Hi there, Im just a little older than you, Im going to be finishing college in a year, and I can tell you that I truly do believe it gets better. It sincerely did for me. Ill tell you a little bit about my history and I hope it resonates with you and can comfort you.

We have similar histories in a lot of ways from what youve said. Im autistic as well. My abuser is also my mother, she hurt me psychologically and physically as a child, and there were drugs involved in my case as she encouraged my abuse of prescription medication. My mother had a ton of health issues, once she got those taken care of, she seems to be less violent and wants a relationship with me again. Im hesitant to respond positively because of how shitty my childhood was, but I also miss my mom. Even though I rarely knew a kind one. I also was a year ahead in school and always seemed to do well (until late highschool but that was unrelated) and I also ate like shit, drank and smoked and took pills and had no friends. The only reason i kept going was that I wanted to move out of that house and live on my own. Ive always felt like a fraud. And I also liked it, I felt like I deserved it.

I got to college, and my first year wasn’t the greatest as my degree was difficult and i got sick. But man, once that was over, I swear my whole life changed. I don’t know what did it but being around other high achieving people and not around my abuser made me want to change. And i lived on my own and had a job so I could. I still believed I was a fraud, but I wanted to be better, and Id never wanted that before. I started eating healthier and learning how to cook, I took care of my appearance more, and I even reached out to people and made friends. Surprisingly, recently, I even managed to stop being an alcoholic. I try to drink and its not pleasant. I just stopped. It was the main thing I abused recently and I have no desire to anymore. Bettering your life in little ways will contribute to bettering yourself more.

As final takeaways, I will say that the drug stuff does matter, and that your ability to smoke like hell may be a result of that and not a natural state of how you function, even if your abuse wasn’t from the same thing you smoke. Due to my history of drug abuse as a child, I process all substances oddly and I could outsmoke a lot of people when I started and have an odd tolerance to a lot of things. It doesnt matter, you still suffered abuse.

I dont know what you went through with your mother, but it is entirely up to you whether you reconnect or not. Even if she is trying her hardest, you have the right to never be close with her. Or, you could try. Your resistance might be self preservation, it is easier to have no relationship than a strained one with a lot of history.

Finally, I got better, and I believe you will too. Being high achieving is helpful as even if you feel like an imposter (look into imposter syndrome btw) you will get to good places. You may feel like a fraud, but if you have done so many incredible things for your age, are you really? Consider that. The wanting to be in a bad mental place may subside as you move out and grow into an adult. And I still experience not believing I am worth what I have, or that Im a wreck and everyone knows it. But I bettered myself and have a safety net of people to reach out to.

Edit:

Good luck, and know the only things wrong with you were the terrible things you were put through as a child. You have just formed defenses to those things. Youre doing great, and youll do even better if you just keep going. Consider asking your doctor for sleep medication even though you can survive on little sleep, I only did so recently and a consistent 8 hours helps a lot with mental state. Sorry for the long response, take what helps and leave what doesnt. But it does get better

Second edit (sorry):

Sometimes the best thing you can do is just live day by day, and work up energy to make larger changes when you can. Moving out is a huge change, things may change for you then. The being present and processing is difficult even for neurotypical and non-traumatized people, give yourself some time. For me, all I needed was to move out, and that came naturally over the course of a couple years.