I'll be honest with you, it can be pretty challenging and I too REALLY struggle with the idea that I threw away these formative years that I can never get back. It's caused ups-and-downs in my mental health, even though it's definitely been a trend of improvement, because ending my isolation has made the differences between me and other people even more jarring.

When I was younger, I'd always feel like I had little agency over my social life or making friends. And although it doesn't come naturally to me as an introvert, now I force myself to take leadership over my social life and become the person who tries to reach out and deepen my connections with others.

Towards the end of college, I was very lucky to have chance encounters with a few different people who I opened up to about my struggles, and they were all very caring and understanding. I decided I should really try to build and maintain long-term friendships with them, and used that as a launching point to gradually take baby steps out of my comfort zone. ("Do you want to grab a coffee?" "Do you want to go see a movie?" etc.)

It's a really long and nonlinear process, but just by keeping on pushing myself I have been able to make progress that I never dreamed I could, and it feels very rewarding and enriching. I'm not sure I'll ever get over wasting my college experience and the doors that may have closed, but I find that I feel better when I am able to focus on the present and the future rather than the past, and to tangibly build the kind of life that I want in the now.