It's been many months since this post and I'd like to say that I'm doing much better.
I took a hiatus to improve my circumstances.

I finally moved off to college and I fare very well up here. I'm starting winter quarter in a couple of days and I'm very excited. I'm outside the reach of my mother, though I have visited her often lately, I've decided that I am going to keep my entire family at a distance I am comfortable with until I can forgive everyone in it.

My life is pleasant and full: I have a boyfriend, who takes very good care of me and whose parents seem to like me very well. I have yet to expose the depression I went through but I believe it is about time I did. As whiny as my problems sounded, they were very real to me and I underwent a humongous transformation. I am not the same person I was upon entering depression- but that's part of growing up, isn't it?

As it stands, though I love my college life and wish to continue pursuing it, I am currently planning to drop out in the near future and either take a couple of months to travel independently or take about eight months to be an Au Pair in France. I'm weighing the pros and cons of each, either way, I do not intend to stay in the college I am in now all four years. I will return to my studies: I've been applying to other universities as a transfer student and have already received admission to one. This is something I've told everyone except my parents, and that's the way it will stay.

I'd like thank each of you for responding to this thread and thought I owed you an update. You may very well have saved my life. It was comforting knowing there was someone else out there that cared and you guys DID what you had in your power to do. You owe yourselves something! I'm in a much better place now, but I still deal with a tendency for depression.

I will of course keep you guys up to date.