Working through my adolescence

Abstract

In this case, the 20-year-old author describes his experience working at a local art film theater in early adolescence. As the only child of parents who married and had him before entering college, Bill was expected early on to "pull his own weight" and learned the independence that would carry over into his work experience. By far the youngest employee at the theater, he finds that he can play "little brother" while being exposed to a range of people and experiences he would not otherwise have encountered. The movie theater serves as an arena outside of the home in which Bill gains self-confidence and develops a sense of responsibility and where he begins to experiment with drugs and sexuality. At the same time, he is a "model" student and family member. His feelings of self-confidence and self-knowledge are challenged by his realization that his overdependence on drugs affects his relationships with women and other aspects of his early college experience. This case study explores Bill's sense of leading two lives and of his more recent attempts to reconcile them.