What should I do if my high school girl has been avoiding her studies and social life for the past two years?

Hello! I'll give you a warm hug from afar first. I can feel the trauma that has been left in your body and mind since childhood, making you feel a strong sense of abandonment, fear, and insecurity of not being loved. I can also feel a deep inferiority complex and lack of self-confidence that has resulted. It is obvious that you have not been very aware of this part of your inner self, so you will unintentionally project this part of your emotions of not accepting your inner self onto the people around you, thinking that the people around you will not accept such a self either. But I know you can change this!

This is a great time to tune in to your sensitivity! You'll find yourself evaluating yourself in the eyes of others more than usual, and you may also find that words and actions from others can easily hurt you.

Once you become aware of this part of yourself, you can start the journey to healing the emotional and psychological wounds you suffered in your family of origin as a result of being left behind and facing domestic violence from your father. You can actively learn and grow under the guidance of this self-awareness. You can re-parent yourself with the ideal image of a good parent, love yourself back, and learn to treat yourself the way you desire to be treated!

At the same time, you must understand that the reason you were left behind and suffered domestic violence is not because you are not good enough or you did something wrong. To a large extent, it may be because your parents were also raised in this way and grew up without love. Or it may be that your parents are using you to express their frustration and powerlessness in real life, and this part is not yours, because in this situation, you are the one who really needs to be seen, comforted, and supported emotionally. But here's the good news! You can take control of your life and make a positive change.

When external sources cannot give you this part, it's time to give it to yourself! You can do it through your own efforts.

I highly recommend you read "We Have All Been Hurt, But We Have A Better Life" and "Light Healing"!

I'm Lily, the little ear of the Q&A Museum! The world and I love you!

Hello!

After carefully reading your description of your situation, I can see your experiences and current state. I understand your feelings and predicament, and I'm very worried about you. I'll first answer your most pressing question, which is how to tell your parents about your situation. Then I'll give a brief analysis of your current situation to help you understand yourself, and then I'll find targeted ways to help you regain your health.

I need to tell my parents.

The first thing you need to do is tell your parents that you feel like you are having a hard time and you may have contracted a "mental cold." Just like a physical cold, there will be no rise in body temperature, but you will feel tired and unable to concentrate on your studies at school, which is similar to a physical cold. Furthermore, the cause of a mental cold is often more complicated than that of a physical cold, and it is also much more difficult to get better, so you need to seek diagnosis and treatment from a professional psychologist.

The results of some online tests indicate that you are suffering from severe depression. However, this cannot be used as a basis for diagnosing whether you are really suffering from severe depression. Diagnosing mental health issues is a very complicated and professional matter. The online tests are all based on the "self-report" method, which means that they are all subjective expressions of your feelings.

However, there is often a gap between subjective feelings and the facts, which is why depressed children are often not believed by their parents. This is a mistake. Most parents think: if the child can eat, breathe and move normally, they must be pretending to be sick and not wanting to go to school! This is wrong.

You need a professional doctor or counselor to conduct a comprehensive examination and give an accurate diagnosis. A mental health diagnosis cannot be made in one or two sessions. It may take time to get a clear result. Only an authoritative diagnosis from a doctor can convince your parents that you are really in trouble. They will understand that you are sick and will be willing to seek medical treatment for you and cooperate with the doctor to take care of you.

The second method is to go to school on time and seek help from the school's mental health teacher or a trusted teacher to reflect your actual situation. You can also ask trusted elders, relatives, classmates, and friends to help you see a psychologist or counselor. Even if it's just to rule out any hidden health problems, it's a good idea. If the psychologist or counselor diagnoses that you don't have depression but just a slight deviation from a healthy state of mind, you can also listen to professional advice to take a break and make adjustments. It's better than just being stuck and not knowing what to do.

You have to feel it yourself to know how you feel. You have to figure out what's wrong with you before you can help yourself.

The third method is to write down your symptoms and your need for help from a doctor, as in this psychological question, and show it to your parents. Writing is a powerful tool because it allows you to organize your thoughts and describe the situation clearly and systematically. It also gives you the space to express your feelings and experiences without the pressure of immediate rejection or resentment from your parents. This can help them to understand your perspective and prioritize the issue at hand.

It is better for your parents to be curious about you, ask what is wrong, and think about your needs than for them to be indifferent and demand that you go to school.

You can write about this aspect when you write. Promise your parents that if no problems are found after the inspection, you will go to school normally. This can eliminate their distrust that "the child is pretending." It is more likely that they will take you for medical treatment. Rely on your parents to find a way to get money. They believe you need diagnosis and treatment. They will find a way.

Let's analyze the reasons for not wanting to go to school and socialize.

There is no doubt that in recent decades, a significant number of children in our country have been left behind. Their parents have had to leave them for long periods of time to work in order to make a living or to have a better chance at life, especially for the child's future education and a better life.

It is a fact that left-behind children who do not receive adequate parental care are at a disadvantage when they face challenges or attacks from others. They also lack guidance and teaching from their parents in many aspects of life. It is therefore understandable that the questioner was not as optimistic as she is now. I can see that she has made significant efforts to develop her inner strength and self-growth.

However, human mental energy and mental space are both limited. Being cared for, protected, caressed, warmed, and supported by parents and other family and friends is essential for growing up. It sustains us so that we can continue to love life, actively learn, and create. Left-behind children often do not receive sufficient care and protection from their parents, which means they do not get enough fuel for their mental and physical growth. This makes it harder for them to learn and to live a full life. Their physical and mental energy will often be at a relatively low level, and their energy input and results obtained in learning and life will also be relatively low. For example, their physical and mental strength may be a little worse than others, and they will feel more tired more easily.

When people are mistreated, it consumes their mental energy and takes up mental space. There's no doubt about it. Your classmates calling you a clown, your father's domestic violence and verbal abuse—most likely caused you harm. Such treatment is an attack on a life (a first-level term in the psychoanalytic school of psychology), which will make you feel a strong sense of hostility and a heavy sense of threat. Therefore, your instinct of self-preservation will trigger a lot of negative emotions in you, such as fear, anxiety, anger, humiliation, sadness, etc. These emotions remind you to take action to eliminate the danger.

You are in a helpless and lonely situation, and you are unable to get rid of these dangers. You have to digest these emotions on your own.

You are a child, and you will learn how to recognize and digest emotions. Without your parents to teach you, you haven't learned how to do this yourself. These emotions will find an outlet in various ways that you are not aware of.

For example, if you lose your temper over a trivial matter and drive your friends away, it is likely that your temper tantrum has nothing to do with the trivial matter. You have been accumulating negative emotions for too long, and you stay angry because you have no control over your emotions.

These emotions will fill your mental space and constantly call out for your attention and care. You can't deal with them, so you have to hold them in. At most, you can cry a little when you can't hold it in anymore, but that doesn't solve the problem. You are also afraid of not being liked because humans are naturally social beings and cannot survive alone. Therefore, loneliness is terrifying and not being liked is dangerous.

To avoid this danger, you often have to guess what other people are thinking and compare yourself with them. This is very, very energy-intensive, and it depletes your mental energy, leaving you with insufficient reserves.

You understand why you are exhausted and don't want to go to school or socialize. The care and love of parents or important others is like the spiritual or psychological nutrition of a person. If you are chronically malnourished and constantly fed "toxic and harmful" spiritual food (beatings, rejection), you will have a very difficult time maintaining your daily learning and work. If you use your willpower to force yourself to hold on for a long time, it will lead to an overdraft of your physical and mental health.

You cannot sustain self-support under stress. When your limited energy is almost used up, you will feel exhausted even if you do nothing.

If you go to school, you need energy to deal with the pressure of studying, energy to study itself, energy to socialize with your classmates, and even more energy if you are not liked by your classmates and have conflicts with them. You need a lot of energy, but you don't have that much energy left, so you simply don't have the desire to socialize at school.

Seek medical treatment. Studying and making friends are not your immediate goals. Your most important task is to regain your health. Without it, you cannot study or socialize normally.

I am sending you a big, warm hug right now!

That's all. The world and I love you.