I would agree with Elisha, Andrew, but I would make sure that the psychiatrist you see does work with young adults your age. I recently took my daughter for a phsych eval (she's 12) and what I learned is that personalities aren't really fully formed until you are around 18 years of age. He was hesitant although not adverse to give her something (she suffers from depression - she describes it as this swirly feeling in her head and then she goes numb, but you have to know that she cuts herself too, but she's stopped for 6 weeks now and has been in therapy for 4 and it is going well according to her, and yes, she is young, can't compare to your 18, but I'm old, so to me you are still young,
).
I would, if you were my child, take you to a therapist first and see what he/she recommends, and I would refer to YOU on whether this theapist is a good fit for you or not and take it from there. If you can handle it at times, that is awesome, work on it, there are SO many coping skills out there. For some, meds are needed, it is a chemical imbalance and meds are needed to fill the gap, for others, it's a tool to get through a time period...you need to know which place you are in, do you know what I mean?
My son, who is 15, found the words for my daughter to describe how she is feeling, and he understood because he feels like that too - his solution - we have a gym in the basement and he works out, and he goes for runs, he journals and he spends time with his friends that can talk with him...do you have friends you can talk with about
how you are feeling? These are good coping skills too .... along with talk therapy ...
One thing you learn in therapy...there is noone that is going to give you the magic answer to what is bothering you and there is no magic pill to cure what ails you...there IS HELP, but you have to work there to get it.
I don't mean to put any negative slant on this, it's just that you ARE young, and I want to respect that in you, you have that going FOR you...research this, the internet is a wealth of information! Good luck! Take care of yourself!