Weekly Peer Support Group Offers Teen-Agers Advice They Can <i> Use</i>

Not long ago, Heather was living the stereotypical American teen-ager’s dream. Trim, talkative and pretty with long brown hair, she was a good student and popular with her peers. But in her heart, she felt like she was falling apart.

Her boyfriend was drinking, using drugs and occasionally beating her up. Over a matter of weeks, most of her close friends moved away to other cities. Feeling alone and sad, Heather’s grades plummeted. She was depressed, sometimes suicidal. She felt her parents were unsympathetic, pressuring her to improve her grades.

“My parents used to see me as the perfect little angel,” she said. “But inside, I was a nervous wreck. I was a mess.”

Last spring, Heather--not her real name--began attending a teen support group at Edison High School. And for the first time in a long while, she now feels that she has a circle of peers who listen calmly to her troubles and understand her emotions.

“I tried to talk to my parents, but they never understood,” Heather said. “Then finally, (in the support group) I saw there were people with the same problems as me, that I wasn’t the only one.”

Four of the girls in the weekly support group gathered around a table in a school office recently to talk with a Times reporter. All four wanted their full names used and their personal troubles described in the newspaper, saying they felt it is important to tell the community that teens really do have problems, and that something positive can be done to help.

Heather’s mother, however, asked The Times to withhold her daughter’s name from the newspaper, saying she didn’t want the family’s personal problems made public. The parents of the other girls consented to let their daughters’ real names be used.

Keichelle Hampton, a soft-spoken 15-year-old, joined the weekly gathering of about 20 students last year. She had attempted suicide in the eighth grade and was still struggling with self-destructive feelings.

“I look forward to group every week, just to have someone to talk to about everything,” she said. “It’s hard to feel like I can talk at home, everyone’s too busy.”

Some of the girls said they found it difficult or impossible to talk to their parents about their troubles, because their parents didn’t understand or became angry.

Others, like Tammy Ritchie, 16, said their family members had so many troubles of their own that it seemed unfair to add to their worries. “I don’t want to be a bother, a burden,” Tammy said.

“I’m a major stress case,” she said. “I was suicidal, and even went into a psychiatric hospital for a year. The thing I like about group is that you can tell people how you feel and they accept you anyway.”

All the girls said the group gives them a chance to vent anger, pain and frustration about their home lives in a safe setting.

They also said they appreciate the opportunity to get feedback and advice from peers who have also experienced problems, saying they trust that kind of advice more than words of wisdom from their parents.

“They’re people who give me advice I can use, “ said Karity Kaplan.

Karity, 14, met the other members of the group last year when she was having, as she puts it with a smile and a roll of her eyes, “ lots of problems.” She was depressed and suicidal. She wanted to quit school and have a baby. She felt like “everything was caving in on me.”

She was bursting into tears in the middle of class. Her parents, she says, didn’t understand. Joining the support group was a tremendous relief, Karity said.

“Just to get the chance to talk with people like you, you see maybe you’re not so bad,” she said.

Toward the end of each support group session, the members set goals for themselves for the coming week. They range from staying off booze, drugs or cigarettes to a prayer-like commitment that one of the girls voiced:

“Just give me the strength to get through this week. With all the tragedies in my house, let me listen and love.”