Teen angst or something more?

[Betteb]

I am feeling at the end of my tether and don't know what to do?
I have a 13 year old DD, who has always had a very strong willed, pessimistic nature. I used to be able to jolly her out of negative moods and persuade her to look at whatever was bothering her in a more positive way, but in the last 18 months or so I am not able to do this as much.
I know she's going through a lot as all teens are, but she just seems so unhappy all the time. She hates school, even though she is doing really well in the majority of her classes and her teachers think she's great. She falls out with friends constantly as she is very sensitive and just doesn't seem to have found where she fits, if you know what I mean?
I know and her teachers agree that she lacks self confidence, so I enrolled her in a weekend drama class about a year ago to encourage her to meet new people, but it doesn't seem to have helped. If I let her, she would stay in her room on her tablet and never come out.
She loves to make little animations to music and posts them on a you tube channel and she's very good at it, but they are always so negative and dark and frankly I find them disturbing. Last night I can home after a colleague's leaving do and went in to see her. She was just posting one of these animations to you tube so I asked her to show me it. The word 'Suicide' kept flashing up in between frames of a small character holding a knife dripping with blood. I didn't freak out, but insisted she remove it from you tube immediately. I then removed her tablet and phone from her room and she hasn't spoken to me since, I didn't sleep a wink last night.
I spoke to my DS who's 19, who seems to think that she just thinks this kind of thing is edgy and cool, but I don't know what to think!!
My instinct tells me that she wouldn't hurt herself, but to be honest I don't feel like I can trust my instinct on this and also worry that she may inadvertently encourage another child to hurt themselves with the things she's posting on You tube.
I don't know what to do, I can usually talk to her about anything, but she has never stopped talking to me before. We've had the odd disagreement, but they blow over quite quickly. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hello, my dd1 was like this at 13. All I can say is try try try to communicate with her and keep on trying even if she acts like she wants you to shut you out. So instead of reacting in a punitive / judgemental way to her animation, ask her to tell you about it, get into a conversation about what it means to her, how she feels about creating this and posting it. I know this may seem terrifying to the point where you want to run away screaming but if you want to help her it's the only way. I'm saying this as someone who's made a million mistakes and loads of ways to help which havent worked - but somehow, 5 yrs later, my daughter's still here thank God.
I honesty think the only thing that makes a difference is love and talking. If I could go back in time, i would focus only on this and skip all the attempts to get my dd 'fixed' by doctors, therapists etc. I was so afraid of really hearing her despair, her wish to die....overcoming this fear has been so hard but I think it's really powerful for a young person to realise you're right there with them, afraid but facing it down.

Yes think Lauren is absolutely spot on . I could have written your post OP - my DD is nearly 15 and at 13 she was going through similar stuff - She actually ended up getting a diagnosis of autism-and I'm not suggesting you need to go down this route but just being there to listen to her and encouraging her to discuss what is going on in her head , if she can , is key. I think it's really hard with phones and iPads , tablets etc because you want to shield them from all the stuff on SM - but at 13 I don't think it hurts to take a look - other posters might disagree. I wouldn't now with my DD as she's older .

Sorry posted too quick . I found it really difficult to hear my DD thoughts about self harming and suicide but keeping all channels of communication open is the best thing .