Okay, here goes, my teenage years - once over quickly. Being a teenager was utter misery. Not only did I have breasts and begin menstruating before everyone else of my gender at school, my abilities were getting stronger and stronger. It was really driving me to distraction, and that's putting it kindly. Between 8th and 9th grades, I grew to my current adult height - 5'10'' - which made me one of the tallest kids in school. That's right, one of the tallest kids, not just one of the tallest girls. In fact, 3 other girl friends and I were, till the 10th grade, the tallest in our grade, even in high school. Yeah, that didn't bring on any teasing and tormenting at all. Each one of us confided to the others that it would be sooooo cool to be able to shrink down to the size of a cheerleader and be popular for a change. That didn't happen either. Instead, we all grew breasts, got our periods, and in general were a mess till the rest of the girls caught up with us, at least as far as the periods arriving that is.
The closest I came to sharing my frustrations with my "gifts" with my friends was sitting with a bunch of girls in the womens' restroom at church telling scary stories, ghost stories and trying to levitate one of our group using "Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board" for a chant to encourage that to happen. When we actually levitated the girl about a foot off the cement floor, an adult stuck her head into the restroom to see what was going on - "CRASH!!!" down she came to the floor in a heartbeat, with a lump on her head to prove she hit the floor hard. Laughing and giggling we scattered to the winds as best we could so as to avoid any adult questions. When we talked about it later with one another, one of the girls asked, "Did you all see that man standing there watching us?" I nearly said "yes" but stopped when another girl said, "Yeah, right, there was a man standing there watching us! Where was he, in the sink? You have gotta be nuts to believe that!" But, there was a guy standing there, near the sink, watching everything we were doing and shaking his head in disbelief. No way in the world was I telling anyone that I could not only see him, but, sometimes, I could hear his thoughts as well. Nope, not telling a soul.
Ninth and tenth grades were okay, mostly. Tried my best to fit in with the few friends I had, and pretty much kept my mouth shut about hearing voices of folks not present and all that sort of thing. Junior and senior years at high school were the absolute worst ever. I finally was allowed to date, sorta. Had to have a chaperone for the first 6 dates because my folks thought me so naieve as to "give myself away" to the first boy that would even think about kissing me. Never had those thoughts, but, they didn't care. Teenage hormones scared the crap out of them, so, I got to go on chaperoned dates. Yep, that really made me a laughing stock and put me utterly out of the realm of dating. When they finally relented because I wasn't being asked on dates, I dated a wonderful fellow who "sorta" accepted the paranormal - ghosts, spirits, and that stuff, not hearing and talking to them. It was fun, but, frustrating because I could hear relatives of his trying to communicate with him. Since he didn't want anything to do with that stuff, I got to pretend it wasn't happening. Hated that part. Being someone I wasn't just was miserable. Things didn't get any better the next year either. In fact, my gifts were being so "pushy" that I began wishing them away every day. Each time they would rear their heads, I would wish them to go away... till finally they did. My head was quiet. I didn't sense anyone "lurking about" anywhere, ever. I was alone in my own skin, in my own world, and, as much as I had thought I would like it, I wasn't so sure I did.
I finally knew what it was like to not have my "gifts" turned on all the time. Hmmmm, really quiet, have to really pay attention to what other people say and do and not have anything else to rely on but that input... Although I wasn't really comfortable without my other input sources, I let my gifts go, hoping they wouldn't ever rear their ugly heads again. I was tired of having to pretend I didn't see, hear, smell, taste, feel things that no one else was aware of. It was nice to be able to be "normal", only it wasn't. But, my desire to be "normal", "regular", "like everyone else" was so strong, I deliberately ignored my gifts whenever they tried to break through the various barriers I had erected to them. It was an uncomfortable time emotionally for me, but, I perservered because I thought it would be better to be "normal" than "weird". I was wrong, but, that's a story for another time.
