Seeing the Teenager We All Once Were

I feel devastated when I look at teenager Erin Rose and know that she could be my daughter or your daughter (“User of ‘Party’ Drug Is Left a Shell of Self,” Dec. 3). Most readers will note the tragedy of it all but dismiss it as another example of the youth of today, gone astray. It becomes too uncomfortable to ponder, and most people will deny that any teenager (except their own) concerns them.

However, deep inside us lies the truth, which the mind can neither dismiss nor deny. Look at any teenager and see yourself reflected from another time, when you were also struggling with our society’s unnatural restrictions to natural growth, trying to experience the joys of youth while stumbling over your mistakes in an effort to decide who you really wanted to be. Now consider how it would have felt if every person around you had smiled and helped you up every time you stumbled. Then know it is no longer possible to deny, deny, deny that any teenager’s fate involves every one of us.

Cynthia Humphreys

Palm Springs