@TheRenegade345
I definitely can't argue that some of us really struggle in life to make friends and find relationships. Some of us just find it a lot more difficult than other people do. But that doesn't mean we can't. It sounds like this year has be so difficult for you. The worst of your life you described it. It's only natural with so much going on and feeling so overwhelmed by it that all those other feelings you've had are going to be magnified at the moment. Small things become big things. Big things become impossible things. It just stretches us so thin that it's so difficult to see a way forward a lot of the time.
Without a doubt this year has been the worst of my life as well. It started on December 28 last year and is still affecting me, with only the past month or so bringing any hope back. It's hard to think clearly and see that hope when we feel so low and so surrounded by darkness. It's okay to feel worn out and like nothing will improve. For me that was part of the process. No one could have convinced me otherwise back at the start of the year. All those issues from throughout my life, seemed to use this new focus I had on other problems that they just took the opportunity to resurface hard and now everything just felt like far, far too much. Everything was exhausting and I wasn't even doing anything.
During these times, we just need time to process everything and time to work out how we can proceed. It took me a long time to see that most of my issues were based on most of my life having been full of constant frustration, loneliness, and self-doubt. I knew I couldn't control what people thought of me and if they wanted to be my friend or not, but I could control my own thoughts. That's when I started to find people who could help me start to figure it out. For me it was on a forum much like this one, but for lonely people. Talking to them, people who really understood my loneliness, I began to change the way I saw myself. I started to feel like I had worth, probably for the first time in my life. I still had very strong doubts but I did feel better about myself and felt more comfortable just talking to people and sharing my fears and insecurities.
So my advice, from my own experience, is to just be kind to yourself, value yourself and keep talking to people, even if it's just online like here. It all helps. Work on yourself and your own happiness. And sometime, someone will come along and you will form that connection with them. I sort of figured, if i'm going to be alone, I might as well try to find things to enjoy while doing it. It's a small change, but small things build up and can lead to bigger things.
I also realised a lot of people in my life knew me already and had already formed their opinions of me based on that person I was... with all those self-doubts, no confidence and so much social anxiety. It was easier to find new people to start fresh, than try to change what people I knew already thought of me. This was just my own thought though. So when I did meet someone who seemed to like me, I was in a more positive place about myself and we formed a strong connection from that. The old me would have never even gotten that chance.
Whether you're in a relationship or not, doesn't change who you are or how worthy of friendship or love you are. If people don't see that, then that's on them. Find more people. Show them the real you, or at least more of it.
There's still a lot of time for you. But you need to give yourself every change possible. Start with focusing on you and your happiness. Forget everyone else right now and concentrate on yourself. Once you start to build that relationship with yourself, others will follow. It's it really difficult at the start, but it becomes easier quite quickly. Not 'easy', but easier and a lot of the time, that's all you need to start making those small changes. It just has to start with finding your own self, and not the self that those doubts have been telling you for so long.
I know it's hard and it seems impossible right now, I do. But me, and others here who understand are here for you and to help you figure this out.
