How do I fix my life before my parents find out?

r/

I just want to preface that this post might be quite long and, lack a clear direction. So I apologise in advance.

So, I’m 16M, turning 17 in 2 months time. For the following to make sense I should preface that, I live in scotland, and in scotland you are allowed to drop out of highschool/secondary when you turn 16.

Anaways, I’ve been dealing with depression for a very long time. I want to say since the start of highschool, but I honestly don’t know, my working memory is pretty awful and I dont really remember a whole lot from before I turned 16, much less highschool. What I can tell you is that I’m pretty sure I have some sort of anhedonia. Most days I feel nothing. Literally nothing. I think it could be alexithymia as I dont really remember a time were I havent felt nothing, but I’m trying to be hopeful. That means no happiness or sadness, these are weird concepts to me and I can understand them logically, but I don’t feel them.

During highschool, I wasn’t really picked on, but nobody liked me, and it was for good reason. Because of that, I’ve never had any friends. I’ve never went to a friends house, or hung out or anything like that, mabye when I was 10 years old in primary but definitely not recently. It didn’t really bother me until recently, where I’m now starting to feel some genuine pain from loneliness but I wouldn’t describe it as sad.

Anaways, last year I quit highschool. I didn’t have a plan or a future, and i quite simply made it up to convince my parents it was the right thing to do. I never studied for my exams, got B’s and C’s and it was whatever. I could have done alot better but I couldn’t be arsed clearly (I was projected all A’s because I was considered to be intelligent, seems not haha). The real truth as to why I quit was so i could kill myself. I wanted to see my exam results, picture how my life could have been and then kill myself the next day regardless of the outcome. I’ve had multiple attempts before and after that time (around August last year), but that one was the one time my parents found out. I got assessed and it was also around this time it was mentioned I might have autism. I declined to get tested because I dont want that on my medical record tbh and personally I lack alot of the traits they mention, at worst i would be high functoning and id much rather go undiagnosed jn that case. I massively downplayed the whole event and my parents have slowly forgotten about it over time.

The one thing I will mention is that that day was the first time I saw my father cry. It was the only time I’ve ever felt genuine emotion, that being guilty and I still don’t like thinking about it. Breaking someone like that was a fucked up thing for me to do. I’ve never really opened up to them before or after that moment, to avoid upsetting them.

Anaways after that I started college in August, and I stuck with it until about January, when I quit. My parents dont know and I continue to go to “college” on college days to this day. I told myself I would look for a job instead and that hasn’t happened. I tried thinking about telling my parents all this, and that hasn’t happened.

So what the fuck do I do? I have 2 months at best before my parents will find out one way or another that I’m completely screwed.

Sorry I think I’m missing some context there but that’s all the info I’ve got in my head right now. Huge thanks to anyone who reads all of that.

Comments

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  2. Wawravstheworld Avatar

    Damn I’m surprised you’re not from the USA talking and acting like this, maybe everyone is fucked not just us

  3. Hour_Solid_bri Avatar

    I’ll be honest here, this is precisely what parents are for. They may have the resources or benefits to get you in therapy. You dont have to tell them everything, maybe just say youre really stressed and you feel therapy would be helpful.

  4. vocalfreesia Avatar

    First things first: make an appointment to see your GP. Get started with some treatment. Ask for their help in finding mental health resources.

  5. 7___7 Avatar

    https://www.lifelines.scot/find-help

    I would talk with your parents and get help. You have a lot of life to live and it’s worth living.

  6. Whole_Anxiety4231 Avatar

    So step #1 is you need to get your mental health taken care of. It sounds like your folks are aware you have issues but not how deep they go; that’s okay, they seem sympathetic and it sounds like if you explain everything with the intention of getting better, they’ll be receptive.

    As for what you’re experiencing, that’s severe chronic depression as far as I can tell but really you need a doctor to diagnose you with it, and then follow through with treatment which is almost certainly going to involve medication and therapy. This is a lot easier if you have parents who understand and are willing to help you get through it.

    Assuming they’re on board, next step is to find a good doctor and tell them everything. Express every hangup and pause and instance of fear or disinterest or anxiety or numbness or whatever it is, and then see what they say, and what you should do for treatment. Again, if it’s supportive to do so, involve your folks in this for support.

    Once that gets treated, you’ll probably have the same moment a lot of us have when it finally lifts, where we look around and go “… What the hell is going on, how did I let this get this bad? Oh man I have so much crap to fix” and then (and this is important) actually get to work fixing them without the sludgy morass of depression halting all attempts at movement.

    And then you go “Wait, is this how normal people just are all the time?” and yep, they are. It’s quite a revelation.

    It also becomes much easier to manage after this because you recognize it for what it is, and managing it in the future just becomes routine.

    Good luck man. A lot of us have dealt with chronic depression. It sucks, but there’s resources and people out there who can help.

    Don’t give up and good luck.

  7. skatedog_j Avatar

    Sounds like you have ADHD. Get on meds and everything will change. Sending love