I feel like I have to pretend to be happy all the time

I'm sorry you're going through this, sounds like you have no emotional support, which can be really hard, and the best advice I can give you is to be that for yourself, it's going to be challenging since you're used to being put down by your parents, but once you get the hand of it it will be the most freeing thing you'll experience, the goal is to create a safe state of mind that empowers you to live the life you want, and to be a place that you can go to if you ever find yourself feeling discouraged, basically be your own therapist and friend.

You can do this gradually and in many ways, I'll try to give you examples from your post.

Start by validating your feelings and emotions, your problems are yours and they affect you, so you have all the right in the world to do something about them, your dad's opinion of them doesn't matter and frankly doesn't serve you in any good way and just makes you feel bad.

Think about what makes you sad and what gets to you and listen for the possible reasons, if you can't just think it write it down and read what you wrote, and think of ways to make yourself be happier and better, do you feel like the world is evil? why do you think so? if it's true what will you do to make life work for you?

Now don't get me wrong I totally agree with how evil the world is, but your life is yours and not other people's, you can decenter them completely and live in a way that you want to, sometimes you'd have to deal with such people, but it's totally different when you build the confidence in yourself to know that they're wrong and to not let them affect you. Also it's not true that everyone is evil, that's an exaggeration, you can see this sub as example XD there are good people out there, you just need to get to know them, I find that centering hv people around if only through media you consume really helps with this feeling.

Don't belittle yourself, you probably learned to do so from your childhood, and you need to realize that it's baised way of thinking where you're thoughts lean towards negative things about you for the sake of it, it has no purpose but to make you feel shitty about yourself.

"I'll never be liked or appreciated by anyone" and why is that? Are you an evil person? are you always rude and put people down consistently? It's probably not the case, so why do you think you're unlovable, you have your own charms and traits that people can appreciate, even if you can't see them now, you'll come to know them when you start actually seeing yourself, you'll come to know how much of an amazing human being you are. Besides that the way people treat you have little to do with who you are and more with themselves, you're not unlovable but the person doesn't know how to appreciate people they have. The same way I addressed one of your insecurities, you can do the rest, the point is to create a balanced way of thinking to address your traits realistically, like rather than insulting yourself you should see your weaknesses as an opportunity to improve (or accept if that's not possible).

I believe part of the level up journey is to cut off people that make your life worse, I don't know how your friends are but they don't sound that great to me if they make you feel this terrible, just like we talk about hvm, if your friends care about you they'll make space for you and put in effort to see you, they also will lend an ear if you need help and try to lift you up (within reasonable limits of course) even if they themselves have problem.

You can temporary stay friends if it brings you value now, but it sounds like your just trying to make a dead relationship work and you're anxious about losing them, if that's the case then it's not worth it, a friend doesn't need "keeping", you both will put in effort to see each other because you care about each other.

Also try to learn to open up to people, not random strangers of course, but friends you trust, you feel like a burden to people and don't want to bother them, but you're not a burden, a friend will gladly listen to you , just like you listen to them, do you think they're a burden? Of course not, if they do actually think you are then they're not worth it.

Last thing, learn to stop self pitying, I'm not talking about just magically stopping being sad, but to not only think about your problems pointlessly, you'll feel miserable as the only thing you're focusing on is how bad your life is, it's not about denying it either, but about accepting it and trying to make it better, the whole focus should be in your well being, and how you're going to transition your life into the state you want, this way you won't be weighed down by your problems that you feel helpless, of course there's sometimes where you'll feel really terrible, but the point is to not make it a regular happening by just accepting you're always gonna be in a terrible situation and being kind to yourself that deserve a better life, and you can and will get it.

like in this example it's clear your dad is toxic, so you can try investing in yourself to move away to get your peace of mind, but for the time being I find reading about abusive relationship helpful as they give you methods with how to not let the abuser affect you.

Sorry if this is a bit disorganized as there's a lot to say about this topic, I hope you'll find this helpful❤️

If you're finding yourself in a sad and unsatisfied emotional state, don't put any more pressure on yourself to be different just for others to like you. It's going to make matters worse.

It's good that you go to therapy. Your therapist can help you with emotional dysregulation, which is something you seem to be suffering from. You can also look up techniques online and try them by yourself. One thing I guess that's already helping you is venting. Do you journal? It's great for trauma dumping. You'll likely feel lighter and relieved after, and it's gonna help you process your feelings to reach homeostasis.

I can understand how you're feeling. I was just told by my sister to "find some happiness in life and stop being so angry." Now I broke my neck and jaw 21 years ago and still have very badly torn neck, rib, and lower back ligaments, a Chiari Malformation, C2 is pressing on my brain, and I didn't sleep but 4 hours last night, because doctors refuse to give chronic pai patients opiates because "junkies in the streets are dying from opiates." So yes, I'm on edge and angry. I cannot handle any stress today. But I'm supposed to pretend to be happy, I guess? Sorry I'm not like my schizophrenic uncle who just laughs on cue at nothing. Lol. It's hard to be happy all the time especially when things aren't going well. I do have some happiness like going to take care of my sister's dog every afternoon, a good steak, a good book, but I find the "Cult of Positivity" to be SO evil and unempathetic. I've been pretending, praying, spending money on procedures, doing EFT and EMDR and hypnosis, eating right, not drinking, snd everything else anyone has ever mentioned to me to get well for over 21 years. But it's not enough. I've got to somehow pretend to be happy about bad situations that I didn't even cause. Hang in there. Try to avoid people who expect you to always be happy, and try to actually do what makes you happy instead. Keep talking to your therapist and caring for yourself. The world isn't actually a very good place unless you're a billionaire. Then you might have the greatest life. The rest of us have stress, health problems, work, poverty, mean people, etc. to deal with, and you can at least try to be empathetic to yourself if no one else will.