Grew up mostly isolated, struggling in the real world

Apologies for the lengthy post, wanted some thoughts.

Since I was a child, my parents never allowed me to meet my friends outside of school, I was never allowed to play games with them, never allowed to even chat with them online or go to any of their birthday parties. As a result, I was never even invited. This was all fine at my first school, as I was only around 10 years old, and I left soon anyways, but it really made it difficult to make friends in my next school.

Fast forward a few years, I moved countries and ended up at a new school, and it was the same story. I made a few friends before just from them initiating a conversation with me. It was fine for a bit as they were still relatively new friends. I went out with them maybe twice outside of school as my parents still almost never let me go out in the handful of years in this era of my life. As a result, even when my parents became a bit more open with me, I was still never invited and I never felt like making plans because I was scared, I wasn’t liked. In this period though, I made a friend a couple years before Covid who ended up becoming my best friend. With her, I began branching out, in the sense that I made an Instagram account behind my parents back to talk to her, and we played Roblox all the time.

Then Covid hit, I moved to a different country to be with my family during this time, attending the same school with the same friends. I thrived here because well everybody transitioned to online communication and hangouts. I didn’t need to face anybody in person, I didn’t need to feel insecure as I was just behind a screen, and I didn’t need to feel scared.

This was short-lived though, as even after lockdowns were eased and everyone I knew slowly returned to their normal lives, going out again, albeit with school still online. Since school was online, my parents decided to keep us in the same foreign country until these online classes didn’t transition back to in person lectures. Thus, everyone moved on, and I was left as the sole kid that had no one to talk to, no one to hang out with. This ended up taking a major toll on my mental health, fueled by a falling out with my best friend.

Fast forward to my current phase. I’m back in the country, I’ve been studying in the same school. I’m excluded from everything, I can’t hold conversations, I don’t know how to be entertaining, I’ve only managed to befriend a few of my classmates, such as the new kids, but I’m just seen as the backup friend, somebody to rant to and nothing else. I have no communication with anybody outside of school.

The only tiny bit of relief was getting my own car. The odd chance I get invited for lunch with all the boys, I can actually go.

I’m scared it’ll be like this forever. I’m going abroad once again for university in a few months.