FN,
No one knows what you are going through except you. No one knows how you feel but you. No one knows the truth about your life but you. All we can do is try to lift you up and advise you how to make the quality of life better. We are a support group and that's why we are all here. We listen, we talk, we vent and we advise. We show we care, we show we love and most of us believe in the power of prayer. I know this one thing from personal experience. Please read on and open your mind to what I am about to say. When I was a teen, I was so rebellious from the lack of attention I lost when my brother was born as he had a terminal illness and then my mom had another baby, my baby sister. Then I was really mad cause my mom had to devote most of her time to my brother so I got stuck taking care of my baby sister. I was more of a mother than a sister. (my brother passed 1 week before his 18th birthday and that 6 yrs more than the docs said he would live) I was angry at the lack of attention. I was drinking, smoking, cutting classes, getting other friends in trouble and in the dean's office more than he was. I tormented the teachers and was a bully to other students. I was acting out and like you, I hated myself. The one thing I didn't see was the hurt I was causing everyone around and at their expense. It took me a while to learn that not everyone was against me and people loved me but they had a hard time expressing love because of my attitude. I was shutting them all out and not letting them in. I litterally rejected anyone's love or care because I thought it was out of sympathy. I soon found out that it was me that was wrong and not everyone else. I was depressed and didn't care about anything anymore. My great escape was working 2 jobs and staying as far from home as I could. Finally I met someone who I fell in love with and him with me. We married and had 2 daughters but unfortunately, he was drinking heavy and started physically abusing me so I divorced him. Now he doesn;t speak to me at all even though we have 2 daughters and 5 grandchildren together. When I got engaged to my now husband of 23 1/2 years, he came to my apartment and wrecked it and beat me. He was angry that I could be with another man. Deep inside he loved me but it was a choice. Booze or me. Booze won. My now husband found him and told him if he lays 1 finger on me again, he would kill him.
The point I am trying to make is that we live our lives without thinking sometimes and we have "pity parties" with no invited guests. I wasted all that time being angry when I could have had a great teenage period. We all have choices in life. The way I see it now is that we can choose to live in misery and feel sorry for ourselves and boy was I a champ at that, or we can choose to take one day at a time and in doing so, we can improve day to day. Face it, you are unhappy now but what have you got to lose trying to 180 your life? Do it in steps like us recoveree's do. You have got to tell yourself that you are worth something and God put you here for a reason. Question is, would you rather live your life in total darkness bumping into walls, knocking yourself out and not going anywhere or changing your way of thinking and telling yourself you can do whatever you put your mind to doing. If we were all happy and perfect, there would be no depressed people. We all have our own reasons to be depressed and no two people are the same. Life takes twists and turns but there is help for you. That help starts with YOU and then you can slowly come up from the bottom and spread your wings. Please, for your sake, try to START having a better attitude about yourself. Don't be hateful to yourself or others. After all, they have nothing to do with the way you feel about yourself. Stop beating yourself up. God bless!
"Lefty"