leeju1 asked this question on 4/15/2000:
hi! i am high school student, 17yrs old. from Japen. i've been u.s. about 1 and half yrs. and i changed A LOT. when i was in my country i was very outgoing. but now after this one and half yrs miserble American life, i became an anti-social. i never talk to people in the school. i never laughed. i dont have any friend... i just locked myself in my own world. i like to be alone. and sometimes i even hates those people around me. i always want them think i am bad, so they can get away from me. maybe because i dont have any friend, i always fell into deep deprssion. uausally i write poems or songs, then i ll feel better. but after that it will start all over. i just wanna ask what i can do. to get along with people, and what can make me happy?
karunap gave this response on 4/15/2000:
Depression is most often due to stuffing one's feelings….. particularly anger. I think you can see in your own life how you felt angry and sad and maybe scared, kept the feelings inside and then they started pulling you down and inward.
The first step in moving out of the depression is to start doing feeling work. I suggest people do 15-60 minutes a day of feeling work.
There are many forms. Some examples:
Write lists of mads, sads and scares. Journal about past and present feelings, Feel them as you write. Write angry letters and then destroy them Twist a towel Pound a pillow. Push against a wall pretending you are pushing away people you are angry with. Scream into a pillow or pool. Stomp as you walk
Improve your diet and exercise patterns.
When you release the stored feelings you will find yourself clearer and better able to think about how to solve the here and now problems.
It is imortant you have friends in your life. AS long as you feel like you want to be totally alone you can assume you are still depressed. Alone time is fine... isolation is not.
If you do the above things for three or so weeks and still feel terrible I suggest you see a counselor. Find someone that will help you solve your problems as opposed to someone that will just medicate you.