Need assistance to generate a plan of action to mitigate my depression

[Jolene2012]

Thanks for clicking and taking the time to read my story.

I have been struggling with depression (on and off) for 12 years. I am 23 now and am sick of it!
It started in school whilst my parents were fighting everyday and using me as an emotional punching bag.
Despite this I did well in school and believed in myself.

Then in highschool a "friend" bullied me for 3 years. It was intense, physical assult, daily emotional taunting, it left me dreading school. At this point my parents were separated and I was living with my sister and Dad, whilst not getting along with my Mum.

My general attitude was, I'm strong enough to deal with this on my own. This was the general advice from my Dad. This resulted in me never reaching out to my best friend, school councillor, teachers, etc.
This attitude followed me to when I was raped by a "loving" boyfriend. Again, I did not tell my best friend, parents, sister, etc. (5 years ago)

Now I am in the position of having no friends, I am struggling to complete my university course (I love what I am studying, however this same attitude prevents me from reaching out for help when I need it).
I turned this around this summer after a great work experience program where I got tonnes of support. Untin Coronavirus....

Coronavirus forced me to move back home for the past 3 months and I've never made such a big mistake!

It was such a toxic environment, that I couldn't complete my studies online and I'm not certain if I'll be allowed to continue with my work experience program.
I feel so lost and frustrated. I don't have anyone I can turn to for support and I need to plan how to procede.

I will go back to the city and prepare for my studies next semester. My main concern is how I am dreading going back, as I have no support/friends there. I have taken steps to talk to potential friends in my city and it looks promising. However I still have the issue of my depression. It has effected every aspect of my life!!!

Plan of action so far....

I need a support group in Perth with people who understand me! I need to speak to the councillors at uni and explain how it's effected my studies. I need a psychologist to acknowledge and address my past experiences so I can stop thinking about them as issues (the bullying, the rape, the fear I have of opening up to people).

My goal from therapy is to build a support network for myself in Perth!
Please someone provide some guidance! I would very much appreciate it!

[Sophie_M]

Hey Joelene, thanks for coming onto the forums. We hope our supportive community here can provide you with some advice and guidance on how you can build a positive support network. It sounds like you've been through a lot throughout your life and we're so sorry all of this has happened to you. We can imagine you've had to process and handle a lot of pain, so we just wanted to let you know that if you find yourself feeling particularly overwhelmed before receiving further mental health support, please know that there is help available to you. 

The Beyond Blue Support Service on 1300 22 4636 or our friends at Lifeline on 13 11 14 are available to provide support and advice 24/7. Please do feel free to use these services to talk through what's on your mind when it's feeling like too much to cope with.

If you feel up to it, we'd also recommend reaching out to our Coronavirus Mental Wellbeing Support Service. The website will be regularly updated with information, advice and strategies to help you manage your wellbeing and mental health during this time. 
Please also feel free to keep us updated here on your thread with what you are feeling and experiencing whenever you feel up to it - we hope that you find this to be a safe and non-judgemental space.

[josh1245]

hey Jolene2012 I would firstly like to welcome you to this wonderful online community and would like to applaud you for your incredible strength and bravery in asking for help and support its something that you should be very proud of. I'm really sorry that you are going thorough a really hard time at the moment but everyone in the beyondblue community is here to support you every step of the way.

[rtfm]

Hi Jolene, I hope you're doing okay today. Thanks for your post - it's very clear and you've obviously spent a lot of time and effort understanding your troubles and how you can move forward with your life. It's a very impressive quality, and I hope you can see that and take some pride in it.

I can't know what exactly will work for you in terms of the kind of life which supports and nourishes you, so all I have to say is just tossing out ideas and strategies for you to consider, whether you discard them or they prove useful is going to be something for you to determine.

I noted that you've got what sounds like a pretty good idea of your circumstances and a - as you put it - plan of action. This is a very good thing to have, but I'll point something out which you might not like to hear: when it comes to things like making friends it is a frustrating fact that one can't make other people do what they should! People, nothing ruins a good time faster right?! 😉

Seriously though, the thing that jumps out to me from your plan of action is that it is largely about the things you need to do. The context you gave of your upbringing suggests that self-reliance might have been a very important - perhaps even essential - quality, and it is a good one to have, but there are things in life you are going to have to let others do for you. For instance, choose to be friends with you back.

I think that your plan to talk to the university staff is an extremely good one. I don't know the specifics of the administrative structure there, but I would suggest getting in touch with the disability support team they will have on staff. You might feel that's not for you, in which case I'll point out that a 'disability' is something that reduces a person's ability to do a given thing. You have explained that your mental health has reduced your ability to do what you want to academically, and so it is important to recognise that your mental illness thus constitutes a real disability in the scope of your academic work. As such, the disability support services are employed to help people like me and you to deal with the mental health issues which we've had the bad luck to experience so that we can do the things we want to do. They will be the best people to help with the administrative stuff to do with getting your concerns about uni sorted out.

That's a pretty long reply, so I'll leave it there for the time being, let me know how things go and take care of yourself Jolene.

T.