Dee Snider - Teenage Survival Guide

The majority of my teenage memories are like that—pretty sad—yet no matter how trivial, incidents from my past are etched so indelibly in my mind that I can recall every minute detail as if it all happened yesterday. I guess it's because of the impact adolescence has on the rest of your life. It's a time when a lot of your attitudes, ambitions and values are shaped.

There is one incident that has stayed with me more than any other, which I'll tell you about:

It's a balmy spring day, and I'm outside playing Softball in gym class. Naturally when I come up to bat, the inflelders and the outfielders move in, and the jeering starts: "Okay, pitcha, strike this sucker out. No batta, no batta!" Now, despite my reputation as a dork, I was a good player, and boom! I slug the ball deep into the outfield; a no-doubt-about-it home run. I'm flying around the diamond, arms and legs pumping, when this kid named Fred—who used to torment me regularly—sticks out his foot, trips me and I go sprawling onto the blacktop playing field like an airplane making a crash landing. Everyone laughs uproariously.

I felt totally humiliated, was red with anger and vowed that no one would ever laugh at me again. Years later, when I was singiing with Twisted Sister, if somebody in the audience heckled or booed, I'd actually stop the music and call him out from the stage: "What are you laughing at, jerk? Do you think you can do better? Would you like to come up here and try?" Sometimes I'd even dive into the crowd to find him. I can trace my burning desire to prove myself to others and to command respect back to that day on the Softball field.

I had to wait another dozen years for the funny part of the story to come, but it did: A few years ago, after Twisted Sister became internationally known, the local newspaper that I delivered as a kid put me on the cover of its Sunday magazine: area boy makes good, that sort of angle. The reporter tracked down Fred the bully, still living in town (and probably having graduated to pushing little old ladies in front of trains), and asked him about the tripping incident, which still causes the hair on the back of my neck to stand up anytime it's mentioned.

Amazingly, Fred did not remember a thing. I guess, to a bully, this was an involuntary muscle action: Someone runs past you on his way to third base, and your leg automatically shoots out and trips him. Of course he didn't remember tripping me; he tripped a whole schoolful of kids! What was so traumatic to me was unmemorable to him.

I felt victimized by others until the day I decided not to play victim anymore, and my alienation changed from passive to aggressive. This wasn't so great, either, because I became very hard and cold, walking around with a chip on my shoulder, a real rebel without a cause. Face tightened in a sneer, eyes burning. To others it looked cool, but it did not feel cool at all. I was totally paranoid, convinced others were snickering at me as I walked down the street. Nervous. My mind racing. On constant red alert. I'd growl to myself, "Over there, somebody's staring at you," fix him with a glare and snarl, "What are you looking at?" I was so tense all the time, after one walk around the block I'd have to return home to rest because I was so exhausted.

Standing up for myself and watching others back down taught me an invaluable lesson. For so long I'd felt powerless to improve my situation, but I began to realize I had the strength to change things. We all do.

The worst feeling of all was that I was alone in my plight. I often sought refuge in my bedroom with my Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple records, jumping around, playing air guitar, air drums, air keyboards with an air microphone in front of the floor-length mirror. Pretty strange thing to do, air guitaring, or so I thought. Certainly no one else in the world did such a thing, and those who did were probably straightjacketed and taken away to some high-security nut house. It wasn't until much later that I learned through talking with others that the kid next door was playing air guitar, and the kid next door to him and the kid next door to him. Nearly every teenager is at times plagued by feelings of loneliness, insecurity and inferiority. Compounding your anguish is the fear that you are the only one in your class—no, in your school; no, in the entire galaxy, including the lowest forms of plant life—who feels this way. You feel isolated from others, as if you were surrounded by an invisible shield everywhere you go. (Could it be your deodorant?) No one understands how you feel. You envy the popular girl with the pretty smile and wish you could be more like her, with no problems.

Yet even well-liked teenagers have their own self-doubts. Maybe the popular girl worries that people don't really like her for the person she is but for her pretty face alone. And within the popular clique exists a pecking order. Somebody is the most popular of the popular kids, while somebody else is the least popular and has to deal with that.

The John Hughes film The Breakfast Club sh owed how most young people suffer from the same anxieties and questions about who they are and who they're becoming. There was a jock (Emilio Estevez), a popular girl from a well-to-do family (Molly Ringwald). a wimp (Michael Anthony-Hall), a resident weirdo (Ally Sheedy) and a dirtbag (Judd Nel son), serving detention together on a Saturday. Each had been trying to live up to others' expectations of them and fulfilling roles that were dictated more by parents and peers than by themselves. With no other members of their peer groups around, they were forced to communicate with one another, which never would have happened had it been a regular schoolday. The result was acceptance of one another. And of themselves, at least for the time being.

You are never really alone in your problems, and if you're willing to take a risk and bring up the subject with friends, you might be surprised how receptive and relieved they are to have an opportunity to talk about it themselves. On the other hand, they might clam up. Teenagers are so anxious to fit in that they're afraid someone will consider their opinions or emotions unusual. So they usually keep such deep feelings to themselves, convinced no one could possibly understand what they are going through.

I never communicated my insecurities to anyone because I was scared of being laughed at and so I lived a lot of my life inside my head, plotting ways to be accepted. Singing in a band was one way. For a long time that was all I wanted: to fit in with everybody else. (And look at me now!) They say that youth is a time of great freedom, and it is, from certain adult responsibilities. But teenagers can be very hard on those who are different. Because they don't really know who they are at that point, they feel threatened by someone who doesn't fit in. And because they don't yet have the confidence that comes from establishing their identity, it's easier to go with the crowd. Life begins to get complicated when we see that everybody is not the same, because then people have to think for themselves. And for most of us that is a frightening prospect.

In my early teens I felt restricted from thinking, dressing and acting certain ways because I wanted to fit in. I wanted people to like me, and conformity is widely—and wrongly—thought to be the surest way to guarantee popularity. Teenage nonconformists may earn some grudging respect for their independent spirit, but it usually makes them targets for ridicule.

For instance, to be a little different, I grew a goatee. Well, kind of a goatee; some barely visible, wispy hairs on my chin. I thought I was really happening, but it probably looked pretty lame. Naturally, to the jocks in my high school, it was something to pick on. They'd call me goat. "Hey, goat!" It was very funny to them, for a long time, until all of a sudden they started growing their own goatees. And I shaved—immediately. As much as I wanted to fit in with others, I was horrified by the idea that something I'd done to show my individuality had become the in thing to do. I'll tell you, it's difficult during adolescence to deal with wanting to be part of the crowd and at the same time wanting to be who you are, which often means being different.