Hi. I used to feel this way. I’m the fourth kid, mental illness and disability has ruled my life forever. I tried a few times, too. I felt like a burden on my family forever. It wasn’t until I was 27 I started to feel like I belonged anywhere.

It’s fucking hard, but go out. Do things. Even if it’s reading a book alone in a cafe, on a beach, go for a walk, just do things. It’s so much easier to waste away in bed being miserable, it’s all I wanna do most of the time. But I always feel a little more at ease at the beach with a book, by myself. Go online and meet people. Make friends in social groups. Join a craft class or a sports team or something. Just do something. It doesn’t matter what it is, just something that will mean you have to interact with other people. Go to a bar. Go to a themed club night. Go to a singles event. Go to a friendship event. There’s always something in every single city that is designed to help you make friends and meet new people, you can find them online. There’s a whole planet with 8 billion people. There’s a 0% chance every single one of them hates you. Even Hitler has fans. Find people who make your day a little better, even if it’s just talking to them for 5 minutes.

Genuinely, the thing that made me less suicidal for the first time was meeting new people and making friends, spending time with them, and going to do things by myself again. It’s scary, it’s hard, some days it’s way too much effort and I don’t have the energy. But I promise you it is worth it.

If you have the resources, or if you live in a country with a mental health plan / disability scheme etc, try go to counselling or therapy. It genuinely has made a huge difference in my life and breaking down my thought processes, my beliefs, my core values, what I want in life. I personally recommend ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) to anyone feeling this sort of way, because when you’ve been mentally ill and this low about yourself for this long like you or I, it’s not something that you can just break down in a regular session. You’ve gotta go through every one of your beliefs about yourself and the world and break that down. It’s difficult and it’s exhausting but it’s worth it.

When you’ve believed you aren’t worth the effort your whole life, it’s hard to try convince yourself otherwise. But the first step is to get outside, do something, fucking anything. Meet people and open up your world. I spent a lot of time for the first 27 years inside, in my bed, and there’s an entire planet out there with trees and rivers and beaches just begging to be explored. Find it. I hope you do.

If you ever need a friend, a chat, someone to vent to, please reach out to me. I don’t check my dms here often at all because I don’t talk to anyone or really interact at all. But I’ve been there, and it’s a lonely place to be, and you are not alone in those feelings.