When to seek help and when to suck it up

Parent Cafe
1

<p>After seeing the thread about antidepressant study, I was curious as to your opinions about when it is necessary to seek help for depression/anxiety. </p>

<p>To explain this, I come from a family that has had a long history of problems. (One might even call it a genetic cesspool, really… rapists, child molesters, a slew of drug addicts and alcoholics, and if you go back a few generations even a guy who murdered two of his children…) My parents grew up poor and so did all of their siblings in addition to all of that other mess, so oftentimes when I come to them or anyone else in my family with a problem, I hear about how they’ve had it so much harder and I have no right to complain. Essentially, I get told to suck it up. </p>

<p>I suppose there’s merit in the idea of being tough and dealing with the situations that life throws at you, but how do you know when your level of distress is outside of the realm of normal and sucking it up simply isn’t an option anymore? I’m asking this because when I started high school, I was well-known for being a very happy-go-lucky, friendly person, and I was definitely a lot more outgoing than I am now. I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to withdraw, relate to people less, and in general I just don’t seem to take what life throws at me as well as I used to by a long shot. When I was 11, I took caring for a one and a half year-old child with my 9 year-old brother practically by ourselves with a certain level of stoicism. Now, I get a paper, the idea of writing it makes me depressed, I try to escape with various distractions (TV, internet, etc.) and then when the due date rolls around I usually panic, cry, and then stay up all night writing the paper. What’s worse, is that I spend the entire intermittent period unhappy, but I still do it every time and I can’t really explain why. I just can’t seem to bring myself to write the paper before the last minute, just like I have to struggle to get out of bed in the morning, or to do anything else really. It seems I spend a good amount of time psyching myself up before I can get anything done because I know that what I will be doing won’t make me happy. </p>

<p>Even as I’m reading this, I’m cringing thinking this is exactly what my parents would call me being dramatic/lazy/whiny/insert whatever other term here. But, when I get to thinking about life, I just get sad because I feel like I work and work and work and then eventually I get to retire and have a few good years before I die. How do I know the difference between me having a crappy attitude and me being depressed?</p>

<p>I apologize in advance, because reading over this, I don’t really even know what I’m trying to say. I just have so much swirling in my head that I can’t seem to fall asleep anymore, hence me being up and trying to get some semblance of what I’m thinking written out.</p>

2

<p>I’d suggest it is worthwhile talking with your student counseling office. Part of your tuition goes to having the office available and they are trained to help students sort through these issues. I would definitely give them a try & see if they have any suggestions on how to help you do better time management and get a better handle on your feelings.</p>

<p>“Sucking it up” is a strategy you have tried so far and you have admitted in the above post that it isn’t “optimal,” and there are other alternatives defintely worth exploring and pursuing. You basically have nothing to lose by exploring them, so give it a try. If the first counselor you meet with doesn’t work out, don’t be afraid to try another one or two–it can take a few tries to get the right “match.”</p>

<p>Hope this is helpful. I (& many folks I care about & respect) have seen counselors at critical points in my life and found them helpful. Now is one of those times.</p>

3

<p>I agree with HImom.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that your parents learned to suck it up because they didn’t have access to the resources like the counseling center that you have access to. The more money/education people have, the more likely they are to get help from therapists and counselors. That’s because they can afford to do so.</p>

4

<p>I agree too. A professional can tell you if “sucking it up” is the best strategy at least as reliably as us!</p>

<p>WHAT thread about the antidepressant study?</p>

5

<p>Hi Julie. Yes, you should go to counseling. You don’t have to be in a major depression to benefit from counseling. If you have trouble settling down to write your papers and put things off till the last minute, that would be a good thing to work on with a counselor. That is common with students–I did it all through college and looking back, I wish I hadn’t. </p>

<p>You also mention all the thoughts swirling around in your head and having difficulty sleeping–those are signs of stress. All the family background and your parents not being too supportive of your own issues and development–all of that can be discussed in counseling and it will make you feel better to talk it over. It’s good to work through these issues now while you are in college and you are still young. </p>

<p>Sometimes when someone has had a difficult childhood, then some of the issues from that time crop up later and need to be dealt with. Go over to the counseling office or call them to make an appointment. Don’t wait till you feel overwhelmed.</p>

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<p>Julie- yep, try an appointment with the counseling office. They’re there for whatever you need them for-- even just talking through a small problem that you’ve run up against and can’t quite figure out, all the way up to helping you get major help (though it sounds like you don’t need major help, just someone to talk to, probably). If you’d like, PM me and I can talk you through what to expect when you give them a call, and some hints I’ve gained for getting the most out of counseling.</p>

<p>It’s not whining to go to a counselor, and it doesn’t mean you’re not “sucking it up”… I see it as a way to find strategies to unravel life knots. Counselors don’t magically make it better; they help give you ideas on how <em>you</em> can make it better. It’s using your resources wisely, which is the smart and responsible thing to do!</p>

<p>Good luck in whatever you decide.</p>

7

<p>If you feel the need to ask- go for counseling. You will get help with your problems, whether they turn out to be ordinary stresses or medical depression/other. You may get reassurance that you are not as bad off as you may believe and get some coping advice, or you can be “plugged into the system” to get the help you need. A win-win situation to seek help from your school’s counseling office.</p>

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<p>Shrinkrap: It’s called - Study - Antidepressants Change Personality. In the Parent’s Cafe.</p>

9

<p>Going to counseling and getting drugs are not necessarily one and the same thing. Also, it is frequently very hard work to do counseling and to go through and to get to the other side.</p>

<p>The good news is that a really good counselor can be somebody there to listen and sometimes direct you towards methods of working through the past, and pretending that nothing happened can actually be the cowards way out.</p>

<p>It is the brave thing to ask for help and then to do the work to get to the other side. Regardless of whether you are prescribed medication or not, the best practices would indicate you continue with talk therapy and work it through. You are young enough that you do not have to spend the rest of your life at the effect of issues not your own. </p>

<p>Be clear on your goals when you go to interview potential therapists…as in, “this is what I want from therapy.” There are a ton of methods to help you help yourself, and even if you are prescribed in the short run as a way to assist you in getting to the other side, unless you have a chemical mental situation, you probably won’t need meds forever.</p>

10

<p>Hi Julie.</p>

<p>I know exactly what you’re trying to say–having grown up in my own genetic cesspool. There are two ways you can go when you’re thrown into that–you can fall apart, self-destruct, act out at school, and generally live in chaos like the rest of your family–OR–you can do what you did, and what I did, which is become stoic and end up taking care of everybody else. That thing when you’re trying to tell your family about a problem and they’re saying they’ve had it worse and you should suck it up? That’s a great way for them to keep demanding that you be the uber-responsible one, and they get to keep needing you, but you don’t ever get to need them. I grew up that way. It’s a terrible thing to do to a child. They never had to worry about me. I had it together, but that’s a ridiculous thing to expect from a child, and it’s a great way for you to learn to bury your feelings so deep that you don’t even know what they are.</p>

<p>It’s not a crappy attitude. You’re burned out. When you start being a caretaker so young, and when you’ve never really been cared for yourself, of course you’re just exhausted by it. It may be depression, or it may not be. I did go through depression and was treated for it, and here’s how I knew I was depressed: I just didn’t care about anything anymore. I couldn’t get excited about seeing a new movie, or dinner out with friends. It all seemed pointless. That sense of drudgery you feel, that feeling that you work and work and what’s it all for–that’s coming from a place of exhaustion. It’s not a physical exhaustion, it’s mental. </p>

<p>One of the things I loved about being a student was the free counseling. You should definitely take advantage of it, because you will be amazed how it feels to have someone who listens to you without judging, who has no agenda or ulterior motive, who is not trying to manipulate and control you for their own good. That’s one of the worst parts of growing up the way you did–you feel guilty for feeling bad–and that’s crippling, because then you can’t really take care of yourself the way you need to in order to heal and feel restored. My college therapist said something that really stunned me. When I was weeping about not having it together, not doing as well as I should in school, just struggling along and feeling lost and feeling guilty and like a failure she said,“How could you possibly have done it differently? How would you have known? Who taught you? Who helped you? Who supported you and nurtured you?” Ah, nobody. Part of what my family did to me was to bully me into thinking I just didn’t need those things, and to react so swiftly and dramatically if I dared to give voice to those needs, that I learned very early not to cry. </p>

<p>The hardest part of my life was when I was responsible only for me. I think you’re hitting that wall too.</p>

<p>Talk to a counselor. Another side effect of growing up in this dynamic is that sometimes we self-sabotage because we feel guilty about having success. Don’t suck it up, because you’ve been sucking it up your whole life, and enough is enough. It’s perfectly okay to ask for help. It’s perfectly okay to be struggling and to need some support. In healthy families, this is what children learn.</p>

11

<p>Some people procrastinate and work very well under pressure and the approach of leaving things until the last minute and then churning it out does work well for a lot of people until the assignments get to a level of difficulty making it near impossible to work in this manner. BTW, I did the same thing in high-school. It didn’t work so well in college. This might be an ADHD-type issue.</p>

<p>Counseling isn’t necessarily about fixing physical problems or medication; it can also be about making changes in your life where things aren’t working out well.</p>