Is there anybody that can help me? (Phyciatrists, Counseler, anybody who can hel!
Question:
Is there anybody that can help me? (Phyciatrists, Counseler, anybody who can help me at all!) *sob*?
I have been experiencing anxiety, and I may have a panic disorder. But I have a few problems:
-I don't want my parents to know.
-I don't know exactly what I have.
-I don't know where it started.
-I don't know when it will end!
Please email me if you can help me through this.
queenazooga@yahoo.com
Or post your ideas on what you think I have. I need help! (NO PARENTS)
1 month ago
NO! I NEED TO TALK IT OUT. NO PARENTS!NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS!NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS!NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS!NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS!NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS! NO PARENTS!
1 month ago
Age: 13
School: Over
1 month ago
I'm having a mental breakdown because I don't know what to do. I am not going to tell my parents until I feel like I can't hide it anymore...so please give me more options. And remember...email!
Answers:
OK, look, this comes up over and over and over again here that distressed teenagers write questions about how to avoid telling their parents anything about the distress. There are only so many possible explanations for that:
1) Your parents deny the existence of mental illness and/or would blame you for any fear or sadness in your life.
2) Your parents care only about money and would blame you if you need help that would cost their time and money.
3) You fear #1 or #2 is the case, but don't actually know.
4) You wish to spare your parents the anxiety that their child is in pain, either out of love for your parents, a desire that you not feel guilty or both.
5) You are proud. You never tell your parents your troubles because you like looking successful to them and don't want to give that up. Beating your distress basically on your own would be yet another success for you.
6) You hope your distress will magically go away. By telling your parents, it becomes real. One or both of them will be constantly inquiring about it after you do that. You don't want that. You just want the whole thing to disappear. Then you don't have to feel weak, guilty, threatened by the possibility of tomorrow being worse, all these things that make your anxiety even worse than it has to be.
Is your reason different from those? Help me out so I can add to my list.
Now what can you do for each of those? The first two are trouble no matter what you do. As you address, your distress may reach a degree where you can't hide it from your parents. Then they will react as badly as you expect. I agree with you if you wish to postpone that. I think I'd drag my feet trying to tell such people anything myself, and I don't have to live with them.
But is it #3? Many answerers here tend to say that's it, for many other teenagers besides you. I suspect they're often right. Parents can surprise you with how much they love you when you really need them. There's only one way to find out.
#4 could easily be an underestimation of your parents as #3 is. Adults may surprise you by how strong they are in a crisis. They may put aside their habits of telling you what to do so much and whatever else makes them seem like they handle stress poorly and just do what you need them to do, which is take you to see a psychologist or other mental health professional to diagnose and treat your anxiety.
#5 and #6 are different kinds of fantasies, fantasies you'd like to maintain, but can you? Even if you suddenly discover magic words that make your anxiety stop, you're going to run into something else that brings your pride down several notches or changes your life from whenever it was perfect. You might as well learn to manage such challenges now. Guess who can teach you - a mental health professional. Guess who has to be involved, in all likelihood, for you to see that mental health professional - your parents.
So here's one challenge in this for you to meet. Which is better for you, to write a whole page of, "NO PARENTS" and pretend that there's some cure for anxiety coming to you through e-mail or seeing a psychologist, which very likely requires your parents' consent? I don't know the answer to that. I don't know your parents. But I know you can't manage your anxiety without help, especially not if you truly have panic disorder. You can wait and see how much worse it gets. Even a teenager has that much autonomy. How smart that is depends on facts that no one can include in a short summary of the situation. That's why people go sit down and talk with a psychologist, to work out all the relevant circumstances and what to do.