this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
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Mental Health

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New user here so be nice or something

Hey guys, I'm a 17yo guy and I suffer from bad social anxiety. I got diagnosed with social anxiety when I was 11, and it got really apparent when I went to high school and have developed symptoms of depression, such as thoughts of suicide and sleeping all the time. It was also the time where my social skills deteriorated, and now today I basically have zero social skills. I take 100mg of sertraline every day but it doesn't do shit to me except give me really bad heartburn occasionally. However I keep taking it because maybe something will change, but in a couple of weeks from now I have an appointment with my doctor and I'll ask if he could change my medication. So far, vaping is the only "medication" that sorta helps with my social anxiety and heavily calms me down, however I don't do it all the time because it's my dad's and it's a disposable. I could ask for vapes in school but I have no friends who vape, in fact, I have no friends in general anymore and only have acquaintances in school and people who used to be my friends but moved, which ends up in not being as close to me anymore. I could ask random vapers but ofc I can't because social anxiety.

My life outside school is really isolating and depressing. I barely have any hobbies and all I do is lay on my bed and doomscroll and sleep and mess up my sleep schedule. I don't post on Reddit anymore because they IP banned me off the whole fucking site. They even track the device I use so they'll still ban me even with a VPN. Now I have to resort to here because I have no other way to tell; my parents think I'm delusional for having mental illness so I don't tell them. Anyways, I have no social interaction at home except my parents, and absolutely no one texts me. I'm absolutely not OK with this lifestyle. I'm always fucking bored and I wish I had friends I could hang out with. I have no siblings. A side effect coming with my social anxiety is that I don't fit in anywhere so it's really hard to find new friends. I heavily feel like I'm missing out on my teenage years by rotting in isolation because of social anxiety. What do you think I should do?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

The first question I usually ask is if the person has seen a therapist because they are far more knowledgeable and trained than I am for giving mental health advice. I would also point out that in the long term, nicotine tends to make depression worse.