Hello this is my first time posting on Reddit I hope I do it properly!!! So some background is I'm a 24 year old female still living at home, I got a college degree but still work in fast food cause I struggle with bad anxiety that prevents me from tackling change. Covid hit right when I finished college so it prevented me from finding a job at first and now it's just myself holding me back. I hate my job and want to find a new one so much but the idea of interviews and being rejected makes me avoid it, and the degree I took in college isn't something I like if I'm being honest so I feel utterly lost and like I have no direction. I feel like a cog in a machine set to work for the rest of my life and I hate it. I just feel so lost and imagining myself in a 40 hour office job for the rest of my life makes me feel so much despair. I can't share this with many people because I know I would be called lazy and get told "that's the way life is deal with it."

When I go to work I'm able to act normal and I crack jokes a lot and try to make my coworkers smile because deep down I've realized I'm a people pleaser and I want people to like me. I want to feel needed and like I'm seen. Because otherwise I feel like I'm invisible and like I could disappear and no one would care or notice.

I struggle with self esteem with my appearance constantly. As someone who grew up ugly it really made me grow up with no confidence and it effects me to this day. I genuinely don't even know what I look like anymore. Some days I wake up and see my face and feel I look fine, and other days I look and feel disgusted. 

My coworkers think I'm a bubbly happy person and I wish that were the case but the second I go home after work I go to my room and play video games mostly alone and feel this void in my chest. I feel heavy and empty and hopeless. I feel lazy and worthless and like I've done nothing with my life. I feel like I'll never have anyone who loves me and never get to truly love anyone. Even my parents don't really love me and haven't since I was very young. I'm grateful they still let me live at home and pay cheaper rent but they constantly take digs at me and it wears me down and makes me feel more useless and behind on life then I already do. They think I'm very lazy and constantly compare me to my 28 year old brother who has a full time job and moved out when he was 24. 

I've never actually gotten help for my obvious mental health issues because as a teenager I went to my mom and she would tell me "how could you have that when I grew up having a much harder life" or when I went to her for my horrible insomnia she would say "you think you have insomnia? I haven't slept in blank amount of time!! Try sleeping that little." She would constantly say things to make me feel guilty and like I had no right to complain. 

My parents are VERY old fashioned and just don't believe mental illness could happen to anyone they know lmao. They also think taking pills for help mental illness is horrible. 

I barely have any friends anymore because after covid hit I drifted away from the 2 best friends I had. I have a few other friends but we barely talk and I have a hard time with reaching out to people without feeling like I'm being annoying or unwanted. I have online friends which I feel I can be more open with but even then sometimes it feels like I'm so disconnected and like they don't truly know me? I have a few new friends from work but a lot of them are leaving soon and I feel so behind which makes me feel like such a loser since I've been at my job so long. A lot of my coworkers when they're new think I'm around 18 and are so shocked to learn my age because of how I look and because of how I am I suppose. I don't feel like I should be 24 I feel like the world should have paused like we all had to when covid hit and the past almost 2 years have been honestly a blur.

I wish I could redo my life and try again but I can't and it makes me want to end everything. I just can't fathom the idea of living like this for much longer. I know I have to be the one to change. I have to be the one to search for help for my mental health now that I'm older. I know all that but it just seems so pointless I just feel like I should never have existed in the first place if life was gonna make me feel this way. I just wanna be normal and be able to feel happy again. I want energy back. I wanna feel passion for my hobbies again.

Honestly the only thing truly keeping me here is my dog. I got her when I finished school and she is the one thing on earth I can say actually loves me and makes me feel like I belong here. I feel like if I was gone she would be so lost and she would have such a hard time adjusting to a new owner. 

I just wanted to share with anyone how I truly feel deep inside cause I feel like I'm drowning and can't take much more.  I hope it didn't sound like a bunch of excuses cause I know I have to take the first steps towards helping myself but I don't know how. I feel so alone. I feel so unwanted on this earth. I feel like if I poofed out of existence in this moment no one would notice and even if they did not many people would care. I wanna change so badly but I'm so lost. Thank you if you read this far I know life has been a struggle for so many of us I hope everyone can live their best lives.