My Shitay last 3 weeks
My family is not abusive, but for some reason someone called cps on my family, because of domestic violence. The “domestic violence” was my parents got in a fight and my mom bruised my dad’s nose. (she turned and hit his nose by accident) and now, we’re staying with my grandparents… I’m the one taking care of the little kids (except for cooking) and I have really bad anxiety and my way of coping with it is to play video games… well, my aunt took my tablet so now I’ve got crazy anxiety and I don’t know how else to cope with it besides crying… but crying just makes it worse. what should I do?
THINGS TO DO FIRST
- Wow that does sound like a tough 3 weeks! Thank you for your courage in sharing your story and reaching out to the TeenCentral community for support, that was a great first step.
- Recognizing that you don’t know how else to cope with your anxiety was also good insight! We have a page on our site that talks more about anxiety, has a plan you can fill out and use when anxious, and even has additional ideas on possible other coping skills you could try. We think you should check it out… TEEN CENTRAL l Anxiety disrupting your life?
- With all those events happening in your life, we feel like it’s important to lean on the positive people in your life who are good sources of support and can help you navigate this difficult situation. If you can’t speak to your parents, grandparents, or aunt, is there any other trusted adults you could talk to?
WHERE TO GO FROM THERE
- We feel it’s a good idea to expand your list of coping skills to help manage not only this situation, but just any day-to-day stressors you come across. Have you ever tried journaling or writing? You did a great job writing this story to us, so maybe it’s an idea to try. Plus, it sounds like you may have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the situation, a lot of things out of your control, and writing may help organize and process those things. If you need help, we’ve got some prompts under the TOOLS tab.
- After you check out the section on anxiety, we’d love to see you try to do something with movement, something creative, something comforting, or something distracting and see if anything helps you. Then maybe build a list of the things that worked.
- In addition to having good coping skills, it’s important to try and do things / be around people that make you smile – it’s a simple but powerful tool. What are the little things you do that make you happy aside from video games? Could be music, walks, arts, favorite smells, etc. Who makes you smile? Try to do at least 1 thing each day for yourself that makes you smile.
