For reference, I'm a 15 year old girl living in the U.K.

Growing up I was the "golden child" - perfect grades, well behaved, liked by everyone... it seemed like my life would be a straight path. But I suspect I've had deep rooted, underlying issues with my mental health from as early as I can remember.

My mum has always pushed me to be the best at everything that I do. Be it school, housework, behaviour. If it's not perfect, it's a waste of time and I should be ashamed of myself. From about 11, when I started secondary school (Year 7) issues with my self-image and self-esteem in general began popping up like crazy. I hated myself, my friends from primary school seemed uninterested in talking to me, I had no friends in general and I was just in a constant battle with myself and my health. Nothing mattered more to me than being perfect. I thought that if I could be perfect at everything, my mum would finally be proud of me and she wouldn't have any negative things to say anymore. I wanted everyone to like me. I wanted people to look at me and wish they were my friend. 

I'm pretty sure I have something called 'atychiphobia', which is an irrational fear of failure and/or disappointing others. Failure is simply not an option for me. I can't fail. If I fail, then I'm a useless piece of shit that deserves to die. But the problem is that 'failure' in my perspective is anything less than perfection. So I'm stuck in a never ending cycle of constantly disappointing myself and the people around me and it's driving me mad. I self-harm everytime I 'mess up' or in other words, achieve anything less than perfection.  I feel like I need to be punished for letting others down.

Recently I've been having issues with my body image. I know I'm not overweight, but that's not the point. The point is that I don't look the way I want to look. I don't have the skinny waist that other girls can have so effortlessly. That's not fair. Why do I have to work so hard for something that other people get without trying? I can't eat healthily, because them my whole family would have to eat healthy and my mum already yells at me for not being happy with my body. She doesn't get it. Nobody gets it. 

That's the worst thing. I'm not trying to sound edgy but the reality and the worst thing about depression in my opinion is the fact that *no-one gets it and NOBODY will ever be able to fully understand exactly how you feel.* There isn't a combination of words in the entire English language that can properly express how much I hate myself. And nobody will ever know. No matter how hard they try. It's frustrating. I just want someone to understand.

I think my mum is verbally and emotionally abusive. She screams at me if I don't do something exactly the way she wants it done. She's hot headed, and she's said horrible things when she's angry. Really horrible things. Called me useless, disgusting, that I should be ashamed of myself, how I can even be her daughter from how ashamed of me she is. I've tried opening up to her about my self esteem issues and she just got pissed off at me and yelled at me about how I could possibly have a lack of self-esteem when I'm 'not struggling' for anything. (For context, my mum immigrated from Nigeria to the U.K. when I was born. She told me how she walked for miles to fetch water for her family of 11 when she was a child. I don't want to go into detail due to privacy, but she made it clear that she didn't have an easy childhood). I can't get her to understand that MY hardships are different to HER hardships. *JUST BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE TO SLAVE FOR HOURS TO MAKE MONEY FOR MY FAMILY DOESN'T MEAN I DON'T HAVE MY OWN ISSUES.*

She doesn't let me have any freedom. She hates almost all of my friends, I can't even go to the local park without my sister, can't wear the kind of clothes that I like, ect. She thinks every boy I talk to want to rape me and get me pregnant. She saw me walking home with 2 boys once, and even though they were polite are respectful to her, she screeched at me when I got home about how I want to end up a single mother at 15. The urge to tell her to shut up or just slap her is getting stronger by the day, but unless I want her to kill me, I can't exactly talk back. I just sit there while she calls me useless and shameful while I cry silently. I can't even make noise when I cry, or she'll shame me for being emotional and saying how "a mother can't even talk to her child without her crying."

But at the same time, I lover her, because she's not always angry. When she's in a good mood she's wonderful, I actually want to spend time with her when she's happy. Because I can talk to her without her yelling at me. 

But bad experiences stay in my head, and the good ones always go away. I can't remember the good times. I only remember bad memories. I'm sick of it.

I prioritise the happiness of others highly above mine. Seeing others happy makes me happy, but that happiness never sticks around. It lingers for a little while, and then the bad thoughts start coming back. 

It's so much energy to get out of bed. I have exams and yet I'm not studying. It's so much energy to live. I don't want to live like this. Sometimes I don't want to live at all.

My school is about 60 feet tall. Tall enough that if I jumped from the very top, and landed on my head, I'd probably die instantly. The only thing keeping me back is that I know the people that I love would do something stupid if I died. I don't want them to be sad because I'd be gone. If anything, they should be happy, because I wouldn't be there to bother them anymore. Sometimes I just wish some crazy guy with a knife would break into my school and kill me. At least, that way, it wouldn't be my fault. They could be angry at that crazy guy and not me. And I'd be gone.

But it's odd, because even thought I don't care about myself I care about others. Particularly my childhood friend, who I'll call Josh for the sake of privacy. I'm not gonna lie, I like him a lot. Much more than a friend. But he doesn't feel the same way, and he never will. To make matters worse, he's infatuated with another one of my best friends. And I'm pretty sure she likes him, too. They've dated before, but it went horrbily and was done within 2 weeks. That was about 2 years ago.The girl best friend has recently broken up with her boyfriend, so it's the perfect opportunity for them to reconcile and love each other properly. And I give them both advice about how they should go for it and ask each other out, acting like I'm happy for them, but on the inside I couldn't be more broken. You can't change fate, I guess. I won't be selfish and try to sabotage their relationship, but it hurts really bad. Especially since she knows that I've liked Josh for a long time, but to be fair, I lied and told her I was over him. Nothing ever goes well for me. Perhaps I'm just unlucky. But I feel horrible because deep down, I want theit relationship to go badly so he can be mine, but that will never happen. I've known him since I was four, and he's always been one of my favourite people. I should just be happy for him. But it's like losing part of myself, even though I know he doesn't value me as much as I value him.

I'm sick of all of this guilt. Sick of letting people down. Sick of myself. I don't know what to do anymore. I'm not gonna kill myself, at least not yet. It's definitely an option, though. I can't carry on like this.

I'm sorry for such a long rant, and for jumping from different themes so randomly. If anyone read all of this, thank you. I appreciate it a lot. I'll hang on for now, but it hurts so bad and I just want it to stop.