Ask Sam

Hi,

Thank you very much for your letter and well done for deciding to look for some support.

It can be hard to ask for help when you’re feeling low and I can hear how disappointed you were that your doctor didn’t seem supportive. It sounds like your doctor may have been suggesting for you to find out if your college could help with how you are feeling. That might have been a good idea if you felt you were able to do this. Sometimes the advice people give us doesn’t work. Solving any kind of problem often takes trial and error. That doesn’t mean that people don’t care, or that there are no other options open to you.

For example, if you felt sick and your doctor sent you home with some medicine to help you feel better. You take the medicine for a few days and if you still felt ill – what would you do? Maybe go back to the doctor and say that what he gave you didn’t help. That’s okay and a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It's the same with the advice you got - some advice works for some people and not for others. It sounds like the advice your doctor gave you wasn’t right for you this time. Now they already know you are struggling with feeling low, they can still help you look at other ways you might get some help. Letting your doctor know that this didn’t work doesn’t mean that you did something wrong or that they don’t care, it just means that you need to try something else at the moment.

I hope this helps - it’s also worth knowing that you have the right to see a different GP at your practice if you don’t feel happy with your current GP.

For more information on self-harm and how to get help, you can visit our Explore pages or you can check out the Young Minds website. You are also very welcome to talk to a Childline counsellor either on the phone or online.

Take care,

Sam