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A space for people aged 12-25 to discuss life. If you’re over 25, please be mindful that this is a space for younger people to connect.

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romantic_thi3f Eeep! When study is overwhelming! - Tips, ideas and coping strategies
  • replies: 51

Hi! Just thought I’d make a post with some tips for study. I know this is something we can all struggle with. These are all suggestions so feel free to take them or leave them! Hope they help! If you only remember one thing, let it be this: You are i... View more

Hi! Just thought I’d make a post with some tips for study. I know this is something we can all struggle with. These are all suggestions so feel free to take them or leave them! Hope they help! If you only remember one thing, let it be this: You are important. Your grades don’t define you. (support) Studying can feel isolating but know you’re not alone! Reach out – and find or make friends that can support you along the way. If you’re having trouble finding some friends, join some local communities or clubs! They have lots at Uni’s and even stuff like open days are great ways to meet new people and find out what’s happening. Study groups can also be a great way to meet people and stay motivated. Also remind yourself why you’re doing this; inspirational wallpapers or quotes can be super inspiring. Remember the saying about the oxygen mask? If you can’t take care of yourself first studying will be harder. You are important. You know the drill - water, food, exercise, sleep. Try to stay calm. Stuff that might be able to help include mindfulness, breathing exercises, colouring in, going for walks, journaling, listening to music… If you’re struggling – reach out. See a therapist. Talk to your student counsellor. If you need help, don’t be afraid to ask for it. Also lots of Universities and TAFE offer disability services – which includes conditions like Depression and Anxiety. (study) Find the right study space for you. Maybe that’s in your room, or a coffee shop, or the library. Some people find that noise helps; other people not so much. If you like particular kinds of noise, you can find ‘coffee shop’ noise or ‘rain sounds’ to help concentrate. Make a plan. It helps to do it often so it becomes a habit. Anytime you get a due date, write it down. Maybe you could use a diary, planner, bullet journal or an app. I find the 30/30 App helpful - study for a bit and then break for a bit. You can also get add-on’s for your computer to block sites like Facebook if you find them too distracting. Find out what study technique works for you. Do you like cue cards? Mind maps? Colour coding? Does highlighting stuff help you remember? Charts, maps, diagrams? Recorded lectures? Goals! These are so important – not just writing down deadlines but rewarding yourself for meeting them. Even making smaller goals like ‘read two pages from a textbook’ can help. Break it down into bite size pieces, and don’t forget to reward yourself after!

Sophie_M NEW TO THIS FORUM? Please read this first
  • replies: 0

The Young People space is a sub-forum within the wider Beyond Blue forum community. 1. Its purpose is to provide members aged 25 and under a space to discuss anxiety, depression and other related life issues. If you are aged over 25, please be mindfu... View more

The Young People space is a sub-forum within the wider Beyond Blue forum community. 1. Its purpose is to provide members aged 25 and under a space to discuss anxiety, depression and other related life issues. If you are aged over 25, please be mindful that this forum is a space for younger people to connect and provide peer support for each other. 2. Content from this sub-forum is displayed on both the beyondblue and youthbeyondblue websites. 3. Please bear in mind that some members find content relating to suicide and/or self-harm distressing or triggering. If you would like to post on these topics, please do so in our Suicidal Thoughts and Self Harm section. Please see also our guidelines for making posts on this topic. Posts made here in the Young People sub-forum containing content relating to suicide and/or self-harm will be moved. 4. These forums are moderated, so your posts may not appear straightaway. Information on how our system works can be found here. Being familiar with our community rules can help ensure that your posts appear online as quickly as possible. 5. This is a peer support community, and to get the best out of being here we recommend that you 'give support to receive support'. More on how that works here.

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Cassie07 Feeling Stressed
  • replies: 2

I have been feeling recently really anxious with no reason. I can't really relax, or go to sleep without music and meditation. If I don't go without music, meditation or drawing for more than a few hours then i start to have panic attacks where I fee... View more

I have been feeling recently really anxious with no reason. I can't really relax, or go to sleep without music and meditation. If I don't go without music, meditation or drawing for more than a few hours then i start to have panic attacks where I feel really stressed and something bad is about to happen. It feels like something is heavy on my chest and I can't breathe properly. Also some intense types of music trigger these attacks too. I am coping okay with everything in quarantine so I don't know what I am stressed about. The stress is making me break out too. I am just getting really tired of being on edge all the time and I don't know what to do. Does anyone have similar problems like this? -Cassie

JovaK Emotional detachment?
  • replies: 3

hi, so I'm not sure what to call it but for majority of my life I have struggled to feel love. I know instinctively that my family and friends love me. but I don't feel anything. When I think about the words and their meaning I feel empty like I'm mi... View more

hi, so I'm not sure what to call it but for majority of my life I have struggled to feel love. I know instinctively that my family and friends love me. but I don't feel anything. When I think about the words and their meaning I feel empty like I'm missing something. This ultimately causes me to feel quite different when I hear about my friends talking about people they are attracted too or how much they love their family. I believe this is what caused me to feel disconnected and distant from the world, I dont feel like I belong, if I stay with a group of people for too long I begin to feel emotional pain. throughout my life I have especially struggled with knowing the value of myself as a person, I dont feel I have any self worth. thus I naturally hate myself. every time someone acknowledges me, every time I receive complements or even when the people closest to me say they care for me, I can't help but feel as though they only say so out of pity. like its their obligation to say so. every time I just hate myself more and feel ever so more disconnected from people. its hard to open up to my family because I've tried 3 times now and each time they claim they understand and yet they still treat me the same, they belittle my issues whilst complaining about how hard their life is. it makes me angry because having my value ignored hurts even more than accepting my own irrelevance. is it possible to have emotional numbness for a specific emotion? or do I have something else entirely? do I even have a problem? am I just making something out of nothing? thanks for listening

FringeWar Born a Sadist?
  • replies: 2

Troy here. Since Kindergarten, I have seemingly derived pleasure out of other's physical pain. I had a female friend then, and she always seemed to get hurt. I remember feeling some guilt in these instances, which makes me wonder if I was inflicting ... View more

Troy here. Since Kindergarten, I have seemingly derived pleasure out of other's physical pain. I had a female friend then, and she always seemed to get hurt. I remember feeling some guilt in these instances, which makes me wonder if I was inflicting the pain covertly; my memorys are hazy. When we were to draw ourselves in the career of our choice, I strangely drew my self as a creepy doctor with a circular saw standing over a busty woman on a surgery table. I was not abused as a child, and my parents/teachers didn't seem to notice. I would go on my slap my older brother across the face with a plastic frog and laugh hysterically for no reason shortly thereafter. From anecdotes relayed to me in my teens, I was adored by my older sister's female friends ad nauseum; I was the envy of mothers--a cute kid. But wouldn't this just make me a narcissist? Nowadays, at 19, I have seemingly dropped the intense sadism I have felt towards teenage girls when I was ages 16-18, but occasional and breif episodes will occur when I am intensly attracted to a particilar female. I hope that I will cease to experience intense surges of aggression when coming into contact with teenage females. However, I am bewhildered as to how I became a sadist in the first place. Are my genetics to blame? Does being adored by females in childhood constitute an environment condusive to the development of sadism?

CloverOfCanterbury Venting problems
  • replies: 3

Hi, - I want to be an animator. However the animation industry in Australia is minuscule and I’m sure that I can’t get a job even if I complete a degree. I could get a job in the filming industry, however the filming industry in Australia is not doin... View more

Hi, - I want to be an animator. However the animation industry in Australia is minuscule and I’m sure that I can’t get a job even if I complete a degree. I could get a job in the filming industry, however the filming industry in Australia is not doing well, either. - I want to get a part time job so that I can support myself financially and don’t have to ask my parents for cash— however I can’t even study well and my parents say that I am not responsible enough for one because I don’t even wash the dishes at home. - Getting a part time job is just giving me the stigma that art majors are homeless and live in poverty or whatever. My parents joke about how after I finish an animation degree I’ll be forced to wash dishes to pay bills anyway. - I don’t wash the dishes at home because I want to focus all my time on studying since I am in year 12. The only problem is that I procrastinate too much because I am too daunted to actually do schoolwork. - I’m failing schoolwork anyway, especially since a lot of my assignments are now just half-finished crap because O procrastinate. - I hate sharing my problems with real people because I’m scared that I’ll use them like a therapist or they’ll throw me away after they get sick of me. It’s what happened to my best friend. - I spend most of my time online and roleplay characters since I find it a good way of escapism. I primarily spend my free time watching video essays about media on YouTube. - I’m skeptical of people who say that I should pursue my career choice, because my parents judge me for being too lazy and never even drawing. I do draw, I just complete hastily finished sketches. - I’ve been trying to practise violin for my 8th grade violin test— however, because of my above choices I don’t have the motivation to. And I don’t have the motivation to especially since AMEB grades does not contribute to ATAR grades at all. So I end up not practising violin for several weeks. - Real life is exhausting, and I get discouraged by my choices and my inability to make a good decision. Which forces me to get addicted to online media even more. I know it’s my fault for getting addicted to social media and that I lack discipline or whatever, but I‘m scared about how I’d rather live online than in real life, and that’s not good for me. Help? Advice?

KarriLB I feel weird?
  • replies: 3

So as of the past maybe 10 months I don’t feel the same, I get stressed more and isolate from friends. I’ve been feeling super insecure which isn’t usually like me. I don’t feel normal. Sometimes I just sit in the dark and cry. I often leave class be... View more

So as of the past maybe 10 months I don’t feel the same, I get stressed more and isolate from friends. I’ve been feeling super insecure which isn’t usually like me. I don’t feel normal. Sometimes I just sit in the dark and cry. I often leave class because I get random shakes and short breath, sometimes it makes me cry. No one knows this. I’m not comfortable talking to my parents but feel I may need to see a professional. I have been doing research and a lot of the stuff I feel sounds like anxiety. How do I stop feeling this way? I can’t describe to entirety how I feel but I just don’t feel right? I feel kinda numb. - at 17yrs old is this normal?

Starfall Failing in life
  • replies: 7

This year I'm 25, and I feel like I have failed in every area of life as a young person. Many people around my age already have the basics together- finished school, got an entry level job at least, have some savings, have a social circle already, ar... View more

This year I'm 25, and I feel like I have failed in every area of life as a young person. Many people around my age already have the basics together- finished school, got an entry level job at least, have some savings, have a social circle already, are getting into relationships, moving out and moving forward in life. However I'm stuck. I started uni when I was 18 but dropped out when I was 20, was a bit lost until I was 23 and started picking back up my life again. My only completed qualification I have is a TAFE course, I only have about 1 year working experience in my field, I'm still studying online at uni and only barely over half way there. Just went to 4 job interviews in the past 2 weeks but got rejected by 2 of them cause of a lack of experience compared to other candidates. Since the whole virus thing is going on, I just want to find some stable work and financially stablise a little bit but finding no success so far. I still live with my parents, don't have much of a relationship with my family due to them being abusive to me in the past, still can't drive and not financially stable enough to move out. I'm hopeless when it comes to my social life too, I currently have no friends, nor do I have acquaintances that I keep in contact with, I've never been in any romantic relationship. I spend all my days stuck at home, looking for work online- sending in resumes, making cover letters and filling out long lists of addressment criterias. But my failures are burning me out in this area. Other than that I try to focus on my online studies, but its really hard to when I feel so down and alone. Only time I go out of my house is to go to job interviews. Really wished I could hold down a stable job, have some friends and relationships by my age but I'm still like a lost kid. My low self esteem keeps weighing me down emotionally and sometimes I just end up in tears all by myself, crying into my pillows at home.

Donny20 Social Media incident from years back
  • replies: 3

Hello everyone, In 2016, I did something that I was and am not proud of. I sent an image that I wasn't proud of- kind of got manipulated into sending it. Anyway, I really struggled following this incident and felt really shitty and disgusted at mysel... View more

Hello everyone, In 2016, I did something that I was and am not proud of. I sent an image that I wasn't proud of- kind of got manipulated into sending it. Anyway, I really struggled following this incident and felt really shitty and disgusted at myself. Anyway, the first year was tough real tough as a lot of people at school were asking me about it. I kept trying to avoid it at every instance I could and it find of went away. It doesn't come up all the time but when things that have anything to do with that or something similar even if it isn't me, my mind casts back to that moment and I cannot seem to move on or get it out of my mind what happened. I just want to be able to forget about it. I am usually really really busy so it gets my mind off it but when I have alone time, you can imagine what I am thinking about. I just don't know what to do. As it is quite a private, sensitive incident that happened and me wanting to keep it under wraps, it kind of is hard to deal with it. Does anyone have any advice. I just really want to be able to move on with my life even though the majority of people I interact with and talk to have no idea. As it was really my worst mistake in my life, you can probably imagine how bad I feel about it and in reality, it probably isn't that big at all. I must also add, the people involved I have tried to avoid since the incident and that particular person, I haven't spoken to them and blocked them out of my life since 2016.

shookookie friendship/ i used to be so bubbly and bright before and now i want that part of me back
  • replies: 2

so this all started when school holidays finished I noticed my friends (let's call them X and Z ) had gotten more closer together like REALLY close and I felt like really left out and I had confronted it to them about it and X had said that Z was goi... View more

so this all started when school holidays finished I noticed my friends (let's call them X and Z ) had gotten more closer together like REALLY close and I felt like really left out and I had confronted it to them about it and X had said that Z was going through a hard time so that's why they go closer and I understood that so I let them be and stuff. I was having a hard time struggling with it all by myself so I told two friends and those two friends I trust a lot but I guess they confronted my two friends so now X and Z said that I was talking about them behind there back, which I was but I didn't technically talk about them I only talked about myself and how I felt that they are excluding me.so another girl comes along and let's just name her A, so she came along saying a lot of stuff as I used her, I spread rumours about her and a lot of other stuff. which I didn't do, yes I talked about her behind her back but I never spread rumours or did any of that. they team up together and they confronted about it, I understood everything they said and apologised anyway and they said apology doesn't fix anything ( i mean what was it created for then ). but I tried my hardest to apologise to them and I even stayed away from them and went with another group of friends ( but I feel like I'm getting in the way of that group's friendship and I feel like I'm annoying to them ) so after all that happened I became SOO different, I was colder, quieter, I wasn't like myself and I wanted my old self back. I had also found out that A had been telling everything that was happening to all the 'popular' girls of the grade and they are like REALLY toxic. 2 weeks ago I had also found out I have depression and I was already struggling to tell my mum. and since all this was happening I became so different and I want that part of me back. I have been crying myself to sleep countless nights because I'm so scared about what's gonna happen. X, Z and A had told me to apologise personally in front of them if I actually meant my apology to them and I'm too scared to but I have to go anyway. my brain is mentally exhausted and a couple of days ago in the shower, I had a panic attack and I had trouble seeing, I fell to the floor but I had no one to call out to since no one was home. I didn't wanna tell anyone cause they would probably think I'm overreacting or telling lies. I honestly don't know what to do anymore, or how I should deal with my mental health, and telling my mum. please help.

omelleteee Constantly Losing Friends
  • replies: 6

Does anyone ever feel like they don't belong anywhere in this world? I recently figured something out. That anyone who I consider as friends will eventually leave at one point in my life. I have a friend who I consider as one of the "best ones" told ... View more

Does anyone ever feel like they don't belong anywhere in this world? I recently figured something out. That anyone who I consider as friends will eventually leave at one point in my life. I have a friend who I consider as one of the "best ones" told me the other day about their birthday plans. Okay, let's call them x. So x was going to do 2 "parties", one with their "best friends" group and one with basically everyone. I'm not in the "best friends" group and of course no, I didn't feel left out because hey, it's not my business who you call "best friend". But today, x posted on social media. The "best friends" group is apparently the new group of friends that x recently met a few weeks ago. This group is the "always dressed up nice in case I need to take photos" and "active" social media users who constantly update their posts so people know what's going on in their life. DISCLAIMER: I'm NOT against these people, I know them in person too, I do and will take photos for them if they ask. I tried so hard to find a better way to describe them people but that's the best I can do so I apologies if it sounds offending. I know I shouldn't feel left out, but I somehow do. Because I know for a fact that I'm different, I'm not one them, I'm nowhere close enough. I wear casual outfits and barely dress up unless I know that I need to (common sense). Although, most of the time when I do dress up, I'm the odd one in the group... I also take regular breaks from social media. Another reason as well, why I felt that way is because this has happened to me a few times before. First, they slowly fade away, then they leave you, eventually. Without any explanations, what did I do wrong? What makes me not qualified enough to be one's friend? A little background about myself, I had severe social anxiety that I finally overcame last year. I used to hide in the toilet's cubicle in big social gathering until someone comes to pick me up. I don't have many friends and once I consider them as "best friends", I mean it and it hurts so much when they leave out of the blue. The amount of times this has happened makes me think that I'm not worthy enough. I know I do but it seems like the world doesn't agree with me here? Is it just me being selfish, thinking all about myself? Should I really feel left out?? What should I do? Does anyone ever feel this way? What do you do when you feel this way?

arshia Social Media Issues
  • replies: 3

I've had an few friends i have been contacting on the social media platforms just sending them food pics or added them to another platform and they suddenly blocked me.Why would people block you on social media at all. Is there any logical steps that... View more

I've had an few friends i have been contacting on the social media platforms just sending them food pics or added them to another platform and they suddenly blocked me.Why would people block you on social media at all. Is there any logical steps that i could contact or ask why they blocked me without telling me the reason or can I still rekindle the friendship.