Hey all

I'm 24 and live in Seattle, and while people are slowly getting vaccinated and things are slowly opening up, my entire community is very serious about COVID.

I'm a huge extravert but I live alone, and this year has just been so traumatizing for me (as I'm sure it has been to many). My friends all live together but wouldn't let me pod with them (one of their housemates was really paranoid, I get it), so I spent this entire year by myself, and my cat. I worked remotely the entire year until I left my job, and now I'm starting graduate school remotely through zoom. I've been on and off medication but I'm currently unmedicated for my anxiety/depression, which I'm looking to potentially change soon.

I've struggled with social anxiety throughout my life, but this is like nothing I've experienced before. Now that things are opening up, I'm so anxious about reentering social spaces, despite my natural inclination to them. I am so used to locking myself away in my apartment that I have a ton of new fears of being in the outside world that never existed before. I live across the country from my entire family and am also single (trying to date right now is a WHOLE new anxiety as well).

I'm happy that my community and I have been safe this whole year, and now I'm fully vaccinated. I really want and in some ways mentally need a return to normalcy at some point, but the discussion here in Seattle is always focused on how far away that is. My best friend told me the other day that, despite his full vaccination, he is still planning on being super strict as the vaccine isn't 100% effective (which I know is true but I was hoping I'd start to feel more included in everything now that we're getting vaccinated). 

It just feels like all of this is never ending, and it's felt hella existential recently. I don't know how to function like this anymore. I fully acknowledge the danger that COVID has been on the world, along with the millions who have died from it and the millions of family members how have been affected, but I also feel so depressed and anxious and I'm losing grip on being able to handle it. I am exercising more than I ever have before, meditating consistently, journaling a ton, but none of it shakes how fucking lonely I feel in this city during this pandemic. I'm tired of being told to find a hobby. I'm just exhausted of going through all of this alone.

I know I need to take more ownership and make some changes but I'm not sure how. I just spiral and spiral and spiral and have been for months. I don't know what to do :(