How do I get through high school with depression and social anxiety and still keep my sanity?

I’m in my last year. I was going to go back for another year, but a teacher I like told me to get out while I can. Now I don’t want to go back because I don’t think it’s worth all that extra stress. Instead I’m just going to spend the next year or two working until I can save up enough money to go to school.

Until then, I have to deal with my depression and anxiety. I don’t have any friends because I’m too afraid to talk. It developed because of my dysfunctional family. My dad drank and abused my mom verbally. He even attacked her over stupid things. We’ve had to call the police on him once when I was almost 10. I’ll never forget that night. Now I don’t even talk to him.

People sometimes try to talk to me at school but I get too afraid to respond. I tense up and just stay quiet. After a while they just give up. I like my time alone, but it would be nice to have someone to talk to at least. I used to get picked on because I’m quiet and I’ve been betrayed by bad friends.

My family is useless for support because surprise surprise, they all have depression as well! Want to know why? It’s because they refuse to try to deal with their problems, instead choosing to let them affect them and their entire life. They are so weak. I want to move out as soon as possible. Unlike them, I’ve been getting counselling to help deal with my problems. I won’t be completely cured until I’m gone from them though.

My mom forced me to go on medication not even knowing the reason why I was depressed. Her excuse was genetics. Well the medication just made everything worse. So I went off it. She clearly doesn’t understand that I’m depressed because of the family. I don’t care what anybody thinks. I don’t need medication and I never did. I know why I’m depressed and I know what to do about it. I’m just finding it difficult because I’m not 18 yet.

My school life is difficult because I have to deal with the most moronic people. This dumb blond type girl tried to prove her intelligence by telling everyone that our blood is actually blue. Sad really. I’m just trying to stay strong and not go insane. I need to know what I can do.

Negative emotions (like sadness, stress, anger, etc.) causes your Serotonin production to be low; when your Serotonin level is low, you are more prone to getting Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Depression, etc.

Medication like Antidepressants (SSRI - Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) helps to boost Serotonin level.
But there are natural ways to do it without medication. There’s this strange herb called "St John’s Wort" - it is said to be more effective than Prozac. No, it is not for mild depression only and ignore those sayings. In fact, it does help anxiety and panic-attacks as St John’s Wort works like prozac. Other natural ways will be exercise, diet, more exposure to light, etc.

The problem is that, even if your Serotonin is balanced… you have that "learned behavior" in your mind. You need to break that initial cycle to destroy that learned behavior - Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) does this. A technique that you can use without CBT will be Distraction… There are several other techniques to help cope them!
Ok, to use Distraction: Firstly, try to….

Extracted from Source.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 5:48 pm and is filed under social anxiety support. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.