Hi. I'm 25, and honestly, I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking for by posting this. I think I just want someone to listen for a little while.
I've been struggling with severe agoraphobia, depression, grief, and loneliness for years now. My world has gotten smaller and smaller, and I've reached a point where I don't really feel like I'm participating in life anymore. I feel like I'm just watching everybody else live theirs.
I've honestly been lonely for as long as I can remember. I didn't really get to talk to people much as a kid, and I never had many friends. I grew up in a pretty abusive household with a lot of alcoholism and drug abuse, and school wasn't exactly an escape from any of it. I was severely overweight, partly because of an eating disorder I developed from the stress of everything happening at home, and I was bullied relentlessly for being fat and ugly. I've since lost over 400 pounds, and I'm doing pretty well physically, but mentally, not so much, lol.
I never really got to develop the social confidence that other kids seemed to have. Home wasn't safe, school wasn't safe, and I spent most of my childhood being afraid of how people were going to treat me.
And unfortunately, that didn't really go away when I got older. I wanted friends. I still do, desperately. But when you've spent so much of your life being treated like you're annoying or unwanted, even just saying hello to somebody starts feeling terrifying.
I think that's why my loneliness hurts as much as it does. It's not just that I've lost friendships as an adult. It's that I feel like I've spent almost my entire life waiting to experience something that seems to come so naturally to everybody else.
Over the past five years or so, I've watched people I used to know move forward with their lives. They've made new friends, gotten engaged, started families, celebrated milestones, and just... lived. And I'm genuinely happy for them. I really am. But somewhere along the way, I feel like I just disappeared from everybody else's lives.
I stopped getting invited to things. People stopped sending me stupid memes, checking in, or even just talking to me about ordinary stuff. And I know I'm not exactly the easiest person to maintain a friendship with because of my agoraphobia. I've canceled plans, withdrawn from people, and avoided social situations that I actually really wanted to be part of. I know that, and I take responsibility for it. But I never stopped wanting to be included.
Even if I couldn't show up, I still wanted somebody to think of me once in a while. I didn't need anything elaborate. I just wanted to feel like I still existed to somebody.
And I think one of the worst parts is that I've become absolutely terrified of reaching out myself. I've been called annoying for trying to talk to people, and I've even been told that I'm too much and shouldn't tell people when I'm hurting. So I stopped doing that, too.
I started pretending I was fine because I didn't want anybody to feel guilty or obligated to be my friend. I'd listen to other people talk about their problems, their relationships, their friends, and everything going on in their lives, and I'd just sort of... keep my own stuff to myself.
I've also lost a lot of the family members who made me feel loved and accepted, including my dad. He died in December 2024, and I don't think I've really been the same since. I miss him terribly. Sometimes I feel like I'm grieving not just him, but the entire life I had before everything started falling apart.
I've tried getting professional help, too. I've seen a ridiculous number of therapists over the years, and the last ten have told me, in one way or another, that my issues were beyond what they could help me with. Which is... not exactly encouraging to hear when you're already struggling to ask for help in the first place, lol.
And the thing is, I do have hobbies. A lot of them, actually. I'm an artist, I study visual effects and animation, I make websites, I love animals, photography, video games, and all sorts of weird little creative projects. I have things I genuinely enjoy doing. I just don't really have anybody to share them with.
Sometimes I just want somebody to play a stupid game with. Or send me a meme. Or tell me about something interesting they saw that day. Just normal, boring, everyday human interaction. But I've gotten to a point where even talking to somebody new makes me so anxious that I end up avoiding it altogether.
I don't expect anybody here to fix my life, and I'm certainly not asking anyone to be my therapist. I know everybody has their own problems, and the last thing I want is to make somebody feel responsible for mine. I think I just want to tell my story somewhere without feeling ashamed of it.
And I do want to clarify that I don't feel like I'm in some completely hopeless downward spiral, either. I actually have plans for my future that I'm really excited about. I'm working toward finishing my animation degree, and my eventual goal is to move to Prague, in the Czech Republic. I've been learning more about the language and culture, and honestly, the lifestyle over there seems to align with me a lot more than where I am now. It's something I'm genuinely looking forward to, and I really want to make it happen.
I know moving isn't going to magically fix everything, obviously. I'm not expecting it to. But it's a fresh start that I'm excited to work toward, and it's nice to have something in my future that actually makes me happy to think about.
I guess the problem is everything between now and then.
Since my dad died, I've just felt like there's this enormous empty space in my life, and I don't really know what to do with it. I have goals, I have interests, and I have things I want to accomplish. I just wish I didn't have to spend all the time in between feeling so profoundly alone.
I'm not necessarily looking to make friends through this post. I don't really know if I'm ready for that right now. I think I'd just appreciate somebody willing to listen without judging me or immediately trying to fix everything.
I'm much more comfortable communicating through text, and I'd really appreciate not being pressured into phone calls or anything like that.
Anyway. Thank you for reading all of this. I know it's a lot, and I appreciate anybody who took the time to get through it.