Rachel,
some of what you say sounds so like my daughter, everyone thinks/sees her as happy, extremely self-confident, laidback & so forth (her psychiatrist said this to me only a couple of weeks ago then I raised a subject that I knew would upset her & she just fell apart in front of his eyes, you could see he was stunned, but then we told him that through the ordeal of misdiagnosis etc this year she had not been able to keep up the "front" at home anymore & that she had started seeing that she felt guilty about sooooooooo much even stuff that had nothing to do with her, that she felt like a failure etc & so he was then better equipped to help her). No meds unless you count a morning walk, mineral water to replace the sodium & potassium she loses in this heat (100 the last few days) & a supplement called 5htp which is what tryptophan becomes when converted by our bodies & which helps us destress but when stress overload occurs the body fails to deliver enough hence the supplement, which is available on-line.
My daughter will be 16 in may, we live in australia but she sat the sat1 test & scored 710 verbal & 580 math overall 96th percentile internationally, as a result she is skipping another year of school (the last of high school) & going straight to university instead - she's won singing/dancing comps etc etc & basically taught herself italian (we're not of italian background) to get 92 in her final exam. Yet she thinks she's a failure & feels guilty.
I suspect that you can relate to some/alot? Of this which is why i'm telling you, because you are not alone!! She is getting better & you can too!!
However you can't do it alone, you need some professional help - so try getting your parents alone!!!! No siblings & well it might be easier to write them a letter telling them how you feel & asking them to help you, perhaps show them some or all of these posts. You know what you feel is right for you. But there is help & you will get better - but sometimes good things take abit longer than we'd like.
Please do me that favour I sked last time - smile :d


:p

ok!!