Yesterday my boyfriend and I had his friends over for a bbq.
I don't have friends of my own so I'm glad in general his friends are okay with me and so the other way around.

The reason I don't have any friends is because I "lost" them during my depression back when I was 17 (24 now). They didn't believe or couldn't comprehend it.

Since then I never had friends anymore. I never got a degree because I quit school back then and started working parttime a year after. So I never had the student period of life which is seen as the best time of your life here in Belgium. For most people it is a fact. They get to party, make friends, hang out, all during the week when there are no parents involved.

I never had those times with anyone. I suffered all my life up until now. I have chronic depression and fibromyalgia, RLS, IBS. I have suffered various trauma's which have gotten me where I am today both physically and mentally.

I live in a caravan and I try to live in harmony with nature. This was my last resort to actually see a possible future for myself, an option which isn't death. I can't afford to rent a house nor do I have any savings. Trying to live this way was for me the only option left beside getting homeless.
I am unable to work more than 20 hours a week, more and I'd break down. Heck, I don't even know if I can still do 20 hours. I'm unemployed for the last 1,5 years. I tried a retail job and cried my ass off after two days.

The most frustrating part? People are praising me for living different, for exiting the economical shit system, for - apparently - choosing this life. They think I am tough and badass for doing this. 
They think I deliberately made this choice because I wanted to "be" different. 

But I had no choice. It was this or die.

When I see how my boyfriend's friends react on my way of living, I'm glad, but when I hear them talk about our system I realize they would never understand the true meaning behind all of it. They can disagree with parts of the system we are in, but they will keep following.
They have no goddamn clue how ill it can make someone, how much it can break a person and make them suffer for the rest of their life. They really have no idea.

Today I realized his friends are just like my friends back then. They're not bad people, but they cannot see beyond. They don't understand.

I have been crying for several hours now. Everyone complimented me on how beautiful I made my caravan and garden, which I am thankful for, but I still feel so empty and powerless. I feel like a prisoner who decorated his prison cell and the guards are complimenting him on it, but he's still a prisoner, being in a pretty room or not. 

Nothing has changed in those 7 years. I've just gotten older and stretched my last opportunities. 
Life is one big prison cell. I cannot see the beauty of it when I look back at all the pain it has brought me and put me where I am now, even if it's an actual pretty place. 

Sigh. At least I have my cats.