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A short preamble to begin:
I am a 17 y.o. high school senior and college app season is stressful. I am aware of that.
I am volunteering at some organization during the days. I hate volunteering and I hate the people with whom I will have to deal. I am aware that this too is stressful.
I'm not sure how to organize this, so I'll just go:
Physical pain
After a weight-lifting accident 2 years ago, I though that I had broken my back/shoulder/leg, so I went to see my doctor. He opened a binder and ran me through some tests, measured a few things, and, to my great surprise, told me that everything was fine, and that if I wanted to lift weights, there was no reason not to do so.
So after that, even though it hurt like hell, I lifted again, and again felt like I broke something. I continued to lift for a month or so until I could bear it no more and went to see my doctor again, and he gave me the same tests/response.
Because of this, I have had back/shoulder/leg pain for about two years and I have no way to ameliorate my situation. As far as I can tell, I won't ever get this fixed and I'll have to live with this pain for the rest of my life because doctors these days are too scared of malpractice charges to give any diagnoses. So that's part 1.
Part 2 is that about a year ago, my orthodontist fucked up an adjustment on my braces and one of my teeth has been extremely painful ever since then. During my next appointment, I told them about it, and they said that there was nothing wrong and that it should go away in time (it hasn't), and my dentist would be better suited to diagnose the pain.
So I went to see my dentist and he ran a bunch of tests to see what triggered the pain and what didn't. After completing the last test, he told me that he was not sure what was causing my pain and that if it doesn't get better in time, I should see him again. And about a month later, I went to see him again; he ran a bunch of tests (some same, some different) and again told me that he was not sure what was causing my pain.
I have had this pain for a year and again have no options to ameliorate this situation. Again, I doubt anyone will ever help me because they are scared of malpractice. And what sucks even more about this one is that my parents have had to pay (grudgingly) several thousand dollars to get my teeth straightened and to diagnose the pain and all to no avail. They think that I'm faking and they don't trust me with almost anything anymore. They constantly bring this up whenever I want to buy anything.
insomnia
It takes ages for me to fall asleep. Before I took sleeping pills, I spent 3-5 hours every night tossing and turning before I fell asleep. Now that I take sleeping pills, I spend maybe 1 hours every night tossing and turning, but this is getting longer and I fear that I may be developing a tolerance to the pills.
Education
I hate school. My GPA, SATs, Class choices have been alright but I doubt I will get into any good colleges because I have terrible ECs. I haven't done research, I haven't had an internship, I haven't had a job, and I haven't made a philanthropic contribution to the world (travel to Africa for example). Pretty much everything that I do to get into a good college, I hate. (not saying that I spend most of my time doing useful things, just saying that of the useful things that I do, I hate most). For example, the aforementioned volunteering is just doing tons of trivial jobs with a bunch of people who are rude, racist, and vain.
My parents have always stated that if I get into a top college, they'd be willing to help me pay for college, but I'll probably only get into a state school so I'll probably have to take loans and get a job for college (especially after the dental incident, they've been especially stringent about helping me to pay with college).
life
But apart from that, I'm still pretty sure that the rest of my life will be boring and meaningless. As I see it, I'll go to a state school (I have absolutely no idea what I'll major in), get a mindless job doing gruntwork for bosses who treat me like crap, pay my debt, buy a apartment and car, retire and die. So in the long run, I see no point in living.
In the short term, nothing is fun anymore. Whenever I play video games, I get headaches. I can't (or can barely) exercise because of the aforementioned pain, and I have had no friends pretty much since elementary school because no one has similar interest as those that I have (because I have pretty much no interests). Watching videos/movies is only enjoyable for short periods of time (~10-20 mins) so usually, I just spend my free time playing video games.
So pretty much I hate my life. This isn't something that I've felt in response to the recent stresses of college apps and volunteering (at least not completely). I've felt this way for a long time and actually seen my school psychologist for it, but my school psychologist is just some psychology student who is forced to spend time patients before he is allowed to practice by himself. He just gave me generic advice and didn't promise any privacy so I stopped seeing him.
Sometimes I think about blowing off my senior year and just trying to find something fun to do, and killing myself at the end of the next summer so I don't have to go to / pay for college. I have no idea what I'm doing and the only thing stopping me from killing myself is that I'm too scared to kill myself.
+ Show Spoiler +Writing this has been cathartic, but I still recognize that none of my problems have been solved by writing this. TL was pretty much the only place I thought to write this because it has a short privacy policy that I was willing to read.
 
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Note to mods: if this presents any legal issues, I'd prefer that this post be deleted/nuked.
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A shame about your school psychologist, but you really should get a mental health professional to help you. I'm not a psychologist, but your blog looks like a case of clinical depression.
Two things you should keep in mind: first, the college apps are a temporary problem. Second, if volunteering is more stressful than you feel it's worth, I doubt anyone would fault someone in your situation for quitting it.
On a tangent, I'm fairly sure somebody should be told that your school psychologist didn't promise you medical confidentiality. To the best of my knowledge, a psychologist or psychiatrist is supposed to guarantee complete privacy unless you intend to harm someone.
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Sounds like you've recently developed acute depression caused by stress and pain, I'd go to a real psychologist and a psychiatrist too if you can, and go get a second opinion regarding your pain. And get something from your regular doctor or that 2nd doctor for your pain, if what you've said is accurate you definitely deserve and more importantly need some pain medication
Also pls no suicide bro etc go get some pain pills from what you've said physical pain is more than half of what's dragging you down like it would anyone in that amount and duration
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There are many elements that trigger sleep that lie "under the hood." One element would be psychological associations in your brain that basically say whether or not you should fall asleep. Staying in your bed writhing around makes you more likely to stay in your bed and writhe around in the future. If you aren't falling asleep in your bed, get out of your bed and do something else. When you get tired again, go into your bed and try to fall asleep. Rinse and repeat until you no longer have so many issues.
Also, have you considered somatoform disorders as a cause for your weightlifting issues? If the doctors have no clue, maybe that could be a solution.
On another note, not as many doctors as you would think are scared as shit about malpractice suits. Or at least don't avoid diagnosing your issues because of them. Heck, malpractice suits make doctors try especially hard in many circumstances to diagnose you. Got a headache in the waiting room? Tell it to the doctors and you'll get a one-way trip to the MRI machine.
Nah, the hard part about diagnosing rare diseases is that most doctors don't actually know about them and if they do, they don't know much. If you have something really rare, you're probably going to have to see several doctors over a period of months to figure out what your problem is.
Finally, major depression (which is what you have) is a horrible psychological disorder that removes most of the coping mechanisms that keep you alive on a day-to-day basis. Even worse, major depression tacks on some additional shit, such as overwhelming cynicism bordering on delusion and magnification of physical discomforts. The stress alone can take a hell of a toll on your physical body as well.
Take a pill, see a shrink, do something to fix that depression. You're a kid, kids get depressed. I know, I've been there. I felt like nothing would ever get better, that I was so fucked that I might as well end it all right now. But I didn't, because I was scared. And now a few years later I've done more than I could ever imagine, more than I could ever even conceive as possible.
Five years from now you could have your chronic pain cured, a new girlfriend and a hell of a life, but there's no way to know if it all ends now.
You actually have no idea how little you've lived. If it all ends here there will be nothing but regrets all around.
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United States24779 Posts
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About killing yourself; there's no point since you're going to die eventually die anyways, you might as well see what life is like as long as you can. Things change man, even though it might seem like they don't, maybe not right away but they do. Sometimes it's gradual and it might take a while to notice it.
I guess it comes down to this no matter what you do you will get to experience death, so you shouldn't be in a hurry to get there, instead take your time and find out what life has to offer.
I have suffered and still suffer from depression, it's been pretty bad at times too. Just saying this so you know I'm not speaking out my ass and I actually have experience with this kind of stuff (not saying people who haven't suffered form depression can't give advice though).
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Life is worth living. At the end of the day, don't let college acceptance be the be all end all of your life. There is SO much more to life than getting into a Ivy League school.
And as everyone has said before, you should seek serious physical and mental help.
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Meaning is an abstract construct of our minds, and if you aren't happy it's a mental problem most likely brought about by an unskillful view of the world. Get better at dealing with life.
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Killing yourself is stupid, if for no other reason don't mess up your family. But if you really feel that way, go live. Try to jump the grand canyon, go fight a lion, jump out of an airplane and land on a hot air balloon, do literally whatever you want. You were going to kill yourself anyway, so there's nothing to fear.
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Lemee just say that you don't need to go to Harvard or Stanford to have a great career. You can still become a hyper successful millionaire by graduating from a state school, because college is only the beginning. There's literally no reason to assume that just because you aren't going to one of the top 10 schools in the country, your career is gonna be shitty or meaningless. And it's not even like state schools are remotely bad. State schools can be pretty awesome. It's way more about what you do with your four years when you're IN college, and how hard you work there, and how you present yourself. And if you wanna go to graduate school, you can go to even one of the best grad schools in the world with undergrad at a state school if you apply yourself. Don't think that going to a state school is the end of ANYTHING.
Seriously though, it sounds like you really ought to see a REAL therapist like everyone else said.
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You´re 17, basically you have not lived yet and any sane person should feel a little depressed at that age.
Things improve over time, go back and read this thread when you are 22 and laugh at it 
Also you should consider trying out some new things/interests. There are a lot of really fun things to do out there besides video games. If life is pointless/boring why not just go out and try stuff, whatever happens does not really matter anyway right?
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Try to focus on the positive stuff, find something you love and then get good at it at it.
Then EXCEL at it.
During the process get to know people, make friends, learn new stuff.
By the end of all these you should be doing something you love and are good at, surrounded by people who look up to and appreciate you.
+ Show Spoiler +Getting laid is a bonus
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the point of life is to find things that fulfill you, and in that way you can fulfill other people's lives
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Okay for physical pain part 1... I hope you went to an orthopedic doctor and not your family doctor. Never be afraid to get a 2nd opinion. I think it took Montel Williams 15 years to find a correct diagnosis that he had Multiple Sclerosis. Doctors get shit wrong.. don't be afraid to go to someone else.
For part 2.. again, I don't know anything about your dentist but maybe he didn't pass his certification until the 3rd try? He also may be afraid to admit a mistake because of the potential for a lawsuit.
I'll ignore the insomnia portion because.. I don't know much about it except for some people just struggle to get a good 6 hours of sleep. Sleep apnea any problems?
For education... dunno what school you want to go to but I didn't have a job when I went into college, I didn't do any internship, nor did I take my SATs/PSATs, and I went to community college.. got my generals out of the way + classes that I knew (once I decided what I wanted to do for a career) would transfer over to a different college (saved a TON of money doing this). Then I went to a university for a few years and got my BA in Athletic Training.
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On July 21 2013 15:27 travis wrote:
Meaning is an abstract construct of our minds, and if you aren't happy it's a mental problem most likely brought about by an unskillful view of the world. Get better at dealing with life.
Don't give advice like this please. Dealing with depression is not a matter of getting better at life. It is hard to give a shit about anything when your mind is incapable of emotion.
On another note as someone with depression and coming from a family with a history of suicide DO NOT COMMIT SUICIDE. You couldn't do a worse thing to your family. Find someone to talk to about it. Someone with depression or a shrink works well. If you do find someone to talk honestly with about depression the mutual pain will in all likeliness develop into friendship anyways. I have found many good friends this way.
Additionally self pity will not help you. Take the depression and the physical pain as a challenge to tell life to go fuck itself. When you don't feel defeated you will be able to deal with that stuff better. I'm not saying it will fix itself because of this but it will help you deal with it.
As far as the physical pain goes I am neither a doctor nor physiotherapist so I can't help you there much. Physio has done wonders for my knees though (this is merely an idea, I have no idea if it will help you) so maybe a physiotherapist can help.
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i have a major depression/burnout myself (I sleep 12+ hours a day and get exhausted quickly).
for many symptoms EFT (emotional freedom technique) has helped me alot and Im a firm believer in it and have done it for more than 4 years.
The good thing about it is you can learn it in 5 minutes then try it on your backpain for 20 minutes and will probably get some good results. what I want to say is, you dont have to invest a lot of time in it without knowing if it works.
Give it a try! it might help alot!
Good luck with your problems!
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OP, do you use any drugs or alcohol at all besides the sleeping pills? Even prescription stuff? Often times opiate withdrawal will create pain where there is none (even weeks or months after). Some theorize its the mind trying to tell you to get more opiates, others think its all the numbed nerves coming back online and firing in weird ways. It goes away though.
BoT, I dunno why you went back to working out even though you were injured. should have taken time off for sure. I have injured myself a few times lifting heavy weiights and I wait until I am at like 70-80% back to normal before I attempt to get back into it. And why did you go back to the same doctor, go for a second opinion man. I'm sure you realize this now.
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Do you want it so badly to live a meaningful life like you claim it should be (a successful one after joining a good college?).
You're 17 dude, still got 5 or 6 years of development ahead, just be sure to find the field you want to master as a job, and start becoming good at that.
Once you're good at something and like it, your success should come naturally with the things you work out.
Getting into college, doing university, all that stuff is overrated. Its purpose is supposed to be to teach you something well, nowadays the name of the university seems to matter more than that. In theory you can teach all that stuff to yourself. Internet is now full of didactic material universities teach. It doesn't matter where you went, it matters who you are.
In summary, your priority is to find something you're good at and which you like, but most likely which you like cause you can always become good at that.
Also, do you really want to be one of those super successful guys? Stuff like corporate CEO's, politicians, investment bankers and whatnot? You realize that their success comes at a price? They lose free time, privacy and become more or less slaves of their work life, with huge responsibility, constant stress.
I don't want to be up there to be honest.
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EPT
