I want help; but no one can seem to help me... What do I do?!
Question: I want help; but no one can seem to help me!.!.!. What do I do!?
I'm a 20 year old female college student, when I was 4 I was sexually abused (for 2 years by a female cousin), when I was 15 I was sexually assaulted, and at 18 I witnessed a terrifying shooting at my school!. I've been cutting since 13, attempted suicide 4x, and have a hard time feeling anything but lonely and sad!. I know a psychiatrist is the best answer, a teacher of mine referred me to the head of the psychiatry clinic, and they told me that they don't have a program for people with situations like mine, and that was it!.!.!. No more follow-up nothing, just plain old "Have a good day"!. I still see a counselor at school; but my teacher believes I might need more, and I kinda agree!. I want help; but help seems to have turned its back on me!.!.!. What do I do now!? I want to get better; I want to be able to move past there horrific events, and this addiction to cutting; but I cannot do that on my own, and seeing this counsellor for a year hasn't really helped!.!.!. What do I do!? Someone help plzWww@Answer-Health@Com
Answers:
I think people cut so that they can feel a sense of control over their pain!. I used to cut too before the doctor found hereditary G!.A!.D in my brother and I!. I was so afraid of everything!. I slept so I could escape reality!. I would feel alone too if I was you!. But it isn't true!. There are people (without a doubt) who love you and will do anything to help you!.
Therapy will be painful, but it will get rid of that rock that stands in your way!. Talk it over with a close friend or go to the emergency room sometime and ask to see a professional!. If they won't help you, chances are there is an agency called the Special Victim's Unit in your area!. These people deal with abuse and rape crimes!. You could contact the police and just chat with one of them!. You don't have to (and they probably won't presure you to) press charges, just talk!.
I hope you take what I've said to heart!. Really, you can always do something to stop your pain there are so many outlets! Good luck with your purposeful life! :]Www@Answer-Health@Com
Therapy will be painful, but it will get rid of that rock that stands in your way!. Talk it over with a close friend or go to the emergency room sometime and ask to see a professional!. If they won't help you, chances are there is an agency called the Special Victim's Unit in your area!. These people deal with abuse and rape crimes!. You could contact the police and just chat with one of them!. You don't have to (and they probably won't presure you to) press charges, just talk!.
I hope you take what I've said to heart!. Really, you can always do something to stop your pain there are so many outlets! Good luck with your purposeful life! :]Www@Answer-Health@Com
ughh that's horrible!. i've had some stuff with depression but nothing anywhere near that bad!. you should really try and see a psychiatrist, even though the psychiatry clinic turned you away there's a lot of ones out there!. umm, if you have the money private ones are a good option, otherwise hospitals and such usually have ones that are free!. also you should really try to find someone that you can talk to about this kind of stuff, like a good friend or something!.Www@Answer-Health@Com
i think u need more than a counselor sweety!. i think u need to see a psychiatrist!. i think it would be really good for u!. i've done it myself and if u want to talk about that or just anything in general i'm online now on aim or yahoo messenger!. my screename for both is TheBTPYoda!.Www@Answer-Health@Com
yeah, maybe you could try another psychiatrist!? all the best!!Www@Answer-Health@Com
im sorry this has happened to you,maybe you should change your councellor!.Www@Answer-Health@Com
There are some things you need to understand right now, things a psychiatrist will not tell you, but it might help you on your road to getting better!.
Every traumatic event that occurs in a persons life creates changes in thinking!. Yesterday I believed the streets were safe, today I am afraid I will get hit by a car!. That change in pattern solidifies the longer it remains in your head!. So, you've been feeling like a sexually abused child for 16 years, you've been feeling like a rape victim for 5 (which reconfirms the abuse suffered at 4,) all feelings of helplessness that were added to 2 years ago when you witnessed a shooting!.
So, for 16 years of your life you have had damaged emotional thinking interfering with your life, and probably less than a year (all together) of psychiatric counseling and feedback given to you to counter those feelings!. The difference between those two is why your mind resorted to cutting, creating a pain you can control to combat a pain you can't: an emotional gating mechanism the mind mimics just like its physical counterpart!.
Bad news first: you are going to feel like crap for quite awhile!. No one swallows 16 years of junk and feels better in two weeks, even two years!. On average, it takes anywhere from six months to 2 years of therapy to reverse 1 year of trauma, depending upon the patient!. Just as it took minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years for your brain to get to the point where it's at, a few counseling sessions aren't going to penetrate deep enough into your sense of self to begin to heal anything!. So its perfectly normal to feel as if a year of counseling hasn't really helped, regardless of whether or not the person was good at their job or not!.
But counseling is as much about your ability to believe the person can help you!. If any part of your being, which is traumatized and highly suspicious of being vulnerable to others, feels like the person sitting across from you, and asking you questions, is an idiot or worse, your blocks will prohibit them from being able to help you, since your mistrust will only add to your feelings of abuse and helplessness!. That's a bit longwinded, but the short of it is that you won't trust them enough to really let yourself break down and heal!.
Healing is scary, healing means getting to the point where we can get hurt again (when the cut on our finger is 'healed' it means that our finger is back to normal, which means it is just as vulnerable as it was before it got cut!.) And healing is possible with the right sort of help!. You just have to be persistent about it!.
Which means its not going to happen right away!. Which also means, for the time being, feeling crappy and depressed is normal for you!. People with broken legs don't go jogging, and people with damaged psyche's don't try to live a 'normal' life!. This means that you will probably find relief in cutting yourself for awhile, since that is one of the only outlets you trust right now!. I am not sure what other emotional outlets you have, so its difficult to suggest things!. Not every person responds to the same suggestion: some people get better reading sad novels, watching depressing movies, and listening to lonely songs; other people need to immerse themselves in activities that completely deny or move past their experiences, such as jogging or going to museums!. And, of course, there are those people who start off listening to the sad depressing songs and, later on, find out they don't like those songs anymore and start moving on to happier, uplifting music!.
It's not about finding a professional, its about finding someone who can get you to start answering, thinking and feeling something other than what you are experiencing now, helping you understand why that is, and getting you past it!. A good friend to talk things over with can be just as good as a psychiatrist, so don't feel as if you won't ever get well if you can't see a psychiatrist, especially if circumstances now prevent you from seeing one!. Lots of books about sexual abuse, rape and trauma out there, many of them written by professionals, so it might be helpful to check some of those out because many of them can give you the same sort of advice you would get by seeing one in person!. Find the book that you feel best understands what you are going through, and start from there!. Good luck!.Www@Answer-Health@Com
Every traumatic event that occurs in a persons life creates changes in thinking!. Yesterday I believed the streets were safe, today I am afraid I will get hit by a car!. That change in pattern solidifies the longer it remains in your head!. So, you've been feeling like a sexually abused child for 16 years, you've been feeling like a rape victim for 5 (which reconfirms the abuse suffered at 4,) all feelings of helplessness that were added to 2 years ago when you witnessed a shooting!.
So, for 16 years of your life you have had damaged emotional thinking interfering with your life, and probably less than a year (all together) of psychiatric counseling and feedback given to you to counter those feelings!. The difference between those two is why your mind resorted to cutting, creating a pain you can control to combat a pain you can't: an emotional gating mechanism the mind mimics just like its physical counterpart!.
Bad news first: you are going to feel like crap for quite awhile!. No one swallows 16 years of junk and feels better in two weeks, even two years!. On average, it takes anywhere from six months to 2 years of therapy to reverse 1 year of trauma, depending upon the patient!. Just as it took minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years for your brain to get to the point where it's at, a few counseling sessions aren't going to penetrate deep enough into your sense of self to begin to heal anything!. So its perfectly normal to feel as if a year of counseling hasn't really helped, regardless of whether or not the person was good at their job or not!.
But counseling is as much about your ability to believe the person can help you!. If any part of your being, which is traumatized and highly suspicious of being vulnerable to others, feels like the person sitting across from you, and asking you questions, is an idiot or worse, your blocks will prohibit them from being able to help you, since your mistrust will only add to your feelings of abuse and helplessness!. That's a bit longwinded, but the short of it is that you won't trust them enough to really let yourself break down and heal!.
Healing is scary, healing means getting to the point where we can get hurt again (when the cut on our finger is 'healed' it means that our finger is back to normal, which means it is just as vulnerable as it was before it got cut!.) And healing is possible with the right sort of help!. You just have to be persistent about it!.
Which means its not going to happen right away!. Which also means, for the time being, feeling crappy and depressed is normal for you!. People with broken legs don't go jogging, and people with damaged psyche's don't try to live a 'normal' life!. This means that you will probably find relief in cutting yourself for awhile, since that is one of the only outlets you trust right now!. I am not sure what other emotional outlets you have, so its difficult to suggest things!. Not every person responds to the same suggestion: some people get better reading sad novels, watching depressing movies, and listening to lonely songs; other people need to immerse themselves in activities that completely deny or move past their experiences, such as jogging or going to museums!. And, of course, there are those people who start off listening to the sad depressing songs and, later on, find out they don't like those songs anymore and start moving on to happier, uplifting music!.
It's not about finding a professional, its about finding someone who can get you to start answering, thinking and feeling something other than what you are experiencing now, helping you understand why that is, and getting you past it!. A good friend to talk things over with can be just as good as a psychiatrist, so don't feel as if you won't ever get well if you can't see a psychiatrist, especially if circumstances now prevent you from seeing one!. Lots of books about sexual abuse, rape and trauma out there, many of them written by professionals, so it might be helpful to check some of those out because many of them can give you the same sort of advice you would get by seeing one in person!. Find the book that you feel best understands what you are going through, and start from there!. Good luck!.Www@Answer-Health@Com
This is terrible that they have turned you away like this!. Are you sure you cant go back and ask them to refer you to someone who can!?!?!? Dont give up on finding help please please please!. I say this because I had all but given up and then by chance I had an appointment made for me by my intake supervisor who I went to saying I was crashing with all this stress (I was raped a few months previous and was being bullied by a women on my course etc so similar pains to yours - the deep ones that arent easily fix with a 'cheer up' nor does time fix them by itself) Anyway I saw one councellor briefly our timetables didnt match so she refered me to a new women who had started and by this time I had all but given up on the idea of councelling but then gave it one last go!. I have been with that therapist for the past 2!.5 years and the change it has had on my life has not be fast but it is definalty definalty significantly better then the place I was in!. I know that I will continue to improove even if the journey is harder then I imagined!.!.!.!. anyway I said all that to show you how you shouldnt give up because the very next person you turn to could be just the one for you!.
It might be that you need to go out of the college circuit of help!. You might need help in the community - a mental health team that sort of thing!. Go to your doctor and ask for a referal to a psych if they cant help them ask to see a different one!. The more 'noise' you make the more input you will get into finding you the right treatment - sound awful but you are being left to suffer in silence at the moment and you need to shout to be heard!.
It seems odd that after 4 suicide attempts you havent been followed up with a mental health team etc!. If you feel you need to be heard just get up right now and go to the local ER and sit down and say I am not going until somebody listens to me and helps me - that will create some noise and some action!.
I am really really really sad and sorry that you have been hurt in these multiple ways - the world is an awful place to be when you are tormented by memories and images and emotions that just cant get out etc!. I truly hope you can find someone to help you!. It is hard to know what you want isnt it!? I feel like that sometimes - all I know is that I want the pain to stop!.
I am not saying you have these things but sometimes looking up info helps and then you can take your concerns to your doc - Post Traumatic Stress, Borderline Personality and Depression/Anxiety!. Are there any symptoms you recognise in their that match with your experiences in your current life!?
The important thing also to do is to tell your councellor and that teacher who helped set it all up for you that you need more and can they please help you find it!. That is part of their job description so by saying these things to them you are not asking anything more then they have already signed up to when taking on their jobs!. If they do their jobs well then they will keep helping you until somebody can be found to take over from them!.
Good Luck xxWww@Answer-Health@Com
It might be that you need to go out of the college circuit of help!. You might need help in the community - a mental health team that sort of thing!. Go to your doctor and ask for a referal to a psych if they cant help them ask to see a different one!. The more 'noise' you make the more input you will get into finding you the right treatment - sound awful but you are being left to suffer in silence at the moment and you need to shout to be heard!.
It seems odd that after 4 suicide attempts you havent been followed up with a mental health team etc!. If you feel you need to be heard just get up right now and go to the local ER and sit down and say I am not going until somebody listens to me and helps me - that will create some noise and some action!.
I am really really really sad and sorry that you have been hurt in these multiple ways - the world is an awful place to be when you are tormented by memories and images and emotions that just cant get out etc!. I truly hope you can find someone to help you!. It is hard to know what you want isnt it!? I feel like that sometimes - all I know is that I want the pain to stop!.
I am not saying you have these things but sometimes looking up info helps and then you can take your concerns to your doc - Post Traumatic Stress, Borderline Personality and Depression/Anxiety!. Are there any symptoms you recognise in their that match with your experiences in your current life!?
The important thing also to do is to tell your councellor and that teacher who helped set it all up for you that you need more and can they please help you find it!. That is part of their job description so by saying these things to them you are not asking anything more then they have already signed up to when taking on their jobs!. If they do their jobs well then they will keep helping you until somebody can be found to take over from them!.
Good Luck xxWww@Answer-Health@Com
If your set on seeing a psychiatrist then maybe you should start looking around for one on your own!. Go through phone books, search the web!.!.!. the 211 info line website has various listings of all kinds of things that you may find useful!. But really I don't see a psychiatrist as the best option either because there is only so much they can do, the rest is really up to you!. They sit, and listen to you speak about your life, basically just letting you vent, maybe asking you some questions to get you to speak even more, and honestly if you have any good friends your friends can be just as helpful if they are willing to listen to you in similar ways!. Talking about life, and your problems only helps so much which is why it hasn't really helped seeing the counselor you have been seeing!. A psychiatrist will at most possibly put you on a anti depressant, or something, and believe me when I say the meds end up doing more harm then good!. I have had many friends who ended up on a perscription, and ended up even more depressed, two of them actually began having nightmares from the medication, and one close to a hallucination so be cautious if they ever try to put you on any kind of medication!. Honestly if the counselor is the only person you have who you can talk to then just continue talking to them!. I would try to look for things you enjoy doing certain activities that would keep you occupied, or entertained to keep your mind off of your problems!. I think if you can find other things, less life threatening things to turn to when your starting to feel depressed, or overwhelmed by the things that bother you chances are you will find yourself able to at least tolerate your issues better, and even eventually move past them!. Did you ever watch a show called Degrassi!? Well one girl on the show would always cut herself because of her problems, and ended up placing a rubberband around her wrist, whenever she had the urge to cut herself she would pull on the rubberband and allow it to hit her which I think was because it caused a similar feeling for her as cutting would only without the actual harm cutting leads to!.!.!. a friend of mine used that technique, and it really did help them a bit!. I'm not sure how your depression effects you, but if you ever get the urge to just hit something, feel figity, or like you don't know what to do with yourself maybe venting out your frustrations might help!.!.!. for that you can look into taking some karate classes, or other physical activities that will allow you to basically work it out of your system until you start to feel calm again!. I know for me when I start to feel depressed I will turn to listening to very loud music, writing, and some form of physical activity(which for me since I don't have the money to be taking karate classes usually ends up being a very intense game of Dance Dance Revolution)!. Writing does help some when you can't talk to someone about what's on your mind, and bothering you!. It is definitely a good way to clear some things from your mind for a little while so if you've never tried keeping a journal think about that as an option also!. I hope at least some of what I wrote helps in some way!. I'm unsure of what else I can tell you besides really try to find other things to replace the more harmful things you turn to when your feeling overwhelmed!. I hope you find your happiness :-)Www@Answer-Health@Com