about

Hey guys my name's Erin, and I love helping people. I know how hard life can be at times, and sometimes you just need some adivse. That's what I'm here for. Whatever the question is, I'll be more than happy to answer it!

advice

Over the past month or so, I have been cutting my arm. I never cut the inside of my arm near to my veins but on the other side. It started off as just a way of forgetting everything but now it has turned into something much deeper, that even I haven't figured out yet. What I am doing is hurting my friends very badly and leaving them feeling guilty and lost. They keep saying that they will go to a teacher and tell him and two friends already have. I know I am hurting them but I honestly can't help it. I don't want my family to find out and I am scared that if my friends go to the teacher then he will tell them. I have no idea what to do. I have tried other things as an alternative to cutting but they never help like cutting does. I know that before I think about stopping for good, I need to figure out what has caused me to do this. I am usually happy, flirtacious and confident but now I am always upset. I suspect that I am doing it because of various family issues but I think that it could be something else as well as that. I honestly do not know what to do anymore.

As hard as this situation is, you have already completed the first few steps to stopping that most people have the most trouble with. you recognize that you have a problem, and that you're hurting your friends, and yourself. you also know that you need to figure out what has made you do this. i can understand why you don't want your parents to find out, but they will be the ones that can help you the most. if you're under 18, you can't go to a doctor's office to get help alone-you need a parent with you, and i would highly suggest seeing someone. i think it would be best for you to tell your parents yourself what's going on, that way they know that you really do want help, and you really do know that you have a problem. talk to them about it, and tell them you want to see a psychiatrist, or someone professional who can help you figure out what's making you so upset. they will understand, and help you out there. in the mean time, to try and figure out what's bothering you, instead of cutting yourself, try writing in a journal. it doens't have to be on paper, it can be on the computer, an online journal, or whatever you want. but i often find that when i write my feelings down, a lot more comes out than i realized was in me, and i am more able to understand whats going on. after you write everything down, go back and read it, and see if you can figure something out from that. try that for a few days and see how it goes. even if it does work, and you don't feel like you need to cut yourself anymore, please still talk to your parents. you may not need to go see someone, but still talk to your parents. they are there to love and support you through good and bad times, and this is a time when you need them most. i hope this helped, and stay strong. you'll get through this. and be thankful that you have friends that care about you enough to that worried for you. you are very fortunate. keep me posted

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Ok i need help on how to know how to deal w/my sisters b/c they have such a bad attitude and the oldest one figured out how to get into my room by unlocking my door. i kno for a fact i can't trust her but what can i do to maker her listen and stay out of my business b/c i've tried like everything and nothing worked so far. i need help on this one.
Also my family isn't working out b/c my step mom is such a pain ans dome tiem she doesn't understan my probs. what can i do?

This seems like an issue for adults to handle. You need to talk to your mom or dad (whoever you live with-i'm assuming your dad because you mentioned your stepmom), and you need to tell them what's going on. tell them exactly what you told us here, that your sister goes into your room, and that she won't stay out of your private business. hopefully they will understand that this is a big issue, and they will talk to her, and figure something out. if that doesn't work, maybe try talking to a trusted teacher in school, or some other adult figure that you trust, and ask them what they think you should do. i hope this helped, and good luck!

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Okay I am crying as I write this but I am a Advicenator and I need advice...

My Ex Boyfriend Sam and I went out for 9 months and the relationship went fine and the break up was mutual but lately all we seem to do is fight and the fights are usuaally his doing...weather he talks about his new intrest (I know she is not his girlfriend because I have friends that know more than Sam does) or talk about things that he KNOWS that will upset me and provoke me to hang up on him or cry. Please help me to get to have a better friendship with him and I still like him like I did when we went out.

Age: 21
Gender: Female

If Sam is around your same age, he has a lot of growing up to do. I'm only 19, but I can tell from your description of him that he's WAY too immature for his age. He's acting like a 15 year old boy, which is so not fair to you. I know how hard it can be to try and be friends with an ex, and from my experiences it usually doens't work out, but it is possible. I think Sam is feeling hurt probably the same amount that you are, just from breaking up-as it's hard to do. But guys often have a really hard time expressing that. So he's probably taking his anger out on you, and maybe he thinks that if he gets you mad enough, you'll start to hate him, and that'll make it easier for him to get over you. But I could be completly wrong, because I don't know him-but that's what I would guess. As for getting a better friendship with him, I would give him a little space for some time-maybe like a week or so, and only talk to him occasionally-like if he calls you, only talk for 5 minutes-tell him you're late for an appointment or something. Keep it short and sweet. If things get better with him, then maybe that's all he needed-time to cool down. If not, then you need to talk to him. Tell him what's bothering you, and figure out why he's acting the way he is. Hopefully that'll work things out, but if not, then I'm running low on ideas. Let me know how things go, and maybe I will have thought of something else. good luck!!!

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theres this boy that i like but he is a grade older but i really like him and i went out with him but he dumped me when he found out my age what should i do and how can i get him to like me?

well, there's not a whole lot you can do to get someone to like you. it's just one of those things that happens. but, the only thing i can suggest would be to try and talk to him, and maybe the reason he dumped you was because you lied to him about your age? that's never a good way to start off a relationship. the best thing is to be honest with each other. but try just talking to him, in school if you see him or online if you have his screen name or whatever. maybe flirt a little, but keep it small at first because if there is the potential of him liking you, you don't want to over due it and scare him away. but make it kind of obvious that you're interested (because guys are often very bad at picking up hints) and see what happens from there. if things still aren't going the way you want, you can either decide to let it go, because there are plenty of other guys out there, or you can try and talk talk to him-tell him that you like him, and that your sorry you didn't tell him your age to begin with. hope this helped, and if you need anymore help, let me know! good luck.

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yah i really dont know what to do anymore i swear my boyfriend is going nuts on me. just because i dont tell him what is wrong. i mean i cant tell him my feelings he has to go all pyscho on me. i dont like it i dont know what to do. plz help me.

i can understand why your boyfriend would be a little upset with you for not sharing your problems, but he does have to respect your privacy. one of the best advantages of having someone who cares about you in the way that a boyfriend often does is to have the security of knowing that someone's always there for you unconditionally, and will listen to your problems and help you through them, without judging you. if you feel like you can't tell him your feelings, then maybe you should reconsider your relationship with him, because you guys should be able to be open to each other. sit down with him and talk to him to figure out why he's going all psycho on you, and then maybe you guys can try and work something out. best of luck.

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okay so i always fall for the "bad boys" but this time i like one of my old best friends, but the problem is he is a jerk, unreliable, and a stoner..... and like i dont know what to do, because we dont talk all that much anymore b/c he has a different group of friends than i do.. he liked me all of last year but i always said no when he asked me out because i didnt agree with him about the whole drug thing, and now i've realised that i liked him the whole time and still do and hes found another girlfriend and im just like.... sad. iono. should i tell him how i feel or not? i dont want to ruin his relationship.. sorry if thats kind of long

well, it all depends on how strong your feelings are for him. if they're overwhelming you, then you have to tell him, otherwise it's gonna bother you forever. if you do tell him, don't expect anything back from him, cause he does have another girlfriend-just tell him you need him to know, and leave it at that, and let things go how they will. good luck

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This is a question to all advicenators: What makes you want to give advice to other people?

well for one thing, i'm majoring in psychology in college, and i want to become a counselor of some type when i'm older. as to why i want to do this? i guess i just love helping people, and the feeling that you get from seeing someone resolve their problem with your help is just amazing...i dunno it's just something you enjoy-hard to put into words...

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ahh i bite my nails!!! its a really bad habit! i do it when im not paying attention anyone have any tips for stopping?

everyone bites their nails at some point or another. i got out of the habbit a few months ago by, again, constantly having nail polish on my fingers, and gum in my mouth. when you have something else in your mouth, you're less likely to bite your nails. be aware tho, once you think the habbit's broken, keep going for a little longer, cause it's really easy to slip back into that habbit...i did...and i haven't gotten around to getting back out of it again. good luck!

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my best friends boy friend tells me who to be and tells me this and makes fun of my bffls friends..look> B-arri-g-o-80: okay ill just keep my trend going then grow a few inches and tell kelly to drop a fewpounds

my friend kelly is a little overweight.im really short.. what can i tell my bff to tell him to stop with out getting a into a big thing over it?

i think you should talk to your friend, and tell her what he's saying, and make sure she's ok with you talking to him about it yourself. it's gonna make much more of an impact on the situation if you talk to him yourself. good luck!

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okay i have had these 2 friends for a long time and they are 2 of my best friends. lets call them dory and marsha..
but then i got a 15 year old bf who i had liked for a long time. who they doubted i could ever get with... total lake of confidence... but then you see i am also friends with marsha's sisters... when i stopped dating jon ( 15 ) i found out stuff from marsha and her sister that he told like 4 people... the thing is they didnt call me right away to tell me these things right away. and then marsha's sister stated dating him... she asked me AFTER they started dating... lake of respect!! Well here it gets down to everything:

okay well dory and marsha have been friends for way longer they treat each other better (i think) and tell me they are better friends becuase they have known eachother longer... i dont believe that length of time makes a relationship stronger or anything... hard work and effort makes a relationship strong... well they alwasy tell eachother things and i have to pry things out of them... like when one of them has family problems she always tells the other and she brings it up but then like goes "opps i wasnt suposoe to say that..." i ask her wut its abotu she says "nothing i cant say i swore not to." well they always do that 2 me... someitmes they kind of ignore me... like jsut reply with ok... un huh... and yea. stuff liek that.

today dory needed to talk to marsha abotu something... i asked her why she couldnt talk to me... she said " well marsha always says the irght thing and thats what i need " she like went on like that and i flipped out i mean i am not perfect but i dont say the wrong thing constently and marsha isnt clsoe to perfect either... infact she says the wrong thng to me all the time... it makes me furious!! I mean i had a great reason to flip out ... i started telling her everything i told you above and she says " well sometimes i tell marsha stuff and other times i tell you" the only problem is she never tells me anything!!

then she said "that she was wasting her time talking about this..." she was wasting her time listening to my problem... that makes me mad!!!

now like me and her are in a fight and i dotn know
what to do... dont tell me 2 apologize because all i wanted was to be there for her! pelase help me
i know this was long but PLEASE!!

-beccers_boo

i rate honestly!!

you just need to talk to her and make sure she understands that you were trying to help her, and not get you two in a fight. sit her down and talk about what's bothering her, and what's bothering you, and you guys should be able to work it out! but you're right, if you were just trying to help, you shouldn't have to appologize! good luck!

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If you were a 16 almost 17 girl, (maybe some of you are haha) then what would your dream gift be to get from your boyfriend for Christmas? I am stuck on what to get my girlfriend for Christmas, please help! :)

well it depends on how long you've been going out and how much you're willing to spend, but last year my boyfriend got me a gift certificate to the spa (half hour massage and a manicure), and then a couple weeks later he took me out to a really nice dinner. that was one of the best presents ever. something thoughtful and cute like that always helps. also, if you're friends with any of her friends, ask them! they often give really good advice. good luck!

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Two of my friends just broke up over the weekend after a 8 month relationship. She dumped him and yet shes still very posessive of him. I've had a past relationships with him and I get him so ever since they broke up him and I have been talking more. But shes getting mad at me for sticking up for him when she talks crap about him and she says how I better not start liking him again which makes me think is this what friends do to each other? and Is she really being a bad ex girlfriend about the whole thing?

your friend was going out with him for a long time, so chances are she's upset about it, and may not mean all the things she says. and that isn't what friends to do each other, but good friends don't go out with their friends ex...now i don't know if you two were friends when you dated him, and if you were then she was at fault first. but if not then it's not as big a deal, specially if it didn't bother u. what you do with him is your own business, and you are allowed to talk him as much as you want. just realize that she's probably hurting, and having you stick up for him isn' twhat she needs-unless she's truely speaking crap, then u'd be a bad friend to him not to stick up for him. its tough being in the middle like that, but i'm sure u can work things out. if you need to, just tlak to her and see what the real reason is behind her getting so upset about things. best of luck

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one of my really good guy friends is being a jerk, because i just met a guy from a different school and i think hes jealous but anyways i asked him why he was mad cause i didnt know for sure and he said don't talk to me..actually do better then that stop breathing, i cant believe you haven't already and i was like okay..and my friend kneed him through a bus seat after he said that and he said hey lesbians get a room and he was being the biggest dickhead ever and then he said i was ugly even though he said that i was extremely pretty a week ago and he also said when i was talking to another guy he said to teh other guy..hey broz before prudes and hes been like that for like 2 days..what could i say to him??

it seems to me that your friend is INSANLY jealous that you met a guy from a differnt school, which would lead me to believe that he likes you. guys often have a hard time expressing their feelings, and instead of talkinga bout it, like girls do, they thrash out in anger. i would give him a little space for a while...maybe don't talk to him unless he talks to you, and see if he calms down any. if not, then you need to take him aside and have a serious talk to him and find out whats wrong. even if he does calm down, still talk to him and see why he got so jealous. be calm about it, but make sure you get all ur questions answered. hope this helped, good luck

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ok me and my boyfriend love eachother alot but hes the jealouse type. i mean he doesnt have a fit but like when i talk to a guy he gets jealous. like ok today me and my guy friend zak were talking about how zzk was looking at my butt at lunch but it was a total joke we were just playing around but my bf came up behind us and heard and started pushing and hitting zak. and i have talked to him and told him im nto flirting but he still refuses to listen. like and its hard cause most of my bff's are guys. what should i do cause i cant take the pressure of not being able to talk to my bffs and having to hide when i do. i mean i love him and i cant break up with him and i know if he really liked me and trusted me then he wouldnt worry but he trust me i know its just hes jealouse and i cant take not talking to my freidns cause of him. what should i do?

you need to sit down and talk to him. make sure that he knows that you love him, and that you would never do anything...ANYTHING that would hurt him. basically tell him what you told us here. that your bffs are mostly guys, and ur bf has to be ok with that! it is possible that he's scared he'll lose you, but he has to understand that his behavior is making it really hard on u. you don't want to leave him, but if his behavior continues like this, you're going to have to make the dreaded decision-your friends or him. that's up to you, but hopefully it won't come to that. maybe you're guy's also jealous because you're closer to your guy friends than you are to him? i dunno ask him why he's so jealous, and maybe he has a good reason behind it that you just can't see, and then you two can work on it together. so just sit down with him, and have a serious, calm talk about what's going on. hope this helped, and best of luck

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If there is a fight between ur younger sister and her friends, should i help them by trying to fight with younger kids,or do i try and talk to them one by one in a place where no one can her u. Can u help me decide?

definitely don't try to fight with the younger kids. if the problem is between your younger sister and her friends, you should let her try and work it out on her own. if she asks you for your help, then definitely talk to them one by one, and figure out whey each of them is mad at each other, and how they can fix it.

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ok well my best friend is goin out w/ a boy ive nown 8 years and every time he comes over we make out and other stuff and wen he asks for it i give it to him...and i dont want to give that up but she keeps gettin mad at me??but me and him have gone out wen we were younger and all that jiz..its just ive only nown her for a year and ive nown him my whole life and i like him alot..but she goes out w/ him wen she nos i dont like it wen she does so i dont no wat to do.can u give me some advice plz????????ty..

well, you need to talk to your friend. not the guy, you're girl friend. and i'd suggest for the time to stop making out with her bf, because that's just gonna make things harder. but i can see where you'd be upset, specially because you said she knows you didn't want her to go out with him in the first place. you really have to talk to her tho, and tell her that you're hurt that she didn't respect your feelings. but be prepared for her to be hurt that you made out with her boyfriend. it's going to be hard for you guys to come to a conclusion, but i think if you sit down and talk about it, you should be fine, if you guys really are best friends. i hope this helped, and good luck!

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Well, let me start off by saying me and my best friend camaran have been best friends forever. Well, over the years her mother, Tara, has been having some prblems. She is overweight, smokes, and drinks. Well, about a month ago she got into a car accident from "Drinking Under the Influence". The police scheduled her to have a court day yesterday. But with her illness symptoms, she couldn't make it show she wrote a letter to the judge. Obviously they didn't care and had her arrested for not going to court. She was in jail all last night, but was let out this afternoon. Now they're rescheduling her court date sometime in January. After court she is going to be arrested and go to jail for "Drinking Under the Influence" and causing harm to another person. (she hit the other car when she was drunk and the person who she hit had to go to the hospital)

that's a really tough situation. the best you can do is show Camaran that you are there for her no matter what, and if she ever needs to talk, you are more than happy to listen. but don't force anything. chances are this is a really rough time for her, and she might even feel a little embarrassed about it, eventhough she shouldn't, so it might be hard for her to talk about it at first. give her space, but make sure she knows ur there for her unconditionally, and when she's ready to talk, she's lucky to have a friend like you there and ready to listen. hope everything turns out ok.

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um hi. my ex-boyfriend and i broke up last year around june. he lied to me and stuff lik that, so i said dude i dont deserve this, and i walked away. but now that a new skool year has started, he keeps hanging around me and at dances he keeps telling his friends he wants to dance wit me. i dont know what to do because i really liked him and he rilly hurt me and i dont want to be hurt again. he says hes changed and hes sorry, but i still dont know. should i keep my distance? or should i try again?

that's a tough situation. it's really your call, but what i would do is try and hang out with him first. just talk to him, and see if you can notice a change. if you see it, and you believe that it's an honest change, then maybe you should consider trying it again. but if not, then i see no reason to put yourself on the line again just to get dropped with no one there to catch you. love is a game, and someone always winds up getting hurt, but you'll never see the good side of it if you don't take the risk. i hope this helped, and good luck

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This is for the girls.. okay.. well i'm on Ortho tricyclen Lo.. and if any of you are i have a question!!.. okay well when will i start my period.. will i start it on my normal day.. or when i start taking the inactive pills? Thanks!

i'm not on Orth tricyclen Lo, but i am on Ortho tricyclen. for the first couple of months, you will get it any time between the last couple of days of the active pills and the first day or two of the active pills of the new pack. after your body gets used to the change of hormones in your body, your period should regulate somewhere during your inactive pills. i've been on it for 3 months, and i've been getting it around the same time each month, which is about the 4th day on the inactive pills. sometimes, if you don't take the pill at close to the same time every day, or if you forget, or just randomly, you could have spotting, but don't worry about that, it's normal. hope this helped!

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Ok...well there is this boy that I love a lot. We aren't dating at the moment but we were before. The only reason we broke up is because we didn't talk a lot and that was about a year ago...now we talk every day on the phone way more than once and we talk in school. He always goes Mahryah...I love you...but I don't know if I believe him and I tell him that. He says well then why else would I say I loved you if I really didn't. I always want to say well if you really like me then why don't you want to go out with me, I think that if he wanted to he would have asked by now. He always talks about us doing stuff together but he has never really like 'forced' me into it. I would be willing...only if we were going out though. I don't know what to say next time I talk to him and he says that. I mean I say it back but I mean it and he says he does but I'm not sure. Do you think he would just be saying this to get something from me...?? Anyone have any ideas? Thanks so much! Love..Ryah

You have to talk to him about it. Some guys will tell you they love you just to (excuse me for being blunt) get in your pants. But other guys say it and mean it. Depending on how old you guys are, he might be a little freaked out by the idea of being in a relationship in which you are in love. That leads to a big commitment for guys, and often times, when they're young, they get scared from that. But talk to him. Tell him basically what you said here. If he really does love you, he'll tell you why you aren't going out, and what else is going on, if anything. Make sure he knows how you feel about him, and that you're really confused as to what the deal is between you two. good luck!

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