Throwaway account because my family follow me on my main.

&amp;#x200B;

I feel completely hopeless, as I have felt for the last few years. I keep hoping that the new year will bring something positive but I’m in the same position I have been for years.

I have no friends, my best and only friend and I stopped talking just before Christmas and I can’t say I really miss him because they were toxic and I think I only stayed with him because he was my only friend. I’m happy that I don’t have to deal with his shitty behaviour, but being completely alone is hardly an improvement. 

I’m turning 21 this year and I have never been in a romantic relationship, this fills me with anxiety because I feel like I will be alone forever. I have next to know social skills because of my social anxiety and extreme fear of opening up and being myself around others. I know what to say, I’m not socially inept, but every time I encounter a stranger or even my colleagues at work I panic and lose my confidence. So much so that I avoid conversation altogether, it’s almost incredible how I will find ways to avoid talking to even the people I work with. 

I struggle a lot with panic attacks and felt as though I was on the brink of a nervous breakdown before I took time off work for Christmas. I think this is a combination of the fact that I hate my job so much so that I can’t sleep and am severely sleep-deprived most of the time anyway due to the hours I work. Also because of my inability to open up and communicate properly with my co-workers, of whom treat me like a completely different person than I am because I’m too anxious to be myself around them. I worry about my future and my career as I am certainly not progressing, nor in a career I would like to be in. 

I feel so stuck, alone and pathetic. I can’t see a way out and I keep trying to convince myself that in time, things will figure themselves out and I’ll get better. But they never do. Life for me right now is just anxiety, loneliness and depression. I feel like I’m wasting my youth, but I’m in so deep that it’s almost impossible to climb back out.

Please understand that I am not ungrateful for my job, it’s a blessing that I have been able to keep mine during this time, but while I appreciate and value my job, I do not enjoy it and it negatively impacts my mental health. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this, if anyone has any advice it would be much appreciated. 