Very Important, Would love everyon'e help.

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Okay, so this is what’s up. My friend is losing it. He used to be a really cool person who would never really do anything wrong but for the past few weeks he has turned to the dark side of life. For the first time in his life he is starting to buy drugs and going to rave clubs and dancing with random girls which is something he has been against his entire life. He wrote me an email last night telling me that he really needed help and wanted to stop doing what he was doing but couldn’t find away out. He has been jumpy lately and ****ed off at everything. Luckily last night he stopped himself from buying some ecstasy after he had already bough some dub. He says the only time he feels anything close to normal is when he is with women. He wants that feeling to stop because he doesn’t want to do something he will regret later.</p>

<p>This is very important and he asked for my help and I would love all the parent’s advice as well as student’s who might have gone through this in their lives. Thank you all so much for your help.</p>

2

<p>okay, sooo many issues here</p>

<p>one, dancing with girls, well that is no big deal, really, why has he been against dancing with girls his whole life? is it a religious thing? fear? </p>

<p>how old is he? that would help for starters</p>

<p>and what were his “belief” systems earlier</p>

<p>and why does he not want to be around women? such a strange comment</p>

<p>again, age is a biggy here on what we see and how to address the issues</p>

<p>was he a shy person before who went overboard, or was he always social and is going a little “loopy”</p>

<p>sometimes when a person has led a sheltered life, when they have some freedom, they go a bit crazy with all the new experiences</p>

<p>but sometimes if a person has led a less sheltered life, with the usual parties, social interactions and they start acting like this, it can be a different issue</p>

<p>we need to know more about your friends pervious life and how he acted socially to get a handle</p>

<p>in the meantime, if he doesn’t want to do the drugs, etc, he needs to find other things to fill his time that are just as fun</p>

<p>and you can do that, still hang with the babes and not do anything crazy</p>

3

<p>for instance, start exercising, volunteering, go to museum, go to events that have people his age, but that aren’t centered around drugs, but again, need to know the age here to make more suggestions, and to know whether the parents need to be considered</p>

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<p>Okay, he turned 19 with in the past month
Dancing with girls isn’t the REALLY bad part, the thing is HE DOES NOT WANTTO HAVE SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE. It is a religion thing and it is very important with him. Right now he is like almost going out to have sex and completely does not want that to happen.
Okay, he does not believe in drugs at all/ever until he turned like 19 and he doesn’t believe in sex before marriage like i said earlier. He also doesn’t believe in him going to Rave clubs. Luckily yesterday he rejected a friend’s invitation to a rave club to hang out with his “other” friends (me).
He was never a really shy person, always out going now, he is just going wild.
He hasn’t been out about for like 3 years with parent not really caring about what he does. (Basically, do not include his parents in a response to this)
Okay, so he has always hanged with random people, and had fun, never drank, never did drugs, loved to have fun and pull pranks (major ones) everywhere. He went to a CC and now is dropping out because everyone there is too stupid. (HE is a really smart person who can’t really afford to go to a good college). Any more info you need?</p>

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<p>It seems like your friend may be questioning his religious beliefs and is possibly depresssed and acting out to deal with his depression. I would suggest that he see a therapist. It’s unfortunate that he is dropping out of college because most colleges have mental health services that would be free, and they are familiar with issues of college age students. If he is still a dependent and his parents have health insurance, that would be another option. The boy needs to talk to a professional.</p>

6

<p>He will not talk to a professional and i won’t even bring that up, and he is not questioning his religious beliefs either. He believes he just can’t control himself…(and i am asking about things i can do to help him out as well)</p>

7

<p>here are some suggestions, based on your friends desires:</p>

<p>if he wants to not have sex before marriage, then he needs to find like minded people, if he is religious, does he go to many church functions? does he do service work, etc</p>

<p>lots of churches have programs for young people to get involved in socially- day trips, movie nights, that kind of thing</p>

<p>having sex is his choice, and if doesn’t just “happen”, and neither does doing drugs or drinking, these are consious choices he is making, and he seems to be pulling back from that</p>

<p>he needs to, if this is what he really wants, is to find things to keep busy that are with a different crowd, he needs to pull back from those “friends”, and make plans, serious ones, so he is busy</p>

<p>a big issue is the dropping out of school with no real plans</p>

<p>is he going to work, take classes at a local university and work at the same time</p>

<p>in your friends case, have him check out americorp for a year, good work there for young people in transition, structured, but still with freedoms</p>

<p>as well, there could be some other issues there and before he drops out, he should talk to a counselor at the CC, or through his church, or a local mental health center, he could be depressed, and sometimes people self medicate when there are other issues involved</p>

<p>well, his BEHAVIOR, is indicative that he does have some conflict with his religious beliefs, and to deny that is not seeing the big picture</p>

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<p>when you say he can’t control himself, that is a signal he needs to talk to SOMEONE…</p>

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<p>yea, he talked to me, now what can i do to help? He can’t afford anything. He works part time just so he can go to CC full time now. It is almost summer and he will be working and will not have the money to go talk to a professional. He asked for some help and i want to give it to him.</p>

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<p>Does your friend have nice, rational parents who might be able to help him/get him to a counselor who can evaluate what’s going wrong? If my kid was experiencing himself as out of control, I would certainly want to know about it and to help whether or not he was over 18. Also, there are seminaries that turn out Ph.D. psychologists who know how to separate out crises of faith from psychological problems. You might want to telephone Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and ask if they have any Ph.D. psychologist/minister graduates in your city. Good luck.</p>

11

<p>we are helping you</p>

<p>you talked about his religious faith, does he have any connection to his church at ALL? that is a place he can start</p>

<p>as well, by finding other things to do, that is praticle stuff, people often party because they don’t hve enough imagination to find other things to do</p>

<p>many cities have FREE services for students…</p>

<p>also, if he is worried about his self control, AA can do wonders, he is not an addict YET, but his personality sounds like he could go that direction if he doesn’t have some support</p>

<p>please, we have given great advice, what do you want to hear?</p>

<p>He is already heloing himself, but dropping out of school without a plan is not good, if he is working fulltime that is okay, but if not, he will have way too much freetime to kill and if he hasn’t gotten into sme other interests, the call of the rave will get him</p>

<p>so, what is his connection to his faith, and if he claims it is that importnat, start there</p>

<p>he should continue with school, no matter how stupid some people are, they are not him and he should do his best to learn whatever he can</p>

<p>what are his options to go partime, even one class at a time at a local university if he quits CC, to keep in the arena</p>

<p>your friend has more issues to be honest then just the partying…he seems to not realize all the options he DOES have</p>

<p>what city are you in, you can PM if you want</p>

<p>you can help by finding cool stuff to do at night with him that is away from the scene he wants to avoid </p>

<p>you can help by encouranging him not to quit school, or to at least look at other school options</p>

<p>you can help by being the friend you have been, and being there if he has a crisis of wanting to go play with the crowd he claims to want to avoid</p>

<p>you can help by pointing out that he is smart, that so far, he hasn’t done anything really to mess up his future</p>

<p>and you can help by looking up and emailing him some programs, ie Americorps, that might be just the thing for him, they pay and house for a year</p>

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<p>Since the sex thing is an issue, maybe you could suggest that he start working towards making himself financially ready to marry. Help him come up with a career path. Maybe there’s something he could do by taking a few more classes, or maybe he can get into a field in which he can work his way up.</p>

<p>One of my friend’s D’s started working at Starbucks while going to CC. When she had been there about 2 years (and was 20 years old), she became an asst. manager (30K per year, I think), then a year or 2 later she was a store manager (40K or so per year). Not bad pay for a young person.</p>

<p>Right now, he may feel like he’ll never be able to afford to get married, so he’s tempted to blow off the commitments he’s made. Another poster mentioned getting involved with his church. Spending time with the people there would make it more likely for him to meet a like-minded girl eventually.</p>

<p>Maybe if he feels like he is moving in a real direction towards fulfilling his desires, it will help him to make it through this time.</p>

<p>On another note, there are serious psychological conditions which can make a person start acting in ways they haven’t before. That’s why the other posters have suggested your friend talk to a professional. Please ask your friend if he has thought about killing himself. If he has, he is likely suffering from depression or something like that. Why don’t you let us know if you start thinking something like that is going on, and maybe we can give you further direction.</p>

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<p>Thank you all for your help…i’ll write something else later…no time now…</p>

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<p>I think it is important that you know that it is almost impossible to help someone that does not want to be helped. It is much like hitting your head against a brick wall. The other thing is taking on someone’s problems, even if they are your best friend is overwhelming…At times like this, parents usally have more life experience to draw from, and usually go into an automatic protect my child mode when they know they are at risk.</p>

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<p>If the religion thing is important to him like you say it is, perhaps he would benefit from talking to a counselor/authority figure from your faith? (Faith-based counseling)</p>