I need some advice. I'm 18 years old, male and at the moment I'm on study leave for my A-Level exams.
Since I started my A-levels in september, 2 years ago, I've been cycling through stages of feeling hopeless and down in the dumps to feeling ecstatic and on top of the world. Each extreme having no apparent cause. When I feel down, I get angry scarily easily and I sometimes end up cutting myself or getting into fights on purpose and I often find myself quite preoccupied with death and dying. My grandad died in February 2003, since then I've been feeling worthless and very low more or less all the time. I thought it was normal, that I'd eventually get over it and move on with my life but I watched the rest of my family pick themselves up again and move on, and I felt like I was getting left behind or ignored because nobody seemed to listen to me when I asked for help.
I always feel like I'm failing at school and I try my best to study as hard as I can all the time but I think I'm going to fail anyway, because I'm just worthless really. I know my mum and dad want me to get As in my exams but I know I can't do it and I don't know how to face up to it anymore because I feel like a failure and that I'm going to let my family down on results day.
I often have trouble sleeping and this confounds the problem of feeling down. I find it hard to concentrate at school and I make irrational decisions and sometimes I lash out at people. I don't really feel like I fit in at school, I often feel like people are staring at me and judging me all the time. I don't find it easy to get close to people because I'm scared they're going to leave me. In september 2003, I lost my girlfriend of 7 months because I started to get quite stressed out and she said that she couldn't take me snapping at her anymore and I knew that I'd screwed it up, it was all my fault. Since then I haven't really formed any of the usual romantic attachments that the other kids at school have.
Everything has been getting worse in the last 4-5 months. I developed a problem with my right shoulder and I've been to see several specialists who are at a loss, and have prescribed me some painkillers until after my exams when they can carry out some more tests to determine what's wrong. I have a lot of weakness in my arm and often I get very excruciating pins and needles and burning sensations in my right arm and the right hand side of my chest. It's left me unable to play guitar and writing is very tiring for me but at the same time, I enjoy the pain because, I'm not really sure how to put it, but it makes me feel real. If that makes any sense? I feel terrible lately. I've lost my appetite and I have trouble sleeping but I'm not sure if that's a side effect of the pills, and often I'm quite tempted to take an overdose of my painkillers because I can't face the exams that are coming up and the failure and everything else that's going on. It'll be over after my last exam and I'll have left school, but I'm scared that I'm going to do something to myself because I wont have anything to try and take my mind off it.
I don't know where to turn to, because I don't think my parents would understand. My mum always tells me that I need to get out more often and to get a life and I try but I find that I have little interest in other people my age and I find it hard to socialise with them. I had thought of going to my GP but I'm also not sure if he would understand.
Can anyone offer any advice?