This is my first time posting here. I’ve been somewhat of a ghost on this subreddit, reading about other people’s experiences just to have someone in this world to relate to. I guess its time to put my story out there.

I am 21.
I have been suffering with depression  and social anxiety since middle school, so around 6-7 years. I was never good at talking to people, due to my crippling lack of self-confidence. Because of this I’ve always preferred to just spend my time alone, usually playing video games or being glued to my phone. Unfortunately, this persistent isolation ruined my chances of being a normal person.

Despite years of school just breaking me down grade by grade, it seemed like my final year of high school was looking up. I had a close group of friends, a loving girlfriend, a decent job at the supermarket, and a path to university. From the outside, things must have seemed fantastic for me, but behind this exterior of happiness I had started to self harm. The depression hadn’t stopped. In fact it had grown to a dangerous point. I started missing a lot of classes, and shortly after my relationship with my girlfriend had reached a bad point. It didn’t take long for us to split up, and I saw this as a turning point where I no longer had any confidence left whatsoever.

I pushed myself through the start of university just to make it seem like I was holding myself together, and somehow I kept that act up for almost two years. And then I broke.

Covid started, i stopped seeing anyone, and I slowly started to not respond to my friends anymore. I would look in the mirror and see a disgusting freak. I would open social media and feel so envious, so jealous of everyone just being normal and progressing through their lives. I ended up cheating on a university exam as I had lost any motivation to study, and I got caught. I luckily wasn’t expelled, but I couldn’t bear to keep barely holding on at school. So I dropped out. I tried working full time for around a year, but I got so anxious at work I couldn’t even show up to give my uniform back when I quit.

Today, I have no friends. I have no one except for my very close family that I can even handle being around, not that I can even maintain a conversation with them. I am unemployed and not going to school. My routine for the last 6 months has been wake up at noon, lay in bed all day watching youtube, smoke weed, youtube, smoke more weed, go to sleep. I seriously think I’ve lost my mind throughout this prolonged isolation.

I have already given up. I don’t even want to get better anymore. But I can’t end things, I can’t bear to make my parents go through losing a child. But I simply can’t do this anymore. I can’t even pretend to be a good person either. I fantasize about violence, I lie pathologically, and I’m a pervert. I’m so hopelessly lost and I just want to disappear.