[LilMonkey]

Hi. I'm 16 years old. My mom tried to kill herself last year. Afterwards. I went into deep depression, yet I have hid it so my mom won't find out how depressed I have become triggered by her attempting suicide. I hit a really low point a couple of months after my mom trying to kill herself and I planned to commit suicide. I had everything planned out. At school I randomly just started crying that week prior to my designated day of killing myself for a reason I don't even know, and then someone comforted me which made me realize I couldn't kill myself after someone showed so much compassion. However, I remained in a depression. 3 months ago, I began cutting. It has gotten worse and worse. I have been so depressed that now I have only been going to school about 2.5 times per week. My parents (who don't know anything about my depression or cutting because I don't want my mom to try to kill herself again as I stated before) have become so angry with me for missing so much school. I used to be an A+ student but my grades are really low now. This is all they seem to care about. I feel like they are the parents in the movie Suicide Room if anyone has heard of this movie. I don't know what to do anymore because I can't even bring myself to go to school or study or do anything. I just want to give up. I barely sleep anymore and I just want to go to sleep and never wake up. What should I do? Please help me.

[joypulv]

You HAVE to find a trusted adult to tell all this to. It is beyond the scope of online advice or friends. Sometimes a favorite teacher, the school nurse, an aunt?
You asked earlier about foster care... leaving one home for another won't cure this, and there is no physical abuse. I do understand the cold unloving pressure to be an A student, as though you are nothing but a trophy. I went through this (but didn't cut, and it was 50 years ago).
So, who do you think you can tell? The school is supposed to refer you to help. Once a week therapy might be a big relief.

[LilMonkey]

@joypulv... Thank you very much for trying to help me. Yes, I did realize that foster care was out of the question, yet I asked the question at a moment that I was very depressed and was not thinking clearly. Yet, to say that I have not been emotionally abused would be absurd. Everything I say even when I mean it in a positve way, my mom will use against me. I've learned to not talk, and thus I fear any situations that I have to speak face to face with someone (as you see, therapy would not be good for me because I would end up hyperventilating or something being forced to speak to someone). However when I don't speak, it is a nightmare. My mom gets my dad involved who, in the most recent situation, pushed me onto my bed while on top of me and started shaking and hitting me, calling me a b*tch. I am still sore.
I have already attempted to speak to a teacher anonymously through an email for help, yet she never responded.
I could never tell anyone upfront though because I care for my mom and, knowing her, if she found out how depressed I have become, she would try to kill herself again.
So yes, thank you for trying to help me.

[joypulv]

Unfortunately emotional abuse is mostly out of the realm of Social Services, and in fact they often have to see bruises or some other evidence that could be used in court. There are exceptions, such as locking in a closet, or starving.
If your dad was on top of you and hurting you, you would have to go to a hospital and be photographed (which of course most teens don't want to do).
Your teacher did the right thing by not responding to an anonymous email. It could have been a hoax or worse (scam or virus, etc). You need to hang around after the rest of the class leaves the room and just say 'I am having real problems at home and need serious help.'
PLEASE don't take everything out on yourself because your mother would try to kill herself again. Which you don't really know is true - it could have the opposite effect of waking her up to the fact that you both need help. She needs therapy. So do you.

[Jake2008]

No doubt that the depression and abuse happened long before your mother attempted suicide. You had probably learned to live with that, and coped much as you have, after she attempted suicide. If I'm in the ballpark, the suicide brought your worst fears into focus, and made life even more difficult, if not impossible, to cope with.

You have had to deal with the aftermath of living with her, and the added turmoil of having to live with her after she actually attempted to kill herself. Nothing you did worked before, keeping silent, avoiding problems, etc. There was barely a lid on the whole thing, but, it was manageable. Then the suicide attempt.

The situation with your mother has been building because she probably has a substance/pill problem maybe, or refuses to seek treatment, or refuses to get any sort of help. In not helping herself, she also refused to see anything outside of her own misery. She was harming you, and she chose not to deal with that too.

While you continue to suffer with her decisions, and the straw that broke the camel's back- the actual suicide attempt- you are also dealing with getting beat up by your father. He is taking his frustrations out on you, because he is in the same position you are- trying to prevent your mom from getting upset enough to try to kill herself again. Neither of them seem to get a connection between your falling marks, and their behavior. But, you getting good marks, makes less stress between your parents.

Maybe you were, in a strange way, the good focus. You brought the good marks home, which is a reflection of course, on them. When the marks dropped, that is also a reflection on them, because they would have had to at least wonder- why. Any reflection would put a little crack in the glass house you are living in.

I'm trying to get you to see the bigger picture here. You live in a home, with two adults, who are not in control of their lives. They can't see past their immediate selves' in order to possibly consider that you could be affected to such an extreme by their behavior. You are not a priority, and now that 'evidence' of bad school marks has come to light, and bad attendance, they are forced to deal with a situation they cannot deal with. You could attend all your classes and get perfect marks, but the situation would be exactly as it is now.

It isn't an option that you refuse to help yourself. To choose not to help yourself, you will remain in this horrible place, until more and more abusive behavior eventually pounds you down, until you have no hope, and do something to end your life.

You are in a dangerous position, because it seems no help is being sought by your parents, and no changes seem imminent. When they are better able and willing to get help themselves, only then, will very hard work with a therapist get them on an even footing. To include you in their toxic soup of problems, is a long way off, as far as becoming reasonably good parents.

Make an appointment to see someone in authority- a teacher, your family doctor, social services, etc. Don't let this fester a moment longer. Please look at the big picture here, and realize that there are many places where you can seek help for yourself.

Try to separate your problems, from their problems. It is not your responsibility to parent yourself; you are only 16! Please, try to see a bigger picture here, and get a grip on why you are feeling the way you are. And, realize it has nothing to do with your marks and attendance.

Because your parents are unable, or unwilling, to get help for you, you must do this yourself.

Find the courage to help yourself, and realize that your parents are, and have, created a terribly destructive emotional roller coaster for you. You did not do this, you have responded to it, and it is the dramatic and desperate thinking of suicide that is proof of that.

As to the physical abuse, that too is part of the 'evidence' that your parents are out of control. Your father for inflicting it, and your mother for not stopping it. Don't let that ever happen to you again- ever. Seek help and guidance from experienced, professional people, who face this every single day.

Please post again, and let us know how you are doing.

[LilMonkey]

I’ve been feeling depressed and overwhelmed. Not everything I said was the truth. My parents love me and have been trying to get me help. I have finally agreed to go to counseling. Thank you for trying to help me.