What to do when your middle-school child suffers from mental illness? I feel like he will never be a functioning adult.

He is in 8th grade and this week we are scheduling his classes for next year when is a freshman. At first he agreed to take a few advanced classes (not AP, just the advanced classes). Yesterday he told his mom he didn’t want to take them as he believes he isn’t smart enough, but he is worried I will be disappointed in him. This is just one instance in a cycle of behavior and thought patterns that have been going on since he was a toddler. I feel like I am failing as a parent and my child will never be a functioning person.He has depression and anxiety and takes medication twice a day so he can function. He has no self-worth, at all. I am being 100 % earnest when I say that he really hates himself. He has no talents, hobbies, skills or passions. He cannot accept that you can improve by working at something. He gives up on everything the minute the slightest difficulty or inconvenience arises. He refuses to be involved in any clubs or organizations--if you try to force him, he just won’t (really can’t) do it. He punches himself in the face, very hard, to punish himself when he makes even the slightest mistake. He claws at his hands until his knuckles are full of open sores. Doing homework is a nightmare, our kitchen table looks like no-man’s land with all the dents from him pounding on it in frustration. He thinks everyone hates him and wishes he wasn’t around. If you tell him you love him, he calls you a liar. He thinks any suggestion or correction is someone telling him he is stupid. Every year since kindergarten we have been called to pick him out because he got in trouble at school (he was expelled from his first school for having his breakdowns). On and on and on.I just don’t know if he can ever function as an adult. All the other people we know who have kids his age are talking about all the amazing things their children do. Ours, our only child, is like a trainwreck of anxiety and depression.Has anyone else dealt with this? We try to be supportive and helpful in every way but he just is so riddled with his demons he cant seem to function. We have him in therapy but it doesn’t seem to help much. We don’t know if he will have a future. I am worried that he will eventually just kill himself so “he wont be a bother to us anymore.” I love him but I feel like I am mourning at the person he could have been. I am increasingly jealous of other parents who have children who can navigate life without breakdowns. I dont feel he has a future, unfortunately.Does it ever get better? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2GN0Wpc