I’m a 22 year old woman, and I just want to write down some of my feelings. This is going to be a long post, my apologizes. I’m not really looking for any help or advice necessarily, I just want to get my thoughts about my life written out.
Years ago when I was around 14 years old, I realized that my “best friend” wasn’t actually my friend at all. From then till the end of high school I didn’t really have any friends. I wanted friends, and I’d try to talk to people but either they would end up in different classes or they just wouldn’t care about me. There was another person I had a lot in common with and seemed to be getting along with. My seat was assigned next to hers. When the teacher announced he’d be changing the seating, she exclaimed “Yes! Finally!” I’d thought we were friends, but yet again I was wrong. I don’t understand why no one outside of my family has ever seemed to like or care about me.
Eventually I just gave up on making friends in high school and I would count the amount of days I could go without talking to anyone (my record was 3 weeks). I’d go home to my parents and my two cats and play video games by myself in my room. I’d feel sad that I didn’t have anyone I knew in real life to play any video games with. I remember I’d try to comfort myself by telling myself that several years from now I’d be out of high school and I’d have a group of friends that would love and care about me. It’s been almost 5 years since I graduated high school, and it’s sad thinking that I still don’t have that small friend group I thought I’d have.
In 2019 it did seem like things were starting to look up. I still hadn’t really made any new friends, but I was out of high school and had gotten my first job at a fairly reputable company. It’s nothing exciting, but I’m still working there and making fairly decent money. I was doing things on my own and for the first time, I was starting to feel confident in myself. My depression and anxiety was starting to take a backseat, it was still there but it wasn’t holding me back so much anymore. Then 2020 hit, and all the progress I had making was stolen away from me.
I’m about to turn 23 years old in a couple weeks and I still don’t have any solid friendships. The only friend that I feel comfortable reaching out to myself from time to time moved to the other side of the country about 2 years ago to live with her boyfriend and I haven’t seen her in over a year. She’s always really busy with work and doesn’t have much free time, and when she does have free time it usually is spent with her boyfriend.
Another blow was at this time last year, when my beloved 17 year old cat passed away very suddenly. My other cat is 18 years old and though she’s doing well for her age, I likely don’t have too much time left with her. My family adopted the two cats when I was 4 years old and I’ve considered my cats to be the only friends in my life that have always been there for me, and now life has taken one of them from me.
My parents are fairly supportive, but my older sister on the other hand (she’s only a couple years older), since 2020 she’s gotten married, had two kids and seems to just be really happy in life. Her life has been getting better these past few years while my life is getting progressively worse. She also doesn’t really seem to care about me, she always expected me to bake her cupcakes and buy her gifts for her birthdays, baby showers, but then never thanks me. She puts in little to no effort on presents she’s given to me for my birthdays… she even forgot my birthday one year. Anytime we have hung out together over the years she just stares at her phone half the time. I’m sick of having to waste so much time and effort on someone who doesn’t seem to have any care for me.
I feel like I’m so far behind in life. I don’t have friends, I’ve never been on a date or in any sort of romantic relationship, and I don’t have any goals to progress my career. I don’t know how to go about doing any of those things. I downloaded a friendship/relationship finding app a few months ago (I think it was called Boo), and after less than a day of having it, I got over a dozen friend requests. However, got intense anxiety over it and deleted my account. I want to meet new people but I’m scared. I want to have people in my life outside of my parents that I can have fun with and trust, but it feels impossible to find.
I know that it’s mostly my fault I don’t have friends as I’m very quiet and shy, but I don’t know how to overcome that. My mental health has been on a downward spiral, and I’m so scared of how much worse it might get when my other cat inevitably passes on too.
), live streams with leaders of the community and so much more!
At the very least writing down all my thoughts here helped me feel a tiny bit better.
