<p>OP, this advice applies to many areas: You don’t know what you don’t know. You can’t predict whether the counseling center can help you because you haven’t tried it. In the solution of any problem you make a list of possible options and try them one at a time. </p>
<p>Try the counseling one first since it is the most obvious. In terms of finding friends, sometimes friends are found through a job or volunteering to help with project. You have a common goal with the people you work with and socialization occurs. They may only be work friends but you will feel better having folks you have a reason to interact with. Maybe there is a part time job at school or even at food place. Let us know how it goes.</p>
<p>Think of the advice you’ve been given in another way. </p>
<p>Let’s say you started having frequent headaches over a year ago. You tried all kinds of over-the-counter meds but none made the headaches go away. At some point, you would go to a physician because you couldn’t cure yourself, right? The doctor made a diagnosis and gave you a script. You tried it but it didn’t stop the headaches so you went back. The doctor worked with you and after many visits finally found the cause and the cure. This is common with many medical ailments, right?</p>
<p>As 20+ people have advised you, you need professional help. Would you not agree that a person’s mental health is just as important as their physical health? You’ve tried self treatment and it hasn’t worked. So why not talk to a professional about your mental health? Just like a physician, it may take many visits to find the cause and cure but there are no side effects from at least trying. Your visits would be private and confidential and know one would know unless you told them.</p>
<p>Our true health is combined of body, mind and spirit. If one part is ailing, it will affect the other parts. A relevant saying is that “Stress Kills.” You need to find the cure for your mental health stress because you’re risking your physical health as well.</p>
<p>Take the sage advice of all the others… talk to a professional please! Share your burden because they CHOSE to spend their careers to help people just like you!</p>
<p>thank you all so much because i know you’re all right. and no, don’t worry about being too harsh, i might be in a bad state right now but i have also been known to be pretty stubborn so its probably a combination of both. i just feel like unless i can get another chance with my boyfriend, there’s no reason to go to counseling or whatever because its something i really don’t want to do and i feel like there should be a really important reason behind it. i also don’t think it will help because i just need something to do. i just need friends to hang out with here and something to occupy my time because while i’m sitting alone with nothing to do is when i feel the absolute worst.</p>
<p>“i just feel like unless i can get another chance with my boyfriend, there’s no reason to go to counseling or whatever because its something i really don’t want to do and i feel like there should be a really important reason behind it.”</p>
<p>The reason to do it is that you feel like a piece of crap. Okay?</p>
<p>The really important reason you are looking for is that you have started to have suicidal thoughts. Do not belittle what you are feeling. Go seek counseling now. All of us here recognize that you are feeling depressed and there may be a physical/chemical reason for it. Speaking to strangers like us online will not help you unless you go to a counselor or discuss this with someone you trust in person.</p>
<p>Someone close to me (I’ll call this person Y) was diagnosed with depression. Y was a very different person during bouts of depression. It turned out that Y’s medication was causing this depression and once Y’s meds were adjusted/changed, Y was back to normal. So don’t rule out that there may also be a medical reason for your depression that is compounding everything else in your life.</p>
<p>Hey7654, I’m so sorry to hear that you’re going through this tough period in life. You’re obviously experiencing serious depression, and that needs to be tackled head-on. Take it from someone who has battled deep clinical depression at various times: nothing will change until you no longer walk around, feeling like the living dead. It’s a vicious cycle. People are frightened, frustrated and quite honestly repelled by those whose depression veritably pours out of their eyes, because they don’t know how to handle that kind of sadness. The depression makes you virtually non-approachable, and the feeling of hopelessness that arises from it probably keeps you from optimistically approaching others as well. </p>
<p>At this point, you need to reach out and help yourself. Please, seek counseling. That, and carefully monitored medication may be all that you need to turn things around. Depression is a brain chemistry imbalance, a medical condition. There’s no shame in seeking medical attention. If someone had a heart condition, would you tell them to tough it out, or would you encourage them to see a cardiologist? It’s the same with depression. Please, please go to the counseling center, or see your primary care physician to address this problem. </p>
<p>Don’t give up. Life gets better, truly it does!</p>
<p>OP, I don’t even know you, but if I were there I would first give you a big hug, and then I would gently but very firmly march you over to the counselling office, and I know I’m not the only parent here who would. That’s how convinced we are that they can help.</p>
<p>Would it help to know that I was once where you are? Pretty much the same feelings, loneliness, hopelessness, boyfriend problems. Also the same reluctance to seek the very help that I needed. Finally a friend insisted – absolutely insisted – that I go talk to someone. She was maybe the best friend I’ve ever had, because taking that step changed my life forever. </p>
<p>We parents have experience and perspective that you can’t have at your age. That’s why you asked us this question, I hope. Now please believe that we know what we’re talking about. We want you to feel better, and we know how you can get started. I understand that it doesn’t make sense to you right now, and that’s OK. But please trust us.</p>
<p>OP, you don’t know what you don’t know! If it is depression, a professional is the only one that can help you. If it is just the situation you are in, a counselor’s advice and support will help guide you. I’m sorry to hear of your break-up, we have all experienced the pain of a broken heart, but you need to take ownership of the wonderful life you have been given and while you don’t feel it at the moment, you have a great opportunity staring you in the face! You are in college, building the person you want to be, can be. Let go of your dependence on your old relationship and look to the future. Start looking deeper inside of you to see your positive qualities and build upon them. If you cannot, then you need to seek professional help. Simple as that! Good luck.</p>
<p>(Side note: “Depression is a brain chemistry imbalance.” Sadly, that’s something we DON’T know, even after 30 years of research. We can prove we can change brain chemistry through medication, but we haven’t been able to prove the existence of a brain chemistry imbalance to begin with. We can have two people indicating exactly the same brain chemistry, one profoundly depressed, and one not at all.)</p>
<p>Hi, Hey - If you don’t want to go to a counselor, will you at least go to the health center and talk to the doctor or nurse about your nutrition issue? Not eating right isn’t good for anyone!</p>
<p>Soozievt - Can you please clean out your mailbox? I tried to send you a PM and it got kicked because you mailbox was full. (Though I understand this is a busy time of year for you!)</p>
<p>i just talked to my ex and he says that there is zero chance that we would ever get back together and told me he was going to call my parents unless i agreed to go to counseling. i told him i would call tomorrow when they open but he called my parents anyways. now i can’t get him back and everyone in the damn world knows about my situation. i’m sorry to all of you but there is absolutely chance in hell that i would ever go to counseling now. and i’m not going to talk to people about eating because their advice would be to just go eat which i’m not doing because i’m so sick of eating alone. sorry to all of you and thank you for the help.</p>
<p>I am sorry you are feeling so badly. But by not going to counseling for the reasons you stated in post 32, comes across as an act of spite, as if you won’t go because they told you to go. But honestly, I see your ex BF as caring about you enough to be doing what he can to encourage you to seek counseling. He contacted your parents out of concern, it seems. That is a caring thing to do. It is not like a punishment. </p>
<p>I see your original post on CC as a call for HELP. You are crying out for help and advice. That is a GREAT first step. But the next step is to use the advice. The advice here (and even in your own family and friends) is to talk to a professional who will GIVE you the HELP AND ADVICE YOU SEEK. We can’t really do it for you as it needs to be personal, private and ongoing one to one. The counselor can guide you in how to deal with things, steps to take to feel better and make your life better and happier! Another option is to see a regular doctor because at the very least, they can prescribe medication. But a counselor would be ongoing advice to help you. You ARE seeking advice and help because you wrote to us here on CC. Do the SAME with a private counselor. Nobody has to know you attended. You don’t have to tell your ex BF that you went. Do it for YOU, not him. Don’t not go in some act of spite toward him. Many people, including many parents right here on CC consult with a counselor to help them during rough times. This is a rough time for you. The help is there. You WANT help. PLEASE try it. You have nothing to lose and all to gain.</p>