Background <p>Adolescent mental health reflects the interplay of risk and protective factors, yet the structural organization linking these components remains insufficiently understood.</p> Objective <p>This study used network analysis to map the structural organization of risk and protective factors and to test whether self-disgust occupies a bridging position between these subsystems.</p> Methods <p>A total of 1,245 Chinese adolescents (ages 12–18) completed self-report measures of neuroticism, self-esteem, self-concept clarity, core self-evaluation, self-disgust, cognitive reappraisal, anxiety, and depression. A regularized partial correlation network was estimated, followed by strength and bridge centrality analyses and network comparisons across gender and school level (junior vs. senior high).</p> Results <p>Neuroticism showed the highest strength centrality. Self-disgust showed the highest bridge centrality and was conditionally associated with nodes from both the risk community (neuroticism, anxiety, depression) and the protective community (self-esteem, core self-evaluation, self-concept clarity). Protective factors formed a tightly interconnected subsystem. Subgroup analyses indicated higher bridge centrality of self-disgust in males and higher strength centrality of cognitive reappraisal in senior high school students.</p> Conclusions <p>Self-disgust occupies a central bridging position between dispositional risk and protective self-resources within this cross-sectional adolescent network. These findings highlight self-disgust as a structurally prominent construct for future longitudinal and experimental testing of developmental and causal hypotheses regarding adolescent affective symptoms.</p>