Hi everyone,   I have finished my HSC and am about to sign out of school this week. Yay! Throughout year 11 and 12 I have been consistently seeing the school counsellor. I was just wondering if anyone knows if I am allowed to request to have a copy of my counselling file as I feel like it might be useful for the next psychologist that I'll see or it might be useful for the uni counselling service that I might use just so they have something to refer to regarding my mental health history in high school.   I'm just scared that the school counsellor might think it's weird I want to have access to my file as I haven't heard of anyone that requested their counselling file from school before.   Thanks everyone. :) ... View more

Hi everyone,   I've been feeling very stressed out lately because of the HSC. I still have 3 more HSC exams left, and the exams are all pretty packed since it's all going to be next week and they're all difficult subjects (maths, legal and modern).    I'm glad that I have finished 3 of my exams (English paper 1, English paper 2 and economics) but I haven't been coping too well. I've been giving attention to my scabs and I think a week before the HSC started I started hurting my arms and legs whenever I get stressed. I've never told anyone that I have a habit of giving attention to my scabs whenever I feel stressed out (which is basically most of the time) and this started in year 8. I have been seeing the school counsellor throughout year 11 and this year and I did see a psychologist at headspace for anxiety. However, I didn't have a great connection with my psych so I never told her about this. I trust the school counsellor but I never told him about my habit of giving attention to my scabs since I don't know what he could help me with and we've mainly just been working through school stress and grief. Since I graduated from school last month, he did tell me the last time I saw him that I could still book in to see him between now and the end of the year if anything is wrong.   I have also been connecting with my regular KHL counsellor for a few months now (I call her usually once a week but if I don't feel like it, I'll end up calling her once a fortnight). She's great and I trust her a lot. I have a great connection with her and I'm grateful for that. I think I'm getting to the point where I'm ready to tell her about this scab issue, but I'm unsure what she'd say or how she could help me. I guess I'm also just unsure if this type of coping is considered as "self-harming"? I don't want to cause any pain to myself, but giving attention to my scabs gives me a relieving feeling and it gives me something to do when I'm stressed.   Also sometimes I feel like I shouldn't call my KHL counsellor or that I should talk to someone when I'm anxious and I have a lot on my mind, which I've learned that is a sign that I SHOULD talk to someone. Sometimes I feel like that because I don't think I deserve nice things and my KHL counsellor is a nice and understanding person.   So, I guess my questions are: Am I self-harming or just coping in a very bad way? Is it better to see a professional in-person to work through this issue? Although cost would be an issue for me and I don't really like the idea of going back to headspace since I didn't have a good experience with my psych there. I am safe and would love some thoughts on what I could do to help myself. Thanks for reading.    ... View more

Has anyone cut off toxic friends before? I'm 18, never had a toxic friend until I met this friend- let's call her W.   The whole argument started because I blocked her on social media, which I later explained to her that I blocked her because I needed space to work out my own issues. When she found out that I blocked her on social media, she called me 3 times on my phone and also called our mutual friends to get them to try to contact me. She texted me demanding an answer to why I blocked her. She didn't even ask how I was or what was going on in my life.   I explained to her via text that I needed space because I got triggered after she told me that she was sexually ab*sed online. She texted me back saying that she won't tell me about it the "next time someone sexually ab*ses me, so you won't get triggered". It sounded very passive-aggressive to me and made me feel like I was supposed to be okay all the time, and when I'm not, I'm being blamed for it.   W made a new Instagram account and posted a piece of writing called "molestation, deceit and broke trust". In the post, she wrote that the douchiest thing a friend could do is to "ditch" them after they have been molested. She compared me breaking her trust to the same thing that the guy that did something to her, "only without the crime". She then proceeded to dm me this post on Instagram. I confronted her and she apologised for the dm, but she asked me to point out what was wrong about the post and said that what she wrote wasn't rude and that everything she wrote was true. I did not understand how anyone could write something like that, make an infographic on canva with illustrations representing her writing, save it on their phone, upload it and then send it to the person they wrote about.   W still insists to talk to me in person when I honestly don't think there is any way to save the friendship. I texted her saying that I don't think we can be friends anymore. She has overstepped all of my boundaries and has called me "toxic", "manipulative", "rude" and "a hypocrite" at this point. However, I am in Youth Council with her and still have to see her. I said that I'd still be happy to work with her in Youth Council. She said that she would not prefer to talk to people that are not their friends and that "most people don't ruin friendships over one argument". So the only way I could work with her in Youth Council again, is to be her friend.    Sorry for the long post, hope it makes sense as this has been going on for 4 weeks and is very complex. Does anyone have experience/advice with cutting off toxic friends even though they still have to see them semi-regularly? ... View more

Hi there.   It's my first time posting here on RO forums, so I hope that I'm doing this right.    So I've been bawling my eyes out and feeling really low yesterday because I thought about how I have to go to my GP for a review of the mental health care plan since I just finished my 6th session with my psychologist at headspace. I'm very conflicted because initially I thought that she wasn't a match for me but after talking to my regular counsellor at KHL I realised that I struggled to feel connected with my psych because I wasn't opening up to her since I didn't want to cry and talk about hard things. (Crying over a video call is just weird.) Also, I literally only talk to her about anxiety (since that's what brought me in to see her) but I realised that I might be depressed but I don't know how to go about telling her.   I also mentioned to her twice about the old school counsellor that left last year (when I was in year 11). I felt really connected to the school counsellor (honestly too connected to her to the point where I wished that she was my mum) since my family was going through a rough patch at that time and nobody with there to give me the emotional support that I needed. She told me that she might leave the school a week before the school year ended so I held onto the thought that she wouldn't really leave since she said that "nothing is set in stone yet". Basically she left and I couldn't process the grief from the loss of this relationship. I also discredited the grief that I felt from losing my school counsellor since around the same time our year lost someone unexpectedly (she was in my class) and everyone was really affected and was griefing. But the KHL counsellor said that she knows that my ending of the relationship with the school counsellor was really traumatic for me, so now I'm wondering if it really was.   I'm wondering whether it would be good to go back for 4 more sessions with my psych to talk about depression and about what it means to end therapy but I'm scared of opening up which might take more than 4 sessions. I don't know what will happen after my 10th session. Also, I'm just wondering if I need to go back to the same GP for a review of my mental health care plan since the last time I went I cried in there and I think I traumatised the GP so I would want to avoid going back to him if I could.   Thanks for reading, I know that it was a long post! ... View more