I had a full life- I was going through high school, I had a fantastic group of friends, I had a plan for college, everything was falling neatly into place. I was unhappy around my mother and family life at home, but that was expected, I'm a teenager after all, the whole "leaving the nest" thing had kicked in.

Two or three weeks ago ( I cannot remember which, my brain is too fuzzy), the first boyfriend I ever fell in love with broke up with me. It was a peaceful, albeit sad departure. His plans and mine were so different, and however in love we were, we concluded we could not logically pursue the relationship.

Everything seems to be going down the toilet. My financial aid for the school I am planning on attending in the fall has still not gone through, and I found out yesterday that no one in my family can help me pay the housing deposit.

No one saved up for college for me- I was told that they had, but then the economy tanked, and savings were used. I have no money of my own and am unable to get a job: aside from there being so few in the area I live in, my attempts to get a job have been unsuccessful, and as soon as I begin looking for one, my mother becomes angry with me and claims that I am never at home to watch my younger sibling so that she can look for a job.

At the beginning of summer, my mother told me that I had three months to do whatever I wanted, so long as I could arrange the transportation and finances myself. I could, the first week, and so, over a period of seven days, I spent the night at a friend's house twice. Twice. I did not do drugs, I did not party, and I told my mom everything truthfully. And at the end of the week, she revoked my privileges, saying that she never had the opportunity to go jobhunting because I am never at home.

The issue is, when I am home, my mom stays home as well. She says we have no gas money or gets angry and says "she just does not want to", or that she does not have interview clothes or does not have the proper resume. I downloaded resume templates for her, which she has never looked at. In the past two and a half months, she has gone "job hunting" only once, and applied for three jobs at a casino, and was never called back. Otherwise, on nights when I am home, she goes out of the house for three-nine hours to the bar. She will go an hour to three during the daytime, but if it is a weekend night she will leave as early as four with her boyfriend and not be home until ten at the earliest, one or two at the latest. She will then stumble in drunk and breathe her gross-smelling breath on me and wake me up and become hurt when I do not want to deal with her late-night drunken shenanigans.

She complains of being bored at home and having no money but she will do nothing to change that. I have had my braces on for two and a half years, and have not gotten them fixed or taken off in a year and a half. It will cost us about $400 to get them taken off. I recently found out that we had spare money in the bank account- about $400, actually, and then my mother spent it on a car so that the whole family could drive around together in a single car, rather than three of us cramped in a bench seat 1979 toyota pickup. We no longer use the family car. Mom got a ticket not a week after she got and refuses to drive it now because she's paranoid that the policemen are tracking her and that she is more comfortable driving the pickup truck- WITH A TWO AND A HALF YEAR OLD IN A CAR SEAT IN THE TRUCK.

Our house has no oven, no washer or dryer, and cable only in the living room. It is in the middle of the ghetto, there is no lawn, and there is no where to walk, really. I am not allowed to sit in my room most days because my mother thinks it is too antisocial of me, so I am usually forced to sit in the living or dining room and do nothing, or else play with my baby sister, because my mom will not do it.

Most days, I wake up, and my mother and little sister are already awake or just waking. I will get my little sister a bottle and then heat myself a cup of coffee and then my mother will return to bed for three to four hours. Meanwhile, I will do the dishes, change my little sister's diaper, feed her a real breakfast, clean her up, and put on cartoons and then sit around and stare until my mother wakes.
She will then wake up, usually expecting sprite or kool-aid. She'll have a cigarette and throw up snot because she refuses to quit smoking. She starts drinking beer at one in the afternoon, usually, and normally goes through a twelve pack a day. Rinse, repeat.

I am seventeen. I cannot legally provide for myself. My two best friends cannot house me, as both are moving out of their parents' homes because of their own circumstances.

I do not have my license. My mother will not take me, for one reason or another: No money, I need my ID, we have my little sister, I cannot drive the truck, the truck is not fit to be driven, etc.

And as unbearable as all of that is, I still love my mother. Moving out would be betrayal in her eyes, a suggestion that she is an unfit mother. She was a wonderful mother until her own depression kicked in six years ago. She believes she recovered- I believe she remissed for a year after she met her current boyfriend and then collapsed again once she had my younger sister, and once my dad took custody of my younger brother away from her.

I cannot help her though, because telling her she is depressed has no effect. She says that she knows, but that she has no money or no time to go see a therapist, or that a therapist has nothing to offer her.

I am not coping well with all the stress right now. I am sad that high school is over, because it was the first time in my life I had ever had real friends. I am depressed that my boyfriend and I broke up, for obvious reasons, and it hurts more still that he and I want to be friends, and I want to talk to him, but I sometimes find it painful to do so.

My own depression frightens me. I go through periods of intense happiness and exuberation- anywhere from several hours to several days of happiness! I am excited, I have a plan, I have things to go, things to live for.

Periodically throughout the day, I will be hit by one of several things-

Hallucinations. They're not true hallucinations, because I am aware that they are not real. It's more like a slackening of grip on reality, where images and sounds cloud my brain and overlap on what's around me. Memories, projected futures, fears, all relay into this. It's like lucid daydreaming, and it's gotten worse the last few days. Last night, I found out that it was the only way to comfort myself on the loss of my ex-boyfriend. In these projected futures, I am with him, I am happy, he is an idealised form of himself, and time and obstacles do not exist. It's almost comforting to slip into these dream-like states-- until I open my eyes.

Severe sadness- I will suddenly burst into tears over little reminders of my unhappiness. Sometimes it will last for hours. My record is four and a half hours of uncontrollable sobbing.

Emptiness-Reminding myself of where I am and what's going on in my life is always dreadful. I feel this cavity inside of me; I am just a vacant being, wasting air. My life means nothing to me, because I will never achieve beyond what I am capable of doing in this life. Life is so predetermined, without us even realising it. There are only several "paths" to follow, and they all lead to the same end.

My future is undecided- I have never had a set career path, and still don't. I suddenly don't see the point in putting myself into thousands of dollars of debt in student loans on attaining a degree I don't even know if I want or if I can use. I've considered attending a community college, but it would mean living with my mother for two more years, because I would never be financially sound enough to move out.

I have no hope. My former dreams were to go to France, and to Germany, and Austria. I wanted to live in France. Now, it doesn't matter to me. I've come to the scary conclusion that nothing in life truly matters: what will it matter if I go or not? When I'm dead, I'll remember none of it. My existence literally means nothing. Why am I wasting the chances that much more deserving people could be using??

I am a horrible human being. I don't care about other people, I am not a helpful person. I'm cruel, and judgmental, and brutal, and ruthless. I'm angry and overdramatic and bitter and naive. I'm so, so young. I have so much to live for, and so much disappointment to live through.

Honestly, I do not want to fully move on from my ex boyfriend. And I do not want him to fully move on from me. Some part of my brain deludes me into believing that we still have a teeny, itty bitty window of hope far off in the future if I can get my act together. He is moving to Germany, for life, and I somehow feel that if I can gear my life close enough to his-- to France, and then somehow fall in love with Germany myself-- we could be together, when we weren't so young, when we weren't so restricted by life.

It's unreasonable and illogical, I know, and that hurts, but it is literally the only thing that keeps me sane. Knowing that he loves me, and a part of him always will, keeps me sane. I cannot bear, at least not right now, to have him only as my friend. He gave me nothing, I wanted nothing from him. We didn't have sex, nor had we planned to in the near future. It wasn't about sex. It was about him. It was about being with him. Being together.

That's all that matters to me. But we broke up two weeks ago, because he wanted to extend his stay in Germany for the summer, and if he stays, he may get accepted into a German university this term. And if he does, I will never see him again.

I cannot cope with that, not yet.

I am visiting my dad and brother for a week and it seems to have had no effect. It put me into that euphoria, but these last few days seem to be going in reverse. What's worse is that I'm beginning to have thoughts of death. This happened before, to a point where it crossed my mind so often I believed I had to commit suicide just to get the thoughts of death out of my mind.

I know all of this is irrational, but I cannot get it to stop.
The symptoms are increasing in frequency and intensity.
I do not want anyone of my friends or relatives to know because I do not want them to pity me; I do not want them disappointed in me; I do not want them angry with me.
I should clarify that: I do not want my ex-boyfriend to find out. I fear that if he finds out, he will be so angry/disappointed/guilty, he will no longer talk to me whatsoever. That would be intolerable.

Life has lost all of its colour, and I am frightened.