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Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (January 2021)
This is a monthly thread for those who need it. Vent, share your experiences, ask for advice, talk about how you are doing. Let's make this a compassionate space for all who may need one.
I lost 3 family members this year. Between my two sons they had 4 psychiatric hospitalizations. I was also diagnosed with Bipolar 2. This has been one of the hardest years of my life.
But there is good too. We got to finalize our adoption of our two boys, which is amazing. I still have a good job, my wife was able to quit her job to spend more time the kids.
I'm really counting on 2021 being a better year because even with the good I'm not sure I can handle another year like 2020.
For context, I'm a 15 years old male that lives in San Diego, California.
Anxiety
I have anxiety issues. It's probably GAD. Due to parental expectations to get good grades, school is stressful, which worsens things. I also have a class where only a few tests and essays are worth a large proportion of the grade and are graded harshly, which makes me stress about those assignments. I also have an activity which I enjoy, but is also another source of stress.
Social Situation
I have had nobody I would consider a friend in the last 3 years. I guess I had distant friends, but we never talked except in whichever class we shared. Going to high school (instead of middle school) and the pandemic cut off those too. Family (including a similar aged sibling) seem to be a mostly fine substitute though. While I am bothered by it, I appear to be okay compared to what my school expects. My guess to why—and also why I don't have any friends—is that I'm introverted and have high functioning autism (or something of that nature)*. I also don't feel that I have similar interests (programming, history, science, politics) to my peers. The pandemic didn't worsen this, but it did prevent any chance of me meeting new people, older teenagers especially, at high school.
* Side note about me having autism
I'm confused about this. I got a 68 on this test, which is slightly above the threshold for having a high likelihood of having Autism. Here is a table of my results compared to others:
There, I exceed the threshold for the "Social relatedness" category, nearly meet it for the "Sensory/motor" category, and don't meet the other categories at all. This seems somewhat odd for high level autism, but I don't know what else I would have. My elementary school did diagnose me with it, but I don't have any more information from them on it.
After a discussion with a coworker a couple weeks ago, I’ve finally realized that some of my team’s habits have me burnt out. I have two options: either find work with a different team, or find a new job.
I’ve also been dealing with loneliness and general anxiety for a few years— COVID didn’t change a lot. I figure that work has left me with very little emotional energy to find new friends, which leaves me with no local emotional support. I was able to reunite with my siblings (definitely not the smartest thing; at least nobody got sick), and this experience really drove home what I’m missing.