Is it a rite of passage, or a series of struggles that can leave lasting scars? Send your mind back to that moment in time when you were trapped between adolescence and adulthood, when insecurity was the dreadful secret that trapped you in a lonely space which you were convinced was your singular affliction. We all had ways of concealing it, or at least dealing with it, of course. Some were blessed with natural grace or good looks, while others used sarcasm or athletic skill. Those with social skills could run with the pack, but there was always the danger that the pack might turn on you. It's a difficult time of life; it always has been. But if the psychiatrists and social scientists are right, it is, in some respects, worse these days than it has ever been, especially for girls. Girls, it seems, have developed the evolution of social nastiness into an art form, to a point at which it is almost dangerous. The need to fit in has become so acute, the social hierarchies so refined that it overcomes and overpowers almost everything else.
