Dear kind user of psychcentral,

I am a 19 year old guy who recently admitted having a depression. When I was asked to identify the feelings that made me sad or unable to be happy it struck me.

I am going to try and do this shortly.

When I was 2 years old, my real father died from cancer. My mother was only 21 at the time and studying made her really busy so her mother would often take care of me.

In the meantime, my mother had gotten a new boyfriend, who I started calling dad. My mother and I sort of "merged" into her new boyfriend´s family, and I got myself to step brothers and a whole new family.

The years went by, and when I was 10 my grandmother died. It turns out that my "new" family wasn´t that great afterall. No one ever talked to me about death, only my mother who has always been very supportive. I was ignored and left out of the family. My brothers were loved like the true members they were.

From when I was 10 to 12 my older step-brother would molest me. He´d tell me that he would get me stuff, buy me things and give me money in exchange for sexual pleasing. He taught me how to masturbate, and innapropriately "helped" me in the process. He would make me give him blowjobs, force me to sit on him and he invited me to his apartment where he would do all this, despite telling me that we were going to watch a movie and eat snacks. I kept giving him chances, ignoring the things that had happened but now they are haunting me.

I really never knew what I was doing. I still don´t know to this date why i can still look him in the eyes and smile. The family that i was merged into never really cared for me, or had any interest in me. My step-father has never told me he loved me, not once i can remember.

Now my parents are divorced. We live in a house that we can´t afford, while my step-dad is cruising around with his new girlfriend in the town next to us. He rarely does anything to support us, while being absolutely careless of how things are going in school.

My mother started cutting herself shortly after the divorce. I would come home and find blood on the floor. I would then proceed to call my dad, and he´d tell me to just ignore it and move on. I was devasted. My mom was put in a mental institution on medicine, and she is feeling so much better today for which i am grateful.

I don´t know how to deal with my frustrations. I am angry, devastated and I feel like no one listens, only my mom. Sometimes when I go to sleep I get really excited, because dreaming feels so much better than reality.

I am meeting with a counselour soon, a meeting that has been arranged by my school hence i shared my feelings with a teacher I trust. I hope things will get better, and that I someday may find a girl with whom I can raise a boy to be healthy and loved like i never was. Thats my biggest wish.

Anyways, if you got to this point of the story I thank you for listening, please share if you have anything to say or attribute.