to our society: emerging adulthood. It is used to describe the transition period that one goes through as they go from being adolescent to an independent fully-functioning adult. The age range is about 18 to 25. For my parents’ generation, this term wouldn’t be applicable because they didn’t go through this weird transition phase. Neither of my parents went to college; my dad graduated from high school and went straight to work while my mom graduated from vocational school and became a nurse. Since middle school, they had been living away from home and taking care of themselves. At the age of 15, they were required to be independent, prepping for them for the responsibilities of being an adult.

For my generation, I’m not quite sure when we become fully independent from our parents. I have seen people my age been taken care of all the way up to college if not after. With this unrealistic idea that anyone and everyone can attend college, everyone has their eye on the prize: a college education. Parents obsess over their kids going into college, especially Asian ones, and that pressure isn’t necessarily healthy for their kids. And even while in college, parents are monitoring their children left and right, helping them fill out FAFSA, paying for their tuition, dictating their majors. Some of these kids could have just been fine going to a vocational school doing what they like, but instead they’re thrust into a vacuum of unknown.

I’m not surprised I ended up with mental health issues and still struggle. While I was baited into going to Boston University and having my parents take out loans for my education, my brother went to De Anza and paid for his education. Sure I learned a lot and grew a lot, but for a while, I was also just confused with what the hell I was supposed to do in life. Sometimes I wish society hadn’t put unrealistic ideas into my head, that your dreams are achievable.

And for those who were lucky enough to have everything paid for by their parents, from college tuition to rent to food, they didn’t need to worry about money. Sure they may have some trouble deciding on a career, but they got a cushion if they fail. My cushion is a lot thinner than theirs. I blame the birth of the term, emerging adulthood, on the pressures of this “need” for everyone to be in higher education, regardless of your wealth status and capabilities. This “need” has thrown young adults like me into a warp hole called emerging adulthood where we technically an adult but unequipped to be an actual adult.

Five Features of Emerging Adulthood

Emerging adulthood covers the transition from dependency to responsibility as people my age prepare for a career, choose a profession, and learn how to live independently. Let us examine the 5 primary features:

Identity Exploration

After graduating high school, you finish one chapter of your life and move forward with the next, whether that be a four year college or straight into work with community college on the side. So begins the start of your journey to figure out the meaning of your life in this world. You are no longer the person you are in high school, and now you come face to face with this question: “Who am I? And what is my purpose?” Going off to college opens up the door to more decisions than you had in high school and some of those decisions could be really risky, either dangerous or rewarding. You begin to question you parents’ values and even your own, when you meet people from different backgrounds and different stories. I guarantee that you will enter college one person and leave college a different person (variability depends on the person).

Instability

During the ages of 18 through 25, you are simultaneously exploring your identity and trying to figure out what to do with your life. Some of you are lucky and have already found something that you do want to do for the rest of your life. For most people, it’s unclear, and we can see the instability in my generation when the average time spent working for one company is 2-3 years. If you stayed longer, people would probably think you’re strange. But, even before you start your profession post college, your instability started in moving away to college. I moved from California to Massachusetts. Both states were pretty liberal so I didn’t experience too much of a cultural shock, but I hadn’t realized how big of an effect moving away from “safe people” like my parents and friends were. I started experiencing separation anxiety when I decided to spend a semester abroad in France. That forced me to be in a new environment, which can be very emotionally taxing, and it made me miss a semester with my friends back at BU. Missing out that semester with some of my friends actually made me really depressed because I felt like the puzzle piece that didn’t fit in. As if I was part of a different puzzle. This all happened in less than four years, and the instability left me little time to emotionally adjust and adapt.

Feeling In-Between

Most people who are in this phase of emerging adulthood feel that they are neither a teenager nor an actual adult because they are still dependent on their parents for certain things, but are also in the process of learning how to be independent.

Self-Focused

I was so self-focused since I graduated high school, because it was constantly about who I was to become in college. I was constantly worried about how I felt and how a situation made me feel. I was so concerned with my own well-being, with how I felt like I let my parents down. It didn’t help that there are so many books now out on the market about self-love and self-improvement. Sometimes being self-focused can be helpful because you can learn new things about yourself, but sometimes it’s not so helpful when focusing on yourself means failing to see what is happening around you.

Endless Possibility

Supposedly, there are endless possibilities for the young emerging adult. We have been made to feel that we are invincible and can accomplish anything that we set our minds to.

I personally think that this is wrong, and can be a significant factor in young people’s development of mental health disorders.

Gender and Addiction

Colleges are pretty smart when it comes to alcohol safety education on campus. After officially accepting Boston University as my college of choice, I was immediately directed to fulfill certain requirements like health forms and complete a course on alcohol consumption. Being a rather sheltered child, I had never been exposed to much alcohol (other than the occasional beers I see my dad drink). I knew the consequences of being drunk because there were so many assemblies about drunk driving or texting while driving. Consequently, I was pretty intrigued with the mandatory course on alcohol consumption. I learned a lot about: about how much one serving of alcohol was for different types of drinks, how alcohol prevents you from being cognizant, and what you can do if you find someone intoxicated.

After I joined a club on campus that mandated a workshop on alcohol, I learned more about other factors that affect one’s blood alcohol concentration such as weight, birth sex, food, strength of drink, rate of drinking, and drug use. There is one particular exercise that I always look forward to -- it involved creating a fictional girl (as my club was a sorority) and mapping out a regular Friday night for her going out to drink. We would figure out her BAC levels using an online BAC Calculator. At the end of the workshop, we were also handed little cards comparing BAC levels between men and women.

After the facts and this exercise, I would be reminded that alcohol affects women a lot faster than it does for men. And, this got me thinking about the relationship between substance abuse and gender.

Sex vs Gender

Before we dive into how gender affects alcohol addiction and drug abuse, I want to clear up some definitions. Sex refers to the physical, biological characteristics that we are born with while gender refers to societal roles set by our society.. For my post, I will be using gender to identify the same sexual and gender characteristics.

Substance Use in Men and Women

Substance use differs between men and women because of our their physical bodies as well as their gender roles in society. There are different motivating factors as well as genetic dispositions that influence how one becomes addicted to drugs and/or alcohol

Mental Health

Without a doubt, there is a strong correlation between mental health and substance abuse. Unfortunately, according to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, women are 70 times more likely than men to be diagnosed with major depression and twice as likely to develop an anxiety disorders. This means that women are more likely to abuse prescription drugs that have be prescribed for their anxiety disorders or depression. In another sense, women are also more likely to self-medicate than men especially when prescription opioids can be help decrease the fatigue from work, child care, and household chores.

Physical Differences

According to research, women are more likely to anticipate pleasure and rewards with drugs due to their estrogen levels. When they take drugs, estrogen trigger receptors that help women feel the effects of the substances a lot faster than it does for women. For example, women have a harder time giving up smoking because their bodies metabolize nicotine faster and the nicotine patches and gum are unable to work as effectively as they do for men.

While estrogen helps women seek after the pleasure aspect of drugs and alcohol, male brains release a greater amount of dopamine from alcohol than women.

In terms of alcohol, women and men also metabolize alcohol very differently. Men have a higher concentration of a particular enzyme that helps metabolize alcohol, thus they sober up faster than women.

Drug use can increase infertility in both men and women. In women, it can even hasten the onset of menopause. Women should also not use drugs when pregnant because the drugs can pass on to their children through the blood system and their breast milk

Societal Roles

One of the reasons why men continue to use drugs and consume alcohol is because these actions reinforce their masculinity. On the flip side, women participate in the consumption of drugs and alcohol as a socializing event.

Addiction Treatment

Drug addiction had been studied from a male perspective and that means a lot of prevent programs and rehab facilities have been designed for men. Now that there has been more research done on the effects of both men and women, we know that men and women need different types of treatment.

Women are often better at identifying and acknowledging their problems and taking the necessary steps to get help for their conditions. However, at the same time, wanting to go in for treatment can be very difficult if they have a family to worry about. Some might even hide the fact that they have a problem fearing that they could possibly lose custody of their children. Women are also prone to a higher rate of relapse, so they should be put in contact with people who can help navigate those situations should they arise. An ideal environment will allow women to feel supported and empowered, provide quality child care options on site, and lead by women.

When approaching treatment, men have a harder time acknowledging that they have a problem and that they need help. This may be because of our society’s ideals on masculinity. Consequently, the only way they can be motivated to accept treatment is if they are faced with ultimatums such as prison, divorce, loss of custody, or loss of employment/enrollment.

Having gender-specific treatment programs allows men and women to feel comfortable opening up about sensitive issues and be free of distractions that the opposite sex could pose.

Art Therapy

It has been a little over a year now since I picked up brush lettering. I have always had a fascination with my own handwriting whether it be print or cursive. My younger self had made a few attempts with calligraphy that didn’t go so well, so I never thought I would take up brush lettering in the first place. I had a strong dislike for lettering because my fiancé’s ex is actually one of those people who makes cutesy cards to sell on Etsy. Just thinking about it makes me gag a little.

Now how did I end up brush lettering? Near the end of my junior year, I started experiencing depression and anxiety that crippled my mental health. There were times when I didn’t want to fight it, and I would skip class just so I could avoid seeing people or email understanding professors who would give me an extension on my essays.

I don’t know how I did it, but one night, I decided that I was going to cut the relation my mind had made between brush lettering and my fiancé’s ex. I went on Amazon and purchased a beginner brush lettering set. Mind you, I was really proud of my ability to detach emotions from something that was had been neutral, but tainted with my insecurities. And quite honestly, I am so glad I was able to do that because being open to brush lettering opened up a lot of doors for me as I found community through workshops provided by Caffeinated Letters. Caffeinated Letters is a collective of female artists with the goals to empower and inspire women to be boldly creative and build authentic community. Not only did I find a community, I also stumbled upon a very stress-relieving and therapeutic activity that I could incorporate into my daily life. Brush lettering became a creative outlet for me to cope with stress and control my anxiety.

Healing through Art Therapy

Although I personally never had my depression and/or anxiety treated officially diagnosed or received treatment, I can understand firsthand how art therapy is commonly used to treat psychological and mental health disorders. There is something to be said about breathing in and out as I pull the brush pen downwards and gently moved it upwards, slowly and carefully.

According to the American Art Therapy Association, art therapy is “a mental health profession that uses the creative process of art making to improve and enhance the physical, mental and emotional well-being of individuals of all ages. It is based on the belief that the creativity process involved in artistic self-expression helps people to resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, manage behavior, reduce stress, increase self-esteem and self-awareness, and achieve insight.” It not only helps people cope with anxiety and stress, but it is also used as a component of a person’s holistic addiction treatment.

Who is Art Therapy for?

Art therapy can be for everyone and anyone from young children to senior citizens as a means of communication and a way for them to express and explore their thoughts and emotions. Although no prior art experience is required, this type of therapy may not suit everyone. Here are some examples of people that strongly benefit from art therapy:

People with mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia.

People with learning difficulties or who are on the autistic spectrum that make it hard for them to verbalize their feelings.

People who suffer from dementia and struggle with feeling like they have a lack of personal identity.

People with a chronic/terminal illness such as cancer, leaving them potentially hopeless and in despair.

People who have a hard time expressing their thoughts verbally and find creative outlets a better communicator.

People who are coping with traumatic events and need medium to help process their emotions and trauma.

Consequently, art therapy can be found in hospitals, community organizations, senior communities, psychiatric rehabilitation centers, crisis centers, addiction rehabilitation centers, and domestic abuse shelters.

Goals of Art Therapy

Although there may be different materials, settings, and outcomes from each art therapy session, there are four concepts that remain constant:

Perception: Art therapy allows an individual to explore his/her own understanding of “self-perception” and “global perception,” leading the individual to recognize and validate his/her emotions.

Personal Integration: Through art, individuals can become more comfortable with their own identities and self-image.

Emotional Regulation: By channeling expression through a creative process, individuals can work on regulating his/her own emotions and impulses, leading to better emotional control.

Behavior Modification: Art therapy provides a space to exercise different responses to stressful situations, and it can help an individual learn how to better manage his/her behaviors in situations that cause them distress.

Types of Art Therapy

Art therapy comes in many different forms, and just because painting works for me doesn’t mean it would work for another individual. Below, I’ve listed some of my preferred mediums of art therapy when coping with stress:

Painting. This is probably the most creative art therapy technique because one has the freedom to paint whatever they please. However, people like me find that a little daunting so it’s helpful to know that trained art therapists can help by providing exercises or prompts to follow.

Collaging. Collaging is an art form that involves searching for pictures, cutting them out, and pasting them together on a piece of paper or board. You can choose any image that expresses your emotions or even inspires you. What I like about this is that you won’t have to draw or paint anything. People often use this technique to create vision boards of their dreams and goals in life.

Photography. Photography is similar to collaging because you can gather images of what you delight in, such as people you are thankful for or objects that you find pleasing to the eye. Once you have the photos, you can print them out and put them into your collage if you wish!