made this account because I needed to vent and didn't think it would be fair to say it to friends or family

I'm in my mid-20s and have been struggling with depression since I was a teenager. I know exactly what the reason is, too. it's embarrassing how obvious it is 

my father was an abusive alcoholic. when I was about 15 my parents separated. he's made no effort to stay in my life, and while I didn't particularly want him around (he was abusive, after all), it hurts that he doesn't seem to particularly *want* to be around. I was his child, but he was fine never seeing me again. he was my father, and he just...didn't care about me very much 

my mother is wonderful, but it felt like she stopped wanting to *be* a mother around the time of the divorce. I've had to be her emotional support so, so often and hide my feelings so as to not upset her. it feels like she needed me to be a peer for her to lean on, and I understand that to an extent - she had a traumatic upbringing, and the divorce was because she had an abusive husband - but it's painful to feel like both of your parents decided they didn't want to take care of you anymore

I have no extended family. no one on my father's side has stayed in touch and my mother was estranged from her own family, so that makes things hard, too. it makes me feel resentful towards my friends, sometimes. they all have aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents they can turn to. even if their relationships are sometimes complicated, when it comes down to it, it feels like everyone else has people who want to take care of them, even if they're bad at it 

now that I'm an adult, I live very independently. as in, alone. I struggle to make friends in real life, although I do have people that I talk to online. it's hard to open up. this is the embarrassing part, because I can see exactly what led me to feel this way. I was emotionally abandoned and it fucked me up; now there's a part of me that's convinced I'm inherently unlovable no matter what I do

I feel ugly, stupid, annoying. I feel boring. I can't talk to people because I'm convinced I'll say the wrong thing and put them off. I'm scared to spend time with people because I'm convinced they'll regret it. I feel like I have to apologize for any and everything I say or do, but that apologizing is annoying too, so I can't. I just have to keep myself as quiet and unobtrusive as possible so that I'm not burdening anyone with my existence. I'm constantly afraid that the people who say they care about me will change their minds. I don't feel capable of trusting that they mean it; I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop 

I hate myself. I feel as though I have no right to be alive. I haven't done anything to "earn" what I take from others. I'm not worth the trouble I cause anyone. but I want to be loved. I want to be cared about. I want to be loved and cared about so much that even I will believe it. I want someone I can trust won't go away

everyone says you have to love yourself first. you can't depend on others for your self-worth, and nobody can "love" my depression away. I know that. but sometimes I really resent that

I hate taking care of myself. I hate trying to love myself. I've spent so much of my life feeling like nobody wanted to take care of me - that I wasn't "worth" it. trying to force myself to do it feels unfair. I mean, why should I have to? why didn't my parents want to? why didn't my family want to? if I'm the only person who will ever do this, is there even any point? do I really want to be alive if I have to feel so forgotten and unnecessary the entire time? no amount of self-talk seems to help. in the end, it always comes back to "you have to do this for yourself because you aren't worth it to anybody else"

I've seen tons of resources about loving yourself. I have no idea how to *want* to love yourself