[INFJ] INFJs and high school

[Angora]

I'm 17, I know most of you are a lot older, but what were your experiences in high school? I'm in a long distance relationship with a guy whose 20 (we've been dating for a year) and I just feel suffocated by my lack of freedom and this impatience to grow up. I've developed major depression and am very antisocial, choosing to isolate myself to my family and skyping my boyfriend. I've been through a number of close friendships, but I ultimately lose interest/grow apart from them every time, and as of now I don't even have a best friend. Any advice?

 

[SealHammer]

High school's shit, surprise surprise. It gets better once you leave (unless you're homeless and unemployed ofc). You can either choose to grin and bear it until you graduate or start seeing a therapist.

e: I say this as a fellow young'n, btw, so have no fear about the relevance of my advice.

 

[Sensiko]

immerse yourself into doing creative things that you love… or take the time to explore things to help you express yourself… also, take the time to appreciate your family… and yourself, right now… things will change…. you’ll move away perhaps and not see them for a while… one day you’ll look back at these days nostalgically

 

[Stu]

High School is very much a time when everyone is highly focused on how they are perceived by the larger group.
This is particularly rough on introverts when so much emphasis is being put on the fine qualities of extroversion.

But the reality is that introversion has very serious advantages over extroversion.

Take up meditation, train your brain, embrace your studies. Realize that most of your peers are playing a game that is not suited for you.

 

[Angora]

Thanks all, I started therapy a couple weeks ago and I'm hoping things will turn around. I love my family and boyfriend more than the world, I'm just struggling to find happiness/a friend/group I relate to.

 

[muir]

High school was a giant heap of shite

Some of the older generation told me 'school days are the best days of your life'

They were wrong

 

[Barnabas]

I'm 17, I know most of you are a lot older, but what were your experiences in high school? I'm in a long distance relationship with a guy whose 20 (we've been dating for a year) and I just feel suffocated by my lack of freedom and this impatience to grow up. I've developed major depression and am very antisocial, choosing to isolate myself to my family and skyping my boyfriend. I've been through a number of close friendships, but I ultimately lose interest/grow apart from them every time, and as of now I don't even have a best friend. Any advice?

Get a hobby that involves other people, video games, board games, and trading card games were fairly popular when I was in school and allowed me to connect to other who shared some idiosyncrasies, that or join JROTC, much like a regular family it'll be entirely dysfunctional in to many ways to count but it immediately locks you into a room with other people who will want to complain about it with you.

 

[Korg]

I'm 17 [...] I just feel suffocated by my lack of freedom and this impatience to grow up.

Like others have said, High School is mostly retarded -- but you're extremely young and I wouldn't get too eager to grow up, especially if you think adulthood is somehow easier socially. I mean, it is easier relative to high school immaturity, but there's just as much grownup immaturity and horseshit. The difference is that once you're truly independent, you have more tools at your disposal to carve out a niche for yourself in which you can avoid it and/or get your social needs met in a way that suits you.

Still, I'd make an effort to enjoy where you are in your life. You can pretty much do or be anything, starting today if you decide what it is you're after and then work for it. Even if you completely destroy your life and fuck everything up for the next ten years, you'll come out on the other side of it as someone less than 30 years old. After that, you're playing for keeps.

Not that I think you should go off the rails and turn into a crackwhore. I just mean that there's virtually no risk factor involved with chasing a vision of who you want to be and what you want to be. Which is a large part of the beauty of youth -- the potential. Believe it or not, that will go away somewhat after a certain point. Life becomes more about who you are and what you've done and less of who you'll be and what you'll do. Enjoy the freedom and potential right now, for yourself and for the people you love. Forget everyone else.

 

[Angora]

Like others have said, High School is mostly retarded -- but you're extremely young and I wouldn't get too eager to grow up, especially if you think adulthood is somehow easier socially. I mean, it is easier relative to high school immaturity, but there's just as much grownup immaturity and horseshit. The difference is that once you're truly independent, you have more tools at your disposal to carve out a niche for yourself in which you can avoid it and/or get your social needs met in a way that suits you.

Still, I'd make an effort to enjoy where you are in your life. You can pretty much do or be anything, starting today if you decide what it is you're after and then work for it. Even if you completely destroy your life and fuck everything up for the next ten years, you'll come out on the other side of it as someone less than 30 years old. After that, you're playing for keeps.

Not that I think you should go off the rails and turn into a crackwhore. I just mean that there's virtually no risk factor involved with chasing a vision of who you want to be and what you want to be. Which is a large part of the beauty of youth -- the potential. Believe it or not, that will go away somewhat after a certain point. Life becomes more about who you are and what you've done and less of who you'll be and what you'll do. Enjoy the freedom and potential right now, for yourself and for the people you love. Forget everyone else.

Thank you, that helped a lot. I think I needed that broader perspective.

 

[Scientia]

I am always suspicious of people who say that high school is the best time of your life. If you aren't upset at not having a best friend and your depression is due to your long distance relationship, it sounds mostly situational. Be patient - you will be old enough for more independence soon.

 

[nosferatu]

Honestly you meet a lot of the cooler people in college and at activities. High school friends are usually just a learning experience. I hit this point where I just slept in class and gave minimum effort/fuck off vibes to all, I mean half of success in my school was sucking up to the teacher and prove in their own conventional way that you were setting your priorities straight to succeed in college. Most of the more intelligent and reserved students got shafted just because they chose not to kiss ass. But then again those people really went far in life once we graduated. I can relate though, I mean I was miserable in high school for very similar reasons when I was your age. Trust me once you graduate and it all ends it will get better. Plus you won't have peer pressure trying to shape you in to something you may not aspire to be.

 

[Jon]

High school sucks. It only gets better, trust me.

 

[Switchgirl]

High school sucks but make sure you choose the right major in college or else you'll be even more miserable

 

[Delta]

Secondary School was fab! Lol, no it was an awful experience. Uni, Med School - far better but I still struggled a lot. Now I wish I hadn't done any of it but such musings are pointless as at the time I believed I was doing the right thing with my entire being. That's all you can do really, do the best you can and idk, that true energy seems to guard and renew the soul.

Mostly... be gentle with yourself. Many of the things we imagine never happen. Be fabulous and truly love, even if quietly so x

 

[Artisan]

I'm 17, I know most of you are a lot older, but what were your experiences in high school? I'm in a long distance relationship with a guy whose 20 (we've been dating for a year) and I just feel suffocated by my lack of freedom and this impatience to grow up. I've developed major depression and am very antisocial, choosing to isolate myself to my family and skyping my boyfriend. I've been through a number of close friendships, but I ultimately lose interest/grow apart from them every time, and as of now I don't even have a best friend. Any advice?

I dunno if you call 6 years a lot but highschool is pretty fresh in my mind.

Personally I think time flies. Growing up gives more problems and solves less. The only bonus to it is that in my experience people are a whole lot cooler in College.
I dunno much about self isolation but perhaps its just like my case when I chose to stick to myself instead of hanging out with a bunch of fake people who did not care at all.

Losing interests can be combated to a degree by hanging out and creating memorable experiences.
That said if you talk about internet friends then yea, its a lot easier to lose interest in them. But it's not just about interest and your interests entertaining you.. is it?
Ain't the whole thing about creating bonds? But hey that's just me and I definitely ain't a role model for making friends.

Also, something that you might enjoy is grabbing a bicycle and just keep paddling in a random direction for so long and with so many stops I was near collapsing and losing daylight.
I live in a small country but doing that n nearly traveling half it's width made me feel a lot more free. (I did catch the train back home though)
But damn.. It felt good that not even money could hold me back if I just kept peddling.

Back when I was a kid, to say I was depressed would be an understatement.
I was generally so isolated by others that no one realized just how bad it was.
Somehow I managed to climb out of that hole of depression by forcing myself to come up with 10 positive things for every negative thought that entered my mind. (no imagining a bully getting a fatal accident doesn't count as positive.)
It took me years to force myself to shit rainbows.... x) But I do it automatically now and generally do think more positive than negative as a result.
It also helped me to change my mindset to the way of thinking that not trying is just 100 000 times more sad and uncool then to keep on trying.
I made it my way to put one foot in front of the other no matter how bad things get and to keep on walking for the tiniest of bright things I might encounter and experience in life.

Take snow. I love it. Its freaking magical. Take the sunrise, its beautiful. Take the feeling of wind gently stroking through your hair.
The effort it took to create a movie. The amazing story your read in that book. That one kind smile of a random passer by. Take it all. Treasure it.
Allow yourself to bask and soak in all of those things and keep on walking for the next positive thing to cross your path.
It's like pokemon. The more you catch, the stronger each one becomes and the more you find ^^
It might take a while, but it's definitely worth the effort ^^

 

[Wayfahrer]

There is only one simple piece of advice I can give you. You have to learn from others. Do not be afraid to accept their methods and test them. My strong hatred for the conventional and my self-righteous pride turned my life into a hell. I do not tell you to doubt yourself, just give the things you hate a chance - they can be useful. If you have an ideal you wish to pursue be realistic about it and be practical do not waste your time. Do not wait for things to happen use all the knowledge and experience you can borrow. Also think about the one thing you can not stand - it can be your greatest weakness. The problems you have now will not go away with time they will go away when you solve them.

 

[AUM]

I wouldn't say high school was "shit" for me, it was just very uneventful and dull for the most part. It helps getting a friend to make the experience more tolerable. The only thing I look back from those days was during lunch going to the library to play chess with my friend. Just hang in there, time passes quickly and before you know it adult life awaits which is an experience of its own...for good and bad haha

 

[grt$5vb]

I would have to say be mindful that you only have so much energy to invest in others as an introvert. If you are holing up all hours skyping your beau, you're going to be too pooped to venture out into the land of others & crave your me time. I hope you are also studying your little butt off and learning as much as you can. Pay no attention to cliques and the imaginary caste systems of high school. It sucks for everybody and the popular kids have nothing you don't. It's all a mirage.

 

[Trifoilum]

Hmm. Everyone here posts good things.

(also, is it just me or everyone here had some sort of bad time in HS.... xD;;

So, first of all, let us go meta and declare;
yes, we all suffered HS. And we all survived; not without our scars, and maybe for some; trauma and issues.... But also not without some victories, lessons, insights, experience.

so, to OP; I'm sorry that you're still going through that-- trust me, hindsight is 20/20 and not as painful as living it real time-- but know that a lot of us had gotten through this.
I wish you strength and patience and persistence until you can get through it safely.

Good luck.

For me, myself...?
HS is both good and bad. Met a lot of friends during that age. Got my social anxiety exacerbated-- and recovered. Had fatal crushes. Had good friends.
Both broken and rebuilt myself. Spent a lot of sleeps feeling heavy (thank you, hormones!), and spent a lot of sleeps feeling light (thank you, hormones!)

God, what more can I say...?

Studies are not my problem, at least to a certain point. In fact I think I can say I did enjoy learning about certain subjects (SOCIOLOGY ! PSYCHOLOGY!)

...I honestly think for most of us it's rarely studies that were problematic?

 

[INFJDATAOVERLOAD]

I'm 17, I know most of you are a lot older, but what were your experiences in high school? I'm in a long distance relationship with a guy whose 20 (we've been dating for a year) and I just feel suffocated by my lack of freedom and this impatience to grow up. I've developed major depression and am very antisocial, choosing to isolate myself to my family and skyping my boyfriend. I've been through a number of close friendships, but I ultimately lose interest/grow apart from them every time, and as of now I don't even have a best friend. Any advice?

High School is extremely tough for introverts in general, especially us INFJ's. As INFJ's we over analyze everything. So Over-Analyzing+Crazy Hormones+Stupid Fuckin Social Environment = Shitty High School Years.

I certainly felt this way. Take solace in the fact that college is the EXACT OPPOSITE of high school. College was a godsend for me. Even if you don't go to college, you find out how stupid high school is regardless.

Also, I don't want to derail this thread but maybe look into Zoloft or another SSRI prescription with your doctor. I certainly wish I had done it in high school instead of waiting till much later. It helps A LOT with social anxiety and depression - at least for me it has.

Keep grindin girl. I assure you that there is light at the end of the tunnel.