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I haven't been genuinely happy since I was about 7 years old. My family life started to deteriorate at that point, with multiple deaths and a move of 3,000 miles (4800km). I had no hope of making new friends or retaining the few I already had.
My relationship with my mother was particularly nasty, with her putting extreme pressure on me to succeed well in school to the point it was all she would talk about. She demanded that I achieve straight A's, and even trying as hard as I could I couldn't pull off anything higher than mostly B's. Every mediocre grade sent her anxiety through the roof and she would repeatedly claim that I wasn't trying, or that I was getting bad grades on purpose as a game.
Trying to argue the point would only ever make the situation worse for me, so the only way I had to cope with this was to completely shut down emotionally. I became disconnected from everything and couldn't find enjoyment in the things I had once loved. Eventually I genuinely did stop trying in school because I couldn't muster up the will to care, and my grades plummeted to C's and D's, which sent my mother into hysterics. It got so bad at this point that I had to talk to someone about it, anyone, so I told the school psychologist. When Mom found out about this, she exploded and screamed at me while sobbing hysterically that I was violating the family's privacy and "sticking a knife" in everything she had worked to achieve for our family.
It's been several years since then, but this eats away at me all the time. My life from age 8 on, and especially during high school, was traumatizing, and she's the core reason why, even if she genuinely did and does care about me. I can't connect with anything emotionally anymore or bring myself to care.
I say without a hint of exaggeration, that if I hadn't found this site I'd be dead right now. I'd have killed myself the moment I started college and realized it would only be more of the same, or maybe done it even before then.
