The negative biological effects of puberty on happiness

[Eunuken (imported)]

This is an interesting article I found today.

http://www.simnia.com/systemology/puber ... ogical.htm

The negative biological effects of puberty on happiness

Introduction

This article documents one of my biggest insights into the influences on happiness in my life.

For years, one of the biggest mysteries of my life was why my life had changed character so dramatically in one certain year. Before that year I had been consistently very happy, but all of a sudden in that year there was a general decline in my happiness that I couldn't explain, and it was never fully restored. Objectively, most things that year were the same as before, yet everything important seemed to change that year, especially my emotions and the whole atmosphere of my world. It wasn't until after I had changed the labeling on the time axis of my happiness analysis chart one day that I noticed that my age in that critical year had been 12-- the typical age of onset of puberty--and I realized that puberty must be the culprit.

The reason that puberty was not an obvious candidate as a detrimental influence to my happiness is that the changes that most concerned me weren't supposed to have anything to do with sex hormones. Of course I knew as well as anybody else who had taken sex education before puberty that my interest in sex would increase around that age, and I was well aware of that change as it began to happen to me. But I had never heard of the much more profound changes-- things that didn't seem related to hormones or body changes at all. They never taught us how entering puberty would affect our emotions. Nobody taught us that anything else would be affecting us males other than the usual textbook list of male body changes (body hair, deepened voice, nocturnal emissions, etc.). I realize now that the experts probably didn't even know about the other changes I'm about to describe, and they probably still don't, since I still can't find any mention of such changes in textbooks.

List of changes I experienced

Here are some of those profound changes that happened to me in puberty that they never taught us about in school, all of which had a negative impact on my former happiness:

profoundly happy dreams ended

My onset of puberty happened to coincide almost exactly with my 12th birthday. About 2-3 months after turning 12, I woke up from the most wonderfully inspiring dream. In this dream I had been living in a tropical paradise with other youth my age, a place where beautiful corals could be seen just a few feet beyond the water's edge, and I was so eager to go diving there. We lived in some kind of school-like environment, I think with large lawns between the buildings. I remember a wonderful feeling of friendship and comraderie, a sense of academic excellence, progress, enthusiasm, pride, balance, harmony, of playing music and singing together, of being everything I could be, and everything being as good as it could be.

As equally profound as the dream itself was the realization that I hadn't had a dream like that in a few months, which surprised me. Until that particular dream, I'd been having such profoundly happy dreams all my life, at least once a month, and I just assumed that such dreams were normal. Apparently those dreams had slowed down their frequency so gradually that I was unaware of any change happening until that last straggler dream from the series came along months after the previous one and thereby reminded me of my previous pattern. This realization really surprised me at the time, and I just assumed that the dreams would eventually return.

They didn't. That was the last truly profoundly happy dream I ever had. The impact of that one dream on my life was extensive. The vision of that tropical academic paradise formed the foundation of my later philosophy of art, influenced where I wanted to live and travel (I ended up moving to Florida), influenced the kind of people I wanted to associate with, influenced my philosophy of life, influenced my educational decisions (I ended up getting a Ph.D.), and more. And that was just one dream. My childhood was filled with such dreams!

When I mentioned this phenomenon to my sister many years later, she just shrugged it off by saying "I still have happy dreams." Well, I still have happy dreams, too, but those aren't the kind of dreams I'm talking about. I'm talking about profoundly happy dreams, dreams so happy that I would wake up absolutely glowing, feeling like I'd been in a different world, a dream world so wonderful and so important that I spent the next several days thinking about it, telling people about it, and those dreams would literally change my life, and would give me a vision of how wonderful life could be. (I've also mentioned this phenomenon to males, but usually all I get back in response is some lame joke about wet dreams.)

I believe those special childhood dreams shed light on the nature of happiness. When sex isn't the primary interest in life, what replaces it? Such dreams provide a major clue: positive sharing, appealing physical environments, and intellectual satisfaction. Interestingly, those three components are among the most important components of a happiness formula I developed. Even more interestingly, sex isn't in my happiness formula at all.

I'd be very interested to hear about this issue of unusually happy childhood dreams from people who remember them, or from parents who have heard their children mention such things, or from any researchers who have heard of such things.

beloved things changed

For me, one of the most beloved things in life was seashells. On and off throughout childhood I'd been extremely thrilled with seashells, coral, beaches, and just about anything having to do with the ocean or marine life. But at one year into puberty and I began to rapidly lose my interest in oceanography. Shells and coral still seemed nice, but a profound difference in outlook had occurred somehow. Specifically, here are some of the oceanographic things that used to thrill me, and a comparison of how I related to them before and after puberty:

seashells

Before puberty: I would be totally thrilled to be in any shell store. Once a nasty lady cashier got very suspicious when she saw me writing down names of corals and their descriptions, but that was very indicative of the extent of my interest, and was typical of my academic interest.

After puberty: I would still go into shell stores out of habit, but could never again find anything I really wanted, and could no longer feel that earlier thrill by just being there.

beach

Before puberty: I always wanted to go to the beach, every day, every season, all year long. At the beach, I would get so excited about running to the ocean as soon as we parked that I could hardly contain myself, feeling that "everybody else was going to get all the shells" if I didn't hurry.

After puberty: By the time I got a driver's licence and finally had the ability to go to the beach whenever I wanted, I was no longer interested in going.

diving

Before puberty: I couldn't wait to go skin or scuba diving at every opportunity.

After puberty: I would have to turn down my diving buddy's repeated offers to go on dive trips because I had mostly lost interest.

career direction

Before puberty: I couldn't wait to be an oceanographer.

After puberty: No branch of oceanography carried any real interest for me.

cycles of interests

Before puberty: My interest in seashells would cycle in and out about every two years.

After puberty: My interest in seashells never cycled back, but instead was replaced by another set of interests that would cycle in and out as seashells had done before.

My specific interests aside (seashells), I believe this is a universal phenomenon. Whether a child is obsessed with trains, cars, firemen, pirates, cowboys, mermaids, handsome princes, jewels, rocks, insects, fireworks, machines, or whatever, the type of joy those interests brought at one time naturally disappears around puberty. I believe that some of those interests that have a place in mature adult life sometimes still continue, but that the earlier inherent thrill is replaced by more mature appreciation (if justified) rather than natural childish glee.

beloved places changed

It used to be absolutely consistent that I would feel happy as a child whenever my family went for a drive along the beach, or even through a coastal town. But this phenomenon disappeared a few years after puberty, and I felt empty and confused as a result, and thought I'd done something wrong to destroy my ability to feel happy in those places anymore-- maybe that I stopped keeping a diary, or that I'd been jilted by various girlfriends, or something.

For example, as part of the momentum from my years of oceanography interest, I ended up going to a university that was located in the coastal area I loved most, and I lived in the dorms there. But by then, despite all my anxious waiting for several years to live in that area, once I was actually living there I felt little of the thrill that I would've felt if I'd been able to move there a few years earlier. I had obviously lost something, but couldn't put my finger on what it was.

At another time in early adulthood, my mother and I were driving at night through another coastal town (Leucadia) in my beloved stretch of territory, and again I felt strangely empty, void of that happy, cozy feeling that I always felt before whenever I was there. The empty feeling of that incident was so striking to me that I ended up writing a song about that night, called "Nighttime in Leucadia," an introspective rumination about why I didn't feel happy there anymore.

beloved books changed

Until puberty, one of my favorite book series was The Three Investigators. This was a fairly typical Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew style detective club series, mostly of interest to young readers. For Christmas just after puberty, I received two such books and avidly read them repeatedly. However, by the following Christmas, even though two new books from that series had just come out, and even though we had a complete collection of the series up to that point, I was strangely no longer interested in any more books from that series, and no longer reread the ones I already had. This change in taste wasn't even due to social pressure. There was just something about the style and nature of those books that no longer held my interest or made them believable.

This is a very expected result of maturation, of course, but it added to my puzzlement about my changing tastes in so many things at once. It's interesting that some old beloved books of mine did not lose their appeal to me, such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne). It's pretty clear that the difference was simply maturity level: Jules Verne wrote for adults even if the subject matter appealed to children, and the scenarios were much more realistic, scientific, and detailed than in books written specifically for nonadults.

To be fair, I still enjoy The Three Investigators books now, after a long period of dormancy, but now it's largely for different reasons. My new reasons include nostalgia, curiosity about what became of the series, curiosity about my modern day reactions, its accurate capturing of the California atmosphere, and interest in how it captured a certain fantasy world so well. All this raises the question as to why anyone should write books tailored to older children at all, when books could be written that appeal to all ages equally, and won't change their stature as the reader matures.

Christmas lost its magic

This was a very striking phenomenon that was yet another unexpected disappointment. At Christmas time there was always a certain groove that my sister and I would go into, where we'd develop an elaborate story of migrating birds, where we'd play with Christmas tree ornaments that looked like birds, and we'd build bird nests of tinsel for them in the Christmas tree. We would always build secret forts behind our stacked up Christmas presents, talk about the adventure movie we'd seen as children about sliding through ice caves, and so on. It was an extremely cozy feeling, associated with the Christmas music album our family had always played around Christmas time, the scent of pine resin, and so on.

But at the first Christmas after my puberty, the magic was suddenly gone for me. I tried going through the same activities as always, such as building a fort behind the Christmas tree, but it now seemed foolish and none of it was bringing me that cozy, magical feeling that had consistently been with me for my entire life. The presents didn't carry the same thrill as before, or the tree, or the lights or ornaments, or the home manger scene, or the candlelight church services, or the special home rituals that I'd enjoyed so much the previous year. I was wise enough by then to realize that probably every Christmas after that was going to be a disappointment, and I was right. Puberty had permanently stolen the magic of Christmas from me, and nobody had even warned me.

the Fourth of July lost its magic

All kids seem to love fireworks, and I was no different. But it's significant that the last fireworks display that I was enthusiastic about was in the last year before I entered puberty. After that, I can't even remember where (or even if) we saw any fireworks displays! Obviously fireworks had lost importance to me within the span of one year, just like Christmas. Puberty had therefore destroyed the thrill of at least two major holidays for me.

onset of loneliness

Within 2-4 months of entering puberty, I began to feel a new desire that was unrelated to sex. It was the desire to have a girlfriend as a companion for general sharing and fun activities. Along with this came a desire for the sort of the lifestyle that is depicted in Seventeen magazine, where guys and girls are hanging out together and having fun. I even noted this new feeling in my diary at the time, so obviously the feeling was very clear-cut to me then.

It was years later that I finally realized the implications of this observation. For one thing, this was evidentally the same feeling my mother had told me about in mid-adolescence as a big reason people get married. She said a certain loneliness sets in as a person gets older. It is now clear to me that the loneliness she mentioned is the desire for companionship (not sex) of the opposite gender, and that this was exactly what I had already started feeling shortly after puberty. (Her wisdom came a little late!) For another thing, this loneliness coincided at almost exactly the same time that I felt a sudden increase in sexual desire: I entered puberty around December, noted my increase in sex interest in January, and noted my loneliness feeling around March or April. Although those two desires were quite different, one can see a logical biological relationship [12], and the timing of the onset of those two different feelings was so close that it's unlikely it was a coincidence.

My experiences are corroborated by research results to a certain extent. For example, various articles ([10] [11]) report that the feelings of love arise from chemicals like oxytocin and norepenephrine, and from low levels of serotonin, so it makes sense that the feelings of loneliness are also chemically induced, and would most naturally begin at the onset of puberty. Also, romantic love is the only emotion known so far to be strongly linked to puberty [12]. The romantic loneliness I personally experienced was probably exactly this phenomenon.

The implications that this chemical, whatever it is, has on happiness is obvious. After childhood, our own bodies "turn against us" and make us feel unhappy unless we engage in courtship and mating activities. Clearly, after puberty our own bodies won't allow us to just exist and be happy as we used to be. In a very real sense, our own bodies chemically define what happiness means to us for each of those phases of life. It's a clever biological trick, but it's also sad to see our former happiness so unceremoniously discarded by our new hormones.

favorite foods changed

This one was really unexpected. I can understand that hormones alter body chemistry, but alter the sense of gustatory taste, too?

Until puberty my favorite food was lobster, and second to that, crab. After puberty I began to notice that lobster didn't taste special anymore, but instead seemed to taste quite bland. At first I thought it was just the particular meal that was at fault, but then I noticed that lobster never again tasted as good as it used to. In fact, I began to think that crab tasted better, and even crab wasn't that great. I felt rather disappointed, like I was not in control of my own body. How could something that had been my favorite food for so long now suddenly cease to bring me the pleasure it used to? I felt robbed, deprived of one of my favorite things in life. After that I became envious when I'd read about adults who loved lobster, because I believed I once shared their gustatory sensations and I assumed that somehow they hadn't lost their ability to taste it, even though I had.

I still don't have an explanation for this, and it sounds like something that physiologists would vehemently deny is possible. Yet I definitely remember this change in gustatory sense. It is remotely possible that all the lobster we bought in the early days was from a different, superior source (I read that coconut crabs take on the taste of their last meal, so it is conceivable that lobsters do too, and possibly our source of lobster in those days was better), but this is awfully far-fetched, considering that we ordered lobster at unrelated restaurants spanning many years.

eyesight worsened

Between 1-2 years into puberty I began to notice that sometimes lights at night looked blurred. This was especially true of lights in the blue-purple part of the spectrum. I found it hard to to believe that I might need glasses, but this turned out to be the case. I had always prided myself throughout childhood about my extremely good eyesight, and I hadn't done anything noteworthy that could explain needing glasses, as far as I could see. But by the end of high school I had gotten my first pair of glasses, though fortunately I almost never needed to wear them so I didn't. It wasn't until I spent a lot of time in school years later that my eyesight really started to worsen, but at least that had a logical cause, since I was reading so much then. It just wasn't fair that I should become nearsighted at a time when I wasn't reading much.

I realize that eyesight problems are probably genetic, but why did my eyesight wait until adolescence to suddenly worsen, for no apparent reason? Wasn't I undergoing enough changes as it was? Could the timing of my eyesight problem just be coincidence? I might think so, except for the onset of another ailment at almost the same time...

onset of allergies

Around the same time I also developed pink eye--an eye irritation--and an allergy to pollen. All of these changes within just a few months! The allergy was quite unexpected and annoying, just like the need for glasses. I'd never had even a hint of any kind of allergies all my life, then suddenly every spring and summer I would go into sneezing fits as the pollen began to fill the air, starting the year I entered puberty.

imprinting

Imprinting is a genetically based type of rapid learning that occurs in certain critical stages of life in certain animals, especially shortly after hatching in baby birds. Although imprinting mostly occurs in birds as a way of binding them to their mother, I believe there is an abstraction of this mechanism at work in human adolescents.

The most significant example of this was in my first love, from middle adolescence. Despite all the years and girlfriends I've had since then, and despite her eventually marrying somebody else, she is the only one who still gives me the feeling of butterflies in my stomach as I used to get in adolescence. Something caused me to "lock on" to that person in adolescence, and the effect was permanent. The wisdom that the first love is always the strongest and most permanent is fairly well-known, and my mother claimed later to know about that phenomenon, but never told me. I couldn't get such information anywhere--school, parents, friends, books, anywhere. Depriving adolescents of important education in emotional matters that will drastically affect them for the rest of their lives is outright cruel, but this seems to be standard practice in our society. I know I'm not alone because years later I met another guy with the same feelings, who fortunately had married his girlfriend while they were in their mid-teens. Even though they were later divorced and he remarried, he still claimed that they both regarded each other as the loves of their lives, and his second marriage was also tottering on the edge of divorce when I knew him.

Another example where I believe I may have experienced some sort of imprinting is in my taste in everything from music to scientific topics. There are fairly clear cut-off dates for all music I like, for example. All my permanent artistic tastes seemed to start one year before puberty (age 11), and end at the end of adolescence (age 16). I estimate that 80-90% of the songs I like either originated in those years, or else the styles or groups I still like originated in those years. The same with scientific subjects: all scientific subjects that ever became obsessively interesting to me had already caught my interest by middle adolescence.

Another possible example of imprinting in my life might be in memories and general impressionability. My memories up until mid-adolescence are unusually strong, but are followed by a rapid drop-off of memories. After mid-adolescence I simply didn't care as much about anything as much as before, and my memories are correspondingly weaker about details in those later years. Whether my earlier extra strong memories were the result of social events, rapidly changing conditions, general enthusiasm, positive environment, or other, I'm not sure, but it is often said that youth are "impressionable," which strongly implies memories in young people are particularly sensitive, which again suggests a mechanism similar to imprinting. There is definitely some emotion/memory phenomenon unique to adolescence, because songs I hear from that period often cause me flashbacks of unusually high intensity, unlike musical flashbacks I get from any other era.

I believe imprinting in adolescence has the same biological cause as imprinting in birds at birth: both are times when the brain is going through extensive rewiring and/or an increase in neural connections [7]. This especially explains the impact of a first love, since that would occur shortly after puberty when the neural connections are still being added, and that would therefore permanently "hard code" the stimulus-response to a given person.

List of changes others experienced

Here are more little-documented changes at puberty that other people I knew went through.

onset of modesty

There seems to be another chemical change in the body at puberty that is very poorly documented: a chemical that causes the feeling of shame or modesty about exposing one's body. Although this phenomenon has been documented somewhat, all such documentation I've seen is very sketchy, such as [2], [3]. This phenomenon may well be the basis for the biblical story of Adam and Eve [4]. One would think that a phenomenon important enough to serve as the basis of many of our laws and cultural taboos, and also as the first memorable story in the Christian bible would deserve some scientific research, but apparently this is not the case.

This phenomenon is most obvious in females. The impact to me as a male was in that many females I had known before puberty, especially the ones who liked me before, suddenly became defensive, self-conscious, and didn't want to talk to me anymore. I took this as a form of rejection, and this negative social change was just one more negative effect on my life after puberty. Again, if only they'd warned us in school that there was a lot more to puberty than physical changes, I might have been prepared. Since modesty is a type of fear, the onset of modesty could be considered to be an adverse affect on former happiness.

back problems

One girl who was a friend of our family from church suddenly was afflicted with back problems right around age 12. These problems were severe enough that she had to wear a back brace much of the time, and it was believed she might always have to wear it. Fortunately, she was able to discard the brace within a few years, but her physical problems reinforce the notion that puberty suddenly places a lot of unprecedented stress on young people's bodies [1].

Considering all these undocumented effects, on top of the other well-known changes of puberty (acne, menstruation, changing voice, changing body hair, etc.), imagine the changes that I and other youth went through at puberty! Female friends suddenly became self-conscious and unfriendly, adults stopped hugging me, suddenly all the things I had loved and that brought me happiness for years-- hobbies, places, foods, Christmas, Fourth of July, etc.--no longer brought me pleasure or happiness. As a result I suddenly had to change my career plans--a major and unexpected change in my life's direction. At the same time my health began declining for no apparent reason, and suddenly my default state of existence was to be lonely and unhappy unless I started socializing with all those girls who were simultaneously becoming defensive and moody. No wonder my general happiness declined so suddenly that year!

Teenagers are notorious for being moody ([5], [7], [8]), the effects of hormones on emotions are well-known ([9], [7]), the effects of menstruation on emotions in females are well-known, and little is known about emotions in adolescence, so my claims that there are other, important, undocumented emotional reactions to chemical and neuronal body changes at puberty are quite reasonable.

Conclusions

There are important undocumented effects of puberty and adolescence.

The undocumented effects of puberty are both physical and emotional.

The emotional effects of puberty can have very strong impact on career direction, hobbies, social relations, and more.

Collectively, the emotional effects of puberty tend to reduce natural happiness.

When analyzing your past happiness, it is important to divide your life into prepubertal and postpubertal eras, because the things that brought happiness in childhood often can no longer bring happiness in adolescence or adulthood.

I have not yet experienced or heard of any other natural, major dividing points in life that impact emotions anywhere near as profoundly as puberty, though the end of adolescence is also noteworthy.

Questions

Why isn't this stuff taught anywhere?

Why haven't other people noticed such changes? Why haven't researchers investigated these phenomena?

I can only guess at the reasons:

Adults don't have much respect for childhood.

Modern society is extremely adult-centric. If you're not an adult, you simply don't rate. You can't vote, you have little buying power, you can't sign legal papers, nobody cares about your opinions, etc. Because adults are physically and financially more powerful than youth, and because adulthood is a permanent state that spans the majority of life, adulthood is assumed to be the "normal" state of human existence, so any other state or outlook is regarded as abnormal and inferior.

But think about this! Adults always talk about how someone under the effects of drugs or alcohol cannot make wise decisions, and yet adults themselves are awash in body chemicals (hormones) that make them act crazy! In some sense, childhood is actually the purest state of existence, and is the default state, and therefore the most "normal" state of existence.

Forgetting due to social reasons.

I think most kids can't wait to be adults, to wear adult clothes, to be able to drive, to be accepted by society, to have the power they've lacked for years, and so on, so children aren't encouraged to notice, cherish, or remember their youthful feelings. Also, as youth get older, they rely on their gained experience to denigrate those younger than themselves as "immature," largely to make themselves feel better. Then, when reaching adolescence or adulthood, there is a tacit understanding that they are allowed to boss younger kids around.

Forgetting due to biological reasons.

It appears that whenever the brain goes through growth spurts, many memories before the growth spurt are lost or weakened. The two main growths spurts in the brain are in early childhood and puberty [6]. The first growth spurt would explain why people usually can't remember their early childhood, the second would explain why people tend to forget details of their lives before puberty. Also, because the prepubertal world is so different from the postpubertal world, someone now living in the postpubertal world would have a hard time relating to what life was even like as a child, which would further hinder memories of that era.

Nonadulthood takes up only about 1/6 of the human lifespan.

By sheer virtue of its relatively short length, nonadulthood could be deemed a relatively unimportant and anomalous time of life, even though those are the formative years for everything that follows.

The current child abuse hysteria limits research.

Since many of the issues involved in puberty deal with sex, an adult researcher would have to be asking children and adolescents about sex. In today's political climate, such research would come under extreme scrutiny and criticism, and some findings would likely even be banned from publication since they might be too challenging to our most fervently held notions about what's normal in nonadulthood.

Psychological/emotional changes are harder to detect than physical changes.

Physiologists of course are going to notice the obvious changes of puberty first, and they are probably discouraged from publishing conjecture in sex education textbooks. (Some places are lucky to even have worthwhile sex education textbooks at all! [13])

Education is ultimately focused only on making money for rich.

This creates a mindset that regards emotional and artistic issues as inconsequential. Therefore things that are important to children like atmospheres, emotions, nature, and animals are discouraged as interesting subjects for study, conversation, or careers, and so a great deal of terminology to describe nuances of feelings or physical atmospheres does not even exist, which in turn compounds the problems of communication, documentation, and study. For example, adults do not even know what I'm talking about when I say "profoundly happy dreams." Even though such dreams are distinctly different from normal happy dreams, no name exists for them.

I had a unique outlook on adulthood.

I think my sister and I were unusual in our outlook on adulthood. We had a saying between ourselves when we were children: "Babies are smarter than grownups." What we meant was that adults often neglected to see the obvious, and got excessively caught up in ridiculous issues at times. It was possibly this attitude that made me regret leaving childhood more than most people, and which made me more sensitive to the changes that were happening to me,

I was unique because I kept a diary at puberty.

This is rather unusual. I could actually look up the date of my last truly happy dream, and my written comments about it, whereas most people would have kept no such record to reinforce their memories. Lack of personal documentation of that time is another reason I think most people forget.

I was unique in memory, emotional depth, and sensitivity.

I do have an unusually strong memory, and deeper emotional depth than most people, and I had an unusual sensitivity to my emotional states. In combination, these would make me much more likely to notice and remember nuances from nonadulthood that other people might miss. My profound emotional depth might also account for profoundly happy dreams that other people might not have had.

Can childhood happiness be regained after being sexually and romantically satisfied?

Logically, it would seem that if puberty causes new chemicals to be added to the bloodstream that make a person crave sex and romance, then once a person achieves satisfaction in those areas, their earlier childhood interests should return as default. Empirically I haven't found this to be true very often, and I don't know why, especially for childhood interests that are legitimate career directions for adults. My best guess is that since spatial and mathematical ability greatly increase at puberty, that would tend to change what one is capable of appreciating and accomplishing, and might also put earlier interests into a different, inferior perspective. This theory is consistent with my own experiences, since the few interests from my childhood that did cycle back in my nonchildhood years were things that dealt with logic or science, especially math, chess, lasers, music, and foreign languages.

Closing comments

This article deals only with negative biological effects of puberty on happiness. There are also many negative social effects of puberty on happiness, some examples of which are:

some sources of innocent fun disappear

trick-or-treating becomes socially forbidden

playing hide-and-go-seek becomes socially forbidden

spying on people becomes socially forbidden

climbing trees becomes socially questionable

exploring tunnels or abandoned houses becomes trespass--legally forbidden

relaxing or hanging out anywhere becomes loitering--legally forbidden

many physical and social contacts begin to carry sexual connotations

playing with much younger people becomes socially suspect

girls sitting on men's knees becomes socially forbidden

teachers hugging students becomes socially forbidden

adult family friends hugging youth becomes socially forbidden

parents sleeping with their childen becomes socially forbidden

opposite genders taking baths together becomes socially forbidden

opposite genders sleeping together becomes socially forbidden

sex play with either gender becomes socially forbidden

same genders with arms around each other becomes socially questionable

same genders dancing together becomes socially questionable, especially for males

giving Valentine's Day cards to the same gender becomes socially forbidden

revealing outfits or postures become socially forbidden

girls sitting with revealing leg positions becomes socially forbidden

girls going topless in public becomes socially forbidden

wearing pajamas in public or in front of family friends becomes socially forbidden

romance-related activities become much more constrained

females are discouraged from showing affection for males, or from calling them

females who are going steady or engaged/married are socially forbidden to associate with other males

toys and dolls become socially forbidden

imaginary friends become socially forbidden

immature entertainment (cartoons, detective series books, etc.) becomes socially forbidden

getting into a fight becomes assault--legally forbidden

taunts become sexual harassment--legally forbidden

singing aloud becomes less socially acceptable

spontaneity such as dancing or acting strangely becomes socially forbidden

males taking baths instead of showers becomes less socially acceptable

poor musical or stage performances become ridiculed instead of automatically accepted

wrong pronunciation and grammar are more noticed and criticized

eating unhealthy foods (candy, ice cream, chocolate milk, etc.) is more noticed and criticized

(in some places and times) associating with other races becomes socially forbidden

In general, after puberty, all physical and social contacts become highly constrained, and all activities and habits become subject to social criticism or even arrest. Sadly, the cumulative effect of all the above problems from puberty-- biological, physical, and social-- each of which is permanent, is the tendency for natural happiness to diminish over time. It's as if emotional levels in childhood were artificially propped up by a series of blocks, then at puberty those blocks were rapidly kicked away at the rate of about one per month. Even if all other factors remain the same, the happiness level drops suddenly each time one of those blocks is kicked away. It is no wonder then, that I no longer felt the same kind of happiness in life as I did in childhood. I believe most people experience the same general effects to varying degrees, even if they weren't particularly aware of them at the time.

Does this mean the peak experiences of happiness are reserved for children? Not at all. I know from my own experience that the top two happiest days of my life were in adolescence, for example. Although our high baseline level of happiness from childhood is kicked away by new body chemistry, those same chemicals apparently allow adults to soar to even greater heights of happiness. The main drawbacks are that adults must now have potential mates in order to reach those highs, and those naturally happy feelings and outlook they had in childhood are permanently lost.

One suggestion I have for young people who want to avoid a "happiness slump" at the start of adolescence like I had is to begin cultivating possible romantic contacts as soon as possible after puberty so that the transition from one source of happiness to another is as seamless as possible. Otherwise, an adolescent is likely to experience a period where the thrills of childhood are gone but the thrills of adulthood have not yet replaced them, and that interim period can be one of boredom and lack of direction, or possibly even outright depression. For me that interim period involved boredom and lasted a full year.

References

[1]

In both sexes, the adolescent growth spurt affects practically all skeletal and muscular dimensions.

(Papalia, Diane E., and Sally Wendkos Olds. 1992. Human Development, Fifth Edition.. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 312.)

[2]

At around age 9 or 10, the first bodily changes of puberty begin: the formation of breast buds in girls and the growth of pubic hair. An increased self-consciousness about the body develops, to the point where the child may feel uncomfortable about being seen nude by the parent of the opposite gender. All this marks the transition to adolescence.

(Hyde, Janet Shibley. 1979. Understanding Human Sexuality. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 237)

[3]

It is interesting to note that once puberty begins the boys and girls themselves feel shy about their bodies and newfound sexuality and begin to resent even their parents seeing them naked. Even in societies that go almost naked, once puberty begins, they either cover up their pubic hair or adopt behaviours, which will not expose their nakedness.

Raff, René. 2001. "Nudity in the home."

http://iafrica.com/loveandsex/sexadvice ... 831323.htm (12-26-04)

[4]

http://encarta.msn.com/text_761569657__1/Clothing.html (12-26-04)

[5]

Research has shown that during puberty the connectivity of nerves in parts of the brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex, increases. "This plays an important role in the assessment of social relationships, as well as planning and control of our social behavior," McGivern said.

...

McGivern said the temporary "remodelling" of the brain occurs just when teens go through different social and emotional experiences. "As a result, they can find emotional situations more confusing, leading to the petulant, huffy behavior adolescents are notorious for," according to the magazine.

http://www.rense.com/general30/eten.htm (12-24-04)

[6]

Studying MRI scans of children and teenagers over a ten-year period, Giedd found that nerve cells in young brains undergo two waves of intense branching, the first in the womb and up to the first two years of life, and the other peaking at about age eleven or twelve, followed by a self-pruning period during the teen years.

http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/vi ... 68&cat=1_5 (12-24-04)

[7]

Now that MRI studies have cracked open a window on the developing brain, researchers are looking at how the newly detected physiological changes might account for the adolescent behaviors so familiar to parents: emotional outbursts, reckless risk taking and rule breaking, and the impassioned pursuit of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Some experts believe the structural changes seen at adolescence may explain the timing of such major mental illnesses as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. These diseases typically begin in adolescence and contribute to the high rate of teen suicide. Increasingly, the wild conduct once blamed on "raging hormones" is being seen as the by-product of two factors: a surfeit of hormones, yes, but also a paucity of the cognitive controls needed for mature behavior.

(Wallis, Claudia. 2004. "What Makes Teens Tick." Time, May 10. p. 58)

[8]

This is a huge change from a decade ago, when many doctors considered depression strictly an adult disease. Teenage irritability and rebelliousness was "just a phase" kids would outgrow. But scientists now believe that if this behavior is chronic, it may signal serious problems. Now brain research is beginning to explain why teenagers may be particularly vulnerable to mood disorders. (p. 55)

...

Pituitary gland:

Sex hormones released during puberty help explain the intensity of teen emotions and may spark more serious mood disorders. (p. 56)

...

The trends:

Depression rates jump after puberty, especially among girls. And up to 7% of severely depressed teens commit suicide. (p. 56)

(Wingert, Pat, and Barbara Kantrowitz. 2002. "Young and Depressed." Newsweek, October 7, pp. 52-61.)

[9]

Hormones are also closely associated with emotions, specifically with aggression in boys and both aggression and depression in girls.

(Papalia, Diane E., and Sally Wendkos Olds. 1992. Human Development, Fifth Edition.. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 310.)

[10]

How Do Fools Fall in Love?

1

IMPRINTING

Evolution, genetics, psychological experiences and even smells can trigger romantic reactions to another person. Scientists have recently found that animals may have an innate aesthetic sense and experience attraction.

2

ATTRACTION

The brain is revved up by phenylethylamine (PEA) and possibly the neurochemicals dopamine and norepinephrine, all natural amphetamines. These produce feelings of euphoria and elation. This stage can last for two to three years, then starts to wane.

3

ATTACHMENT

During this stage, larger amounts of endorphins (chemically similar to morphine) flow into the brain, leaving lovers with a sense of security, peace and calm.

"CUDDLE CHEMICAL"

The brain's pituitary gland secretes oxytocin ("the cuddle chemical"), which stimulates sensations during lovemaking and produces feelings of relaxed satisfaction and attachment.

(1993. Time, February 15.)

[11]

Scientists are finding that, after all, love really is down to a chemical addiction between people. (p. 73)

...

Dr Fisher suggests it might, indeed, be possible to inhibit feelings of romantic love, but only at its early stages. OCD is characterised by low levels of a chemical called serotonin. (p. 75)

(2004. "I get a kick out of you." The Economist, February 14th-20th, pp. 73-75.)

[12]

Data showed only one type of emotion strongly associated with puberty: being in love. Once past that stage, teenagers regardless of age were more likely to fall in love. This makes perfect sense considering that the capacity for reproduction is the biological evolutionary purpose of puberty.

http://www.aboutourkids.org/aboutour/ar ... ns_02.html (12-26-04)

[13]

The report, by AVERT and the Schools Health Education Unit, warns that thousands of young people are risking unplanned pregnancy and HIV because of poor sex education. Teenage pregnancies in the UK have risen to their highest levels in nearly a decade and are the highest in Europe. The government wants the rate of teenage pregnancy to be halved by 2010. Researchers asked 300 schools what sex education they were providing. Many schools are struggling with even the most basic topics such as puberty, they say. While an impressive 97 per cent of schools include information on sexually transmitted diseases, 12 per cent of young people are never taught about sex.

http://www.avert.org/sexsurvey.htm (12-29-04)

[Paolo]

Very informative, Ken, and a lot of points I think many of us can relate to.

[devi (imported)]

Being somewhat underdeveloped myself, now I understand why I loved hanging out naked at the hot springs. I was too busy having fun than to have sex. -Never persued it. Sounds strange but true. I actually never did really competely mature into an adult afterall. Such is a eunuch (from birth).

[Sweetpickle (imported)]

I'm sure glad I didn't have such a negative experience.

Puberty is a trying time for everyone, but it has it's good side too.

If you're male you get stronger, those skills you admired as a boy are

now possible for you to do.

You get more skillful, model airplane and car kits that were impossibly

frustrating before become possible.

Intellectual discernment becomes possible, you know why you can't fly.

Sex turns into a lot of fun, even if someone else is not available.

You get to have keen philosophical discussions with your friends.

You can still have childlike fun if you will let yourself. You can ride

any damn ride you want at disney.

You can earn serious money, have much of what you want, and retire

when you get old.

[loveableleopardy (imported)]

Wow......that was a real eye opener. Thanks for posting it. It's incredible how aware this person was of themselves as a child and teenager.

I agree with a lot of the points made about happiness lost post puberty, but it's nice that there was a positive ending.......that we can still reach such highs again.

Unfortunately (or NOT) this is dependant on being with a worthwhile partner. It is nice in theory that you can be 100% yourself with no strings attached, but life isn't necessarily that easy given this dependency on others to achieve our happiness.

Hence, some people have to compromise. Some compromising can be fine (and shows that you can think of others), but some can be too much.

I like the metaphor of a child having imaginary friends. In this instance the child's happiness isn't dependant on anyone else.

With me, I am 29, and have never been in a proper relationship. This of course explains a lot of my depressed times. But I'm sure that I'll be able to change this soon.

[erikboy (imported)]

Scientific approach. Well done!

I have experienced many similar problems and questions that are discussed in this article.

I wonder how much sex hormones really affect brain developement? It seem to me at least, that they don't affect brain developement as much as we might expect to.

But yea, we do not have any reliable scientific data available. And probably there won't be in any near future.

[chibifish (imported)]

And I was naive enough to think that none of the physical changes would bother me when I first heard about them. Because before puberty, I'd convinced myself that I didn't care at all about appearances.

Actually, what got me started had nothing to do with the physical aspects, but when I was twelve I watched a video of myself around my second birthday (While I remember a lot of the events in that video, there were a lot of things that surprised me--bits I didn't remember, or hearing my voice and it not being as clear as it originally sounded to me...), and realizing how much I'd changed personality-wise. Most of those changes predated puberty, but it was after things had started changing physically that I noticed.

I think puberty is partly to blame for my rapid decline in vision starting in 2002, though only partly--my eye had already been treated for scarring years earlier (my left eye never worked), and the event that started all of this--me looking around on the streets of Las Vegas--came after I'd had my eyedrops administered differently for a few weeks (with impressive results), and then somehow didn't bring them on the trip (Las Vegas was a stop on the way to Disneyland). So I think a combination of factors went into that, but the way my left eye reacts to air nowadays tells me that puberty probably had a lot to do with it.

I think the post-pubescent need for romantic companionship thing is truer than I ever wanted to believe.

I really f*cking hate that.

I think the posted article is overwhelmingly true.

I can't think of any real positive effects of puberty.

Well, realizations, perhaps, but they come at the cost of not being able to do much about them.

Before puberty, I felt like I was in control of my mind. Like if I could rationalize something well enough, then my thoughts and actions would follow suit.

Pretty well since the first time I masterbated I've felt otherwise.

Physical strength means little to me--I mean, the shape and size of my body and the way my vision has crapped out and the social crap (article summed that up very nicely) prevents me from using it in a way that means anything to me.

I've all but lost the ability to display affection, not because of a lack of feeling, but because of some irrational mental block.

People seem to think I "have" Aspergers Syndrome now, though everything I've read suggests a much earlier onset (never mind that I don't think I meet the diagnostic criteria anywhere near closely enough, and that the "diagnosis" was us talking to some woman for five minutes who said "He can eventually have a family and kids just like everyone else!". ... ).

Except now I'm going off into ranting about my own situation in a way that is surely off topic.

In conclusion, I want to try and work out the wording for a wish to fix everything for as many people as possible on the off chance that I find some wish-granting person place or thing that doesn't have an unreasonable cost now, because if I come across such a thing and don't have the perfect wording ready, I'll probably just make the wish for myself and be done with it. And then when I tell everyone here I'd feel like an ass.

[nullorchis (imported)]

In very early times humans entered puberty around 12 or so, had sex, had children, and did not live much older than 20 to 25 years old.

The fundamentals of nature seem to be to guarantee continuation of the species, nothing else. Happiness is irrelevant to nature. Many life forms die immediately upon perpetuating their species. The offspring are totally on their own upon "birth" and have no other living thing to help guide them into life.

"Higher" life forms seem to take longer to mature physically, mentally, sexually - such features take some time to develop, unlike say a jelly fish's requirements.

As far as I know humans are the only life form to have developed a way to extend their life span. All other life forms are pretty consistent in how long they live - which helps prevent over-population.

Knowing what I know now, had it been possible, I would have seen to it that I was castrated before puberty. How wonderful it would have been to not have to ever deal with sexual urges, frustrations, and failures. You can't miss out on, or suffer from, what you never had. There are ample people in the world to ensure survival of the species. Nature needs to create a third element in humans, a non-sexed human, to help reduce overpopulation.

maybe being gay, or being castrated (or wanting to be castrated) is nature's way of trying to balance things out. Unfortunately society punishes us for such thoughts, feelings, life styles.

[nullorchis (imported)]

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

With me, I am 29, and have never been in a proper relationship. This of course explains a lot of my depressed times. But I'm sure that I'll be able to change this soon.

Puberty, happiness and "proper relationships". A "proper relationship" could mean many different things to many people and would be very personal, individual, and not ultimately right or wrong in any way.

Some people long to be alone, left alone, and they fully enjoy it.

Others must be surrounded by people, (family or others) all the time and can't stand to be alone.

Puberty (nature) I guess causes us to long for, crave, closeness to someone else (usually of the opposite sex) because that's what nature does in all living things that have the capacity to engage in sexual activity. A "proper relationship" to nature means to reproduce, and that's about all.

Even in the non-human animal world there are examples of species and individuals that bond for life, or just wander and have sex with numerous partners with no bonding, although the propensity for one style or the other seems to remain constant within each species; seems like humans do both.

With lack of information non-humans don't perceive that there are alternative ways of living their lives so they just go on doing whatever they are "programmed" to do and they don't deviate much from that.

The problem for us humans is that we learn, we know, we think, and this leads us to want what we don't have for the grass is always greener isn't it?

There is nothing wrong with seeking out something that seems as if it would be desirable and better, as long as the quest is realistic and attainable. Seems like when we can't get what we want we get frustrated, and life becomes annoying and we become unhappy. The challenge then is to be content (or even happy) with who we are and what we can achieve, even if it isn't we can't be everything we wish we could be.

Being handsome/beautiful, charming, with a radiant personality, rich, with the most gorgeous body and outstanding body parts seems like the ultimate happiness. Yet, seems that people who have one or more of the above still have unfulfilled desires and have certain levels of unhappiness. In fact they may be despised by others who don't have what they have. Who among us is constantly happy all the time? Seems unnatural.

Bottom line; nature does not include happiness as part of its master plan. As a life form that works at controlling and adapting ourselves and our environment, only we, through internal effort, can cause ourselves to be happy, with what we have, or what we can realistically attain. Sometimes this just means helping ourselves to be not unhappy, or content. There is no stress with being content; lack of stress can lead to happiness, if one works at it.

[A-1 (imported)]

Growing up is painful, even if your development is normal and uneventful.

No adult alive has not at some time or another longed for earlier, simpler times.

Just remember. The child that you were NEVER goes away. YOU grow to protect that child. Whatever the child had to endure, YOU as an adult CAN overcome.

So remember the earlier, simpler times. However, protect your child from harm.

For in the end, that child is ALL that you really can help, and remember, by helping others and keeping them from harm, you help yourself.

For your child is but a child and only you can keep them from harm by not harming others...including yourself...