▲▼▲ Sad Teens with Happy Faces. ▲▼▲

Wow I haven't posted for a while.. well anyways I'm feeling stuck. I've lost my "zest" for life. I wake up every morning, drag myself out of bed, and from the second I get to school I wish I were home. My social skills are at best inadequate and I eat lunch in the bathrooms by myself most days...It's not that people don't like me or I don't have friends, it's just the thought of having to sit down and have a socially acceptable conversation with my peers brings me to panic. Once I get home, I spend my time wishing I were somewhere else. My dad is just constantly cutting me down and poking and probing me and wittling away at my self esteem so much it's all but non-existant. The only thing I want to do is curl up into a ball under the covers, put my pillow over my head, and stay there. I'm a junior in high school, I have a 1.0 GPA, so my future prospect are looking quite grim. I used to get straight As and be so much more involved in life... now I am barely getting by.

Usually when I start getting into a hole, I find a guy to date and make me happy to superficially fill that missing gap in my life. But now, it seems the only thing guys are interested in is having sex with me and are not at all interested in investing themselves in a relationship, or at the very least treating me with the dignity I deserve... Im sick of being used and abused and left crumpled up on the side of the road like a piece of trash. I just want someone who kisses me on the forhead, someone to show me they give even a little bit of a damn about me. I don't have that with anyone. Is that really too much to ask for?

I am not allowed out of my house, not allowed to use the phone, I can't see my friends, my dad took away my facebook so I don't even have that to contact the ouside world with. I am just so lonely and isolated... and my future isn't looking so bright either. I don't know how do get out of this hole.

Why won't your parents let you use fb etc? are you being bullied or do they think perhaps you should be socializing in person- edit not letting you out of the house? What kind of picking is he doing? just general sarcasm? my uncle is like that with my cousin so I know what kind of damage it can do if the receiver is a daughter or son and not just another adult.

What are your friends like, are they the type of people that really love you for you? Why don't you spend time with them at lunch at school?

Sorry its a lot of questions but I see a few things going on that don't quite add up.

I am technically "grounded" and i think thats why I'm not allowed to socialize...but I have been grounded for 9 months...9 MONTHS. that is just absurd to me. I got caught smoking weed, and not even that, he asked me, and I told him. I am a pretty open person. A slap on the wrist and maybe a few weeks would have been sufficiens punishment. And the "picking" he does...So I wont eat for a few days, and when I finally do, he tells me to stop because im putting on weight and I am going to get fat. Now mind you, I am 110 pounds, so I'm underweight if anything. But he constantly causes me to have negative body image and feel awful about myself. Everytime I leave the house for school, he informs me I look like a hooker. He points out my every flaw, and even if I cant see one, he'll point out yet another. My grades are never good enough for him. He calls me a *****. He's the kind of person who can only feel good of themselves when they have complete control over a situation, which causes him to micro-manage every single aspect of my life. Hes constantly putting me down.

My friends, they're not bad people, it's just that I find it hard to call people I see only at school "friends" since I have little to no time to make actual connections with them, so it's hard for me to make conversation.

YOu are likely too young to move out of home and I guess your dad is the main problem here.

You can't be punished for 9 months, thats poor parenting. You dont have to be supernanny to figure that out.

I think the best thing you can do is, not yell, not pull away but speak in a calm clear manner and voice your opinions. If you this he will have to stop talking to hear you. If he doesn't like what you say, or even listen, don't indulge him and go do something else.

What you will have to do is prove youself as an adult. You will need to do this with actions and reinforce with adult conversations. ie after an incident good or bad, talk about it, what you did right or what you would have done differently.

School is the most important thing right now so focus your energy on that. You can always make new friends that have the same interests and whom you will feel more comfortable with, should you decide to do further study. You will make good friends regardless if you do what you can to give yourself a sense of achievement.

After study go get a job and save to move out. Try not to focus on others opions of you, create your own worth and believe in it

Fake it till you make it. Once you believe in yourself, others will too xx

I know school *should* be the most important thing in my life right now, but I find it so hard to care. and the ond of the tunnel just seems so far away at the moment. This week was exam week. i spent my entire last week and the week before that studying. And not the kind of studying where you just stare at the book while daydreaming, I mean actually studying... I gota 60 on my AP exam... Ive never studied so hard in my life.. and I still failed. What's the use of trying if I'm not going to get any positive results?

I was much like that in school too.

One teacher I had was very good though, they would let me know which sections to focus on (she had been teaching forever!)

Once she had done that a couple of times I could see the methodology of what sorts of things are tested and why I was studying so hard, but not getting anywhere. I was putting too much focus into some things and not enough in others.

Depending on what subject/s you are having problems in, asking a teacher or someone who does well what they are focusing on (something else I was embarrassed to do but did and they really helped me out with how they remembered body systems) could work for you too.

What subjects are you struggling with?

AP US History, math, english, chemistry....pretty much all my core classes.... and with collage looming close ahead, my stress is up to its full capacity. It's just the thought of being out in the real world scares me... I want to go out, I want to party, I want to have meaningful relationships and live the hell out of life and miss no opportunities, but I'm just getting by and drifting, with no inner compass to guide me and I'm just feeling very lost.