Dear Claire,

I love your profilename “sunshineclaire”. Beautiful.
It sounds as if you are under a lot of pressure: childhood issues, family issues, depression.
You asked how you can get out of this situation, but I’m afraid there might be no easy answer for it. Healing from depression takes time. Therapy is a good start! Do you feel in good hands with your therapist?
As for what you can do yourself – easiest way to start is to do something nice for yourself. It doesn’t have to be anything big. How about going to a nice cafe and drink a cup of tea/coffee/cocoa? And yes, I know that may sound ridiculous to your right now. How is that supposed to help? Maybe you feel like doing nothing. But why not give it a try? What can you loose?

• This reply was modified 9 years ago by Peppermint.

Dear Glenda,

with Christmas fast approaching I can see how you would like people to be mindful of what they are doing.
The problem I have with the word “sin” is that it’s very judgemental and not helpful for causing lasting change. It basically means “you do X and you are bad.”
For example if I ate too much => Gluttony => ” I’m a sinner! I’m bad!” You know what I do when I feel bad? I might eat even more.
This approach sounds like a fast road to depression, because noone will ever be good enough.

Another point is that I wonder where you are setting your boundaries (you are of course free to put them whereever you like!)
Basically you can never give enough to charity, they will allways need more. So where does that leave us when we take it to extremes? We can never have a party again. Ever. Or at least not one with Snacks and drinks. As for Thanksgiving we don’t celebrate that here but there is christmas and yes, I might eat more than my body needs, but it’s fun for me to eat good food with my family. I don’t think that if there is a god, he/she will begrudge me that. Why do you think your god will think badly of you in this case?

Dear Dana, sounds like you are in a difficult situation.
I have been to foreign exchanges three times and it was never as I expected and often disapointing, so I will try to write down what I learned from that, even if I’m not sure if it will help you.

First of all: remember that yes, you do have a choice. You can actually chose to go back home. Yes, your parents/friends/the government(?) might be dissapointed, but actually everyone focuses mostly on themselfs so people will soon forget. Your average parent wants only for you to be happy, so they will probably understand if you explain. You wrote: ” If I leave early, I can’t put this program on my resume.” Thats not such a bad thing. You have only been away for two months. I know for a young person this might be a lot, but it really won’t matter later on. “I’d have to explain to everyone why I’m back home early and not in college yet.” And you will say just what you wrote here: It was not what I expected and I saw no opportunity for me to grow there. People should understand that. So you do have a choice, I think it’s important for you to realize that because now you can stop and think about your other options (you are not “trapped” in this situation).

Which options could that be?

As for leaving: If you went home, what could you do there? Maybe get a small job, do an internship, volunteer, WOOFing? Maybe it’s not too late to do work and travel somewhere, either.

But first I would advise you to think about your options if you stay in Senegal. You are there, you can leave at any time: so what do you still want to do there? Best choice when you are abroad is getting to know people. Volunteer, get a part-time job if you are allowed to, travel, get involved with the other students. However I understand that you have a schedule that you have to follow. Can you volunteer after school?
Also I understand that school is boring you. Do you have an advisor at school you can talk to? Definetly tell him/her about your problem. Also talk with the people from the organization which is organising this exchange and tell them about your problem. Maybe they have solutions. Even better if you come up with possible solutions. They certainly won’t want you to quit.

I don’t know if this is helpful for you. I admire that you allready realized your need for advice to make this opportunity work out for you. A lot of exchange students struggle like you do, even if they won’t show it, but they are too ashamed to say anything which isn’t smart. If you don’t say anything noone can help you.

If you feel like it, let us know what you still want to do in Senegal and we can brainstorm on how to achieve it. But that’s just a suggestion – feel free to write anything you want.

Dear flyby,
I’m sorry, I’m a bit confused by your post, maybe it’s the language barrier.
What is it that you expect from your friend? To apologize for the things he did maybe? Or to become your boyfriend instead of just a friend? What are your other friends sick of, concerning your friends behavior?

Hello asklychee,

congratulation on taking this step which seems to be very exciting for you.
I too would like to see Anitas reasonable question answered though.