This is my first reddit post, Ive always been on reddit reading other people vent about their problems and decided its about time I vent and get some real answers from real people that can hopefully help out try situation. 

Ever since the lockdown in 2020 I've been extremely lonely and I mean EXTREMELY. Over the past two years ill say I've only kept and maintained one real friendship. Im thankful for just my one friend but just the one friend isn't fulfilling me socially. 

Now the reason I only have one friend and why I guess our friendship even works out its because of our similarities. Ive always been a little bit weird, but it seems after the lockdown where I was extremely isolated for a while its just gotten way worse. The high school kid I used to be with my handful of friends, confidence to go in public places, and overall better social skills is LONG gone...

&amp;#x200B;

2020 was a really isolated year for me but 2021 was literal hell (idk how I made it through) I went through a super depressed and isolated "phase" in my life from around June 2021 to Jan this year. When I say it was hell it was hell. Curveball after curveball. When I thought I seen my darkest day the moon would stop shining the next. 

 Heres the main things that really got me 

 •girlfriend cheated on me

 •Long time brother went behind my back and stole ($1000+) item from my car and pawned it

 •Since I was depressed got SUPER addicted to weed, dabbled in Percs, and nicotine

 •Fought through questioning my sexuality (mainly because people would say I "looked" or "acted" like it) 

• Got ashamed to show my face to anyone and would barely leave the bed for weeks

 • all of my high school "brothers" about 4-5 ghosted me and still don't talk to me 

And, all of this happened in a relatively short amount of time id say in a stretch of about 6 months. This caused me to question everything about myself... EVERYTHING. My sexuality, my confidence, and Sanity (I thought I was schitz or had some mental illness). Ever since I've just been attempting to recover because my depression and anxiety were at life time highs for months and not subsiding. 

Recently things have took and upturn for me though, thank god. I've quit smoking weed (2 months now) mainly because the paranoia was getting way out of hand (along wit the rest of the drugs). Ive gotten back into going to the gym frequently and started picking up some of the 20 pounds I lost during my "phase". My motivation for my work is coming back, and the biggest change I've made as of recently is change my diet to a healthy Keto diet. (only ate 1-2 a day, if I ate it was 99% of the time fast food or some comfort desert)

So, you can say I've made some great strides to recovering, but yet my anxiety (most days) is way to high now for me to go out in public, talk to friends, and be comfortable hanging out in a social environment. I can't talk to anyone smoothly (not even my Dad) I'm way to nervous and in my head all the time. My mind is racing thoughts of all my unproven insecurities like being mentally slow, gay, creepily weird, cross-eyed, crazy, and etc... 

I don't know what else I can do...I feel like I'm covering all bases besides maybe therapy (tried) &amp; medication (tried aswell with bad experiences). I just want to get back to the old me. 

I want to be able to hold a conversation without making a complete fool of myself.

 I want to feel true happiness again. 

I want to be able to make friends and enjoy my best years not cooped up in the house from anxiety. 

Im tired of battling anxiety I've been fighting my whole life... I though in high-school I was a anxious mess, but lord knows I never knew my anxiety and depression would get this bad. 

Im strong willed but I can't live my life like this...

Please help and leave your thoughts in the comments, some advice would help alot. (anything helps)