I need psychiatric counseling?!
Question: I'm a 19 year old junior college student. Shortly before my junior year of high school, I was so badly mistreated by people to where I started having psychological problems. During the beginning of my junior year, my level of depression was much more extreme and I withdrew myself from everybody. Before then, I had a few friends (never was that popular) but at least I socialized. During my extreme level of depression, I made some lifestyle changes to improve my well being and people started treating me much better. Much more people wanted to talk to me, but I was still having psychological problems because of how poorly people treated me before. I want advice on how I can higher my self esteem and recover from my psychological problems so I could stop withdrawing myself from people and start socializing. I know the details on this post are a bit vague, but yahoo limits the number of characters I can use. Just please give me any info that could come to some good use. Thank you!
Answers: I'm a 19 year old junior college student. Shortly before my junior year of high school, I was so badly mistreated by people to where I started having psychological problems. During the beginning of my junior year, my level of depression was much more extreme and I withdrew myself from everybody. Before then, I had a few friends (never was that popular) but at least I socialized. During my extreme level of depression, I made some lifestyle changes to improve my well being and people started treating me much better. Much more people wanted to talk to me, but I was still having psychological problems because of how poorly people treated me before. I want advice on how I can higher my self esteem and recover from my psychological problems so I could stop withdrawing myself from people and start socializing. I know the details on this post are a bit vague, but yahoo limits the number of characters I can use. Just please give me any info that could come to some good use. Thank you!
The best way to "get out of the shell" is to help others. Volunteer your time at a hospital, homeless shelter, or any charity of your choice. (even tutoring in a subject you're good in) You'll find your self-esteem growing, your socialization skills improving, and your all around empathy for others will benefit. I had the same problem you speak of, and several selfless acts later, I love who I've become.
I believe that most colleges have counselors that you can go to, and it should be free to students. That would be the first thing to try, I think.
What types of changes did you make before that led to improvement? Can you continue doing the same thing?
Good luck and I hope you feel better soon.
Start out small. Get really close to some of your friends. Your good friends can introduce you to some of their friends. This takes some time, but you can make several really close friends to help heal past scars. An option you can pursue imediately is just saying hi or smiling to as many people as you can. By just being friendly to people, they will be friendly back to you.
Keep up with couseling or a pshychiatrist. To me, the most important thing is to surround yourself with people that care about you and are there to support you and who make you feel good about yourself. When you do something nice for other people, that should makeyou feel better about yourself. Doing one nice thing for somebody can go a long way. Good Luck and don't look back. Your future will be better.
Whatever you do don't go to a psychiatrist. They practice medicine not counseling and by law they will have to prescribe you drugs. Instead see a licensed counselor. They will be able to help you through this difficult time. Also you might want to join a church with a good youth program. They can be a lot more accepting and understanding of people who have some problems and can provide you with a group of friends who you can share some activities with.
Go talk to your school counselor