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Sophie_M How are you feeling about the social media restrictions in Australia for under 16s?
  • replies: 14

Hey everyone With the upcoming Australian social media restriction for under 16-year-olds coming up we want to know what this means for you and maybe even the young people in your life. This conversation is a place for all of us to share how we are f... View more

Hey everyone With the upcoming Australian social media restriction for under 16-year-olds coming up we want to know what this means for you and maybe even the young people in your life. This conversation is a place for all of us to share how we are feeling and what we think the challenges and benefits might be for you or the wonderful young people in our community. Have you thought about how to stay connected with friends you’ve met online? Are you focused mostly on the positives, or the negatives? What do your parents think, and what could they do to support you? Importantly the Beyond Blue Forums are not impacted by these restrictions, we're here for anyone under 16. In short, from December 10 Social Media companies will need to ensure that only people over 16 actively engage with their platforms. There is a lot of information out there which can make it tricky to know what to expect on when it comes into effect. To learn more we think these are a helpful place to start eSafety commissioner + Headspace FAQs. We know this change will impact some more than others, QLife provide anonymous and free LGBTIQ+ support and 13YARN are here for all Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people. We want to hear your thoughts on how this might impact the mental health of under 16s in both a positive and negative way. The Beyond Blue Forums are a place for constructive and helpful conversation and the regular moderation rules apply which means we look forward to a kind and understanding discussion. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings Sophie M

BeyondBlue New to this Forum? Please read this first!
  • replies: 0

Hey there! Welcome to the Young People section of the Beyond Blue Forums. The purpose of this section is to provide members aged 25 and under a space to discuss life issues, tricky situations and the difficult emotions and feelings that come with tho... View more

Hey there! Welcome to the Young People section of the Beyond Blue Forums. The purpose of this section is to provide members aged 25 and under a space to discuss life issues, tricky situations and the difficult emotions and feelings that come with those. If you are aged over 25, please be mindful that this is a space for younger people to connect and provide support for each other. These forums are moderated, so your posts may not appear straight away. Information on moderation on the Forums can be found here. Being familiar with our Community Guidelines can help ensure that your posts appear online as quickly as possible. If we have concerns about your wellbeing, one of our friendly moderators will check in with you privately to make sure you get the support you need. If you need more immediate support, we recommend reaching out to the following: Beyond Blue Support Service – any time, chat online to a counsellor or call 1300 22 4636 Headspace – between 9am and 1am (AEST), chat online to a mental health clinician or call 1800 650 890 Kids Helpline – any time, chat online to a counsellor or call 1800 55 1800 Thank you for being here. We’re glad you’ve found us here and hope this can be a supportive space for you Beyond Blue

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VaultySheSalty I'm feeling horribly isolated because of who and where I am.
  • replies: 2

Hey all. I'm sorry if this post isn't great or formatted correctly or something like that. I've never been very good at forums. After proofreading I've noticed it's a poorly paragraphed and inconsistent ramble and stream of thoughts more than anythin... View more

Hey all. I'm sorry if this post isn't great or formatted correctly or something like that. I've never been very good at forums. After proofreading I've noticed it's a poorly paragraphed and inconsistent ramble and stream of thoughts more than anything but I haven't slept and I'm too lazy to correct things and gather my thoughts. I don't even know what I want out of this post. I'm a 17 year old bi transgender girl and I've had low functioning depression and anxiety for roughly half of my life. I feel so isolated and trapped in my town. The closest transgender support group to me has not only disbanded, but they were transmasculine exclusively. All of my friends are cisgendered and straight, and while I trust them and love them so much, I can't properly tell them how my situation is making me feel, despite me being out to all of them and them all being supportive. They also all live more than two hours away from me, since my mum and I have had to move constantly because of landlords selling houses. I've tried to find other gender-diverse Australians, and when I do, they're all in other states (QLD and VIC are the main two I've noticed) or the ones who are in NSW are all from Sydney or much older than me, moreso than what I'm comfortable with, or both. I missed my last psychiatrist appointment because I slept through it and couldn't get out of bed. Now we don't have enough money for me to have another one. I didn't really have a "teenagehood". Despite being friends with most of my schoolmates when I was in school, I felt like I wasn't much more than a classtime joke-slinger. None of my school friends invited me to the nights out they had, and when I made plans outside of school, everyone ghosted me or cancelled at the last second (except for one of my best friends). And while I know that high-school relationships are mostly superficial and almost never go anywhere - I hate that I never had one because of who I am. idk what exactly I want out of this post - maybe to know that someone like me exists near me? For just once in my life I want someone to hold me and actually care for me.

Confused_and_hurt New to this please excuse the length
  • replies: 3

I have recently been involved in a unhealthy household amongst other young people where things escalated beyond reason so I moved from that environment back to my other accommodation and we recently had some visitors who I use to live with and they w... View more

I have recently been involved in a unhealthy household amongst other young people where things escalated beyond reason so I moved from that environment back to my other accommodation and we recently had some visitors who I use to live with and they were nasty to me then so I kept my distance this time around. On of the girls that I live with was seeing this person and did things in which I do not condone in and I found it disrespectful for them to being doing those things within a living environment where others had not been exposed to it. I spoke to this girl about the issue and she addressed that she didn't like to hear I didn't like this person and was quite defensive about the issue and we didn't see eye to eye, I also discussed other issues with her about other people and where things stood, this has since been turned around and twisted and I have been accused of lying. Thursday whilst I was at work I was informed if I come into contact with anyone traveling to Sydney or coming from Sydney I can be asked to remain away from work for 3-5 days to prevent the passing of the COVID-19. I emailed the head resident and spoke to him about my concerns with certain people traveling to and from the area of Sydney, he responded and they are in the process of getting a form out to protect everyone. Friday evening this same girl came and went off at me accusing me of ratting her out because she was planning on traveling to Sydney and I simply said my job is in the line and she then used other information of which was disclosed to her in private against me and tried to belittle me and bully me out if the dorm living. J have since had two panic attacks and am feeling quite fearful for my wellbeing

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.