I’m 17 and very sensitive to graphic content. Does this mean I’m immature? | Leading questions

I’m 17, and feel like a sore thumb among my peers due to my aversion to almost everything stereotypically adult. I don’t want to consume drugs or alcohol, I’ve never been in a relationship and, in particular, I’m very sensitive to graphic content.

Earlier this year, I tried to warm myself up to several films featuring either explicit violence or sex, but a part of me felt uncomfortable beyond what was probably intended by the film-makers. The entire time, it felt as if I was pushing down my real self. After consuming various media, I quit the process of numbing myself, retreating back to only films and television with “moderate” or “mild” classification ratings.

I’m worried it reflects on my maturity. How can I not feel cowardice and like I’m unready for the real world, when almost every peer and adult I know is unbothered by it? I keep insisting to myself that this aspect of myself doesn’t matter – if it does to others, it’s not worth developing a relationship with them. But how can I feel as if I’m not keeping my life stagnant, inadvertently halting my psychological and emotional development to cater to my fears?

Eleanor says: I’m struck by the bundling of drugs, sex, relationships and violence. Movie ratings combine these too; we use “inappropriate” for depictions of evil and for good things that young people aren’t ready for. But I think it could be helpful to distinguish “things I don’t feel ready for” from “things I don’t like, and I don’t see why I ever should”.

For romance or depictions of sex, it’s totally fine to simply not feel ready. Just as few 17-year-olds want to role play being a parent even though they might one day want kids, knowing something is potentially part of a nice life later doesn’t need to mean you want to spend time around it now.

For depictions of violence, though, there are genuine questions about the ethics of enjoying it ever. Cards on table: I’m like you. I was once so disturbed by a movie I tried to make the case that horror films are fundamentally immoral. If you told me, “Great news, we’ve trained some puppies to act as though they’re being tortured for two hours,” I wouldn’t say, “Great, where can I watch?” So why am I supposed to enjoy the simulation of the worst things imaginable being done to people?

There are answers, as my viewing companions rightly pointed out. The story can be good enough, aesthetic experiences are interesting unto themselves, and since the Greeks we’ve thought that getting close to difficult emotions through fiction might let us process them in an environment where we know they can’t hurt us. Like a safe viewing platform over grief and fear. So I stress there are interesting questions about the ethics of watching violence, not obvious answers.

It might help to peel apart relationships, alcohol, depictions of sex and depictions of violence. For you they’re united by being adult: under that description you feel both averse to them and obliged to get used to them. But the people around you could categorise them totally differently. Romantic relationships could feel delightfully adolescent – not adult at all! Horror movies could be enjoyable not because they involve steely, grownup toleration for horrible things but because they feel silly, thrilling, like a rollercoaster.

So try not to feel as though enjoying this stuff is a bright line dividing the mature from the immature. Maturity and personal development have very little to do with drinking or watching things you don’t want to watch. It’s about learning to be you, on purpose, in ways that are kind to other people.

One way to be mature is to be calm and accepting about your feelings. These things disturb you. Some of them disturb me too. If we’re agitated and embarrassed about that reaction, funny things start happening. You’ve already seen how you can force yourself to do things you don’t really want to.

But it can also make us overcompensate, swing the pendulum too far the other way. In an effort to justify our feelings, we can act like other people’s aren’t justifiable – narrating a whole me-v-them personality trait to purchase some self-acceptance. Convert a simple “I don’t much enjoy alcohol” into a way of life organised around the idea that people who do drink are stupid; take “sex kind of freaks me out” and turn it into judgment of people who have it sooner. You don’t want to get stuck ping-ponging between two critical reactions, changing only what you’re critical of: “I’m immature, I have to force myself to change,” or “I don’t want to be around Them.”

A more stable synthesis might be: “I feel averse to these things for reasons I am curious about. I’m going to give myself time to see if that changes, and to ask myself how others might see them differently, in ways that explain their reactions, too.”

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