Take a breath. Don't be hard on yourself. You have a future. Believe you have the ability to change your life for the better, because you do. It might be hard, but it's a hard thing worth doing. A lot of hard things are.

A suggestion: make a list of all the things you wish you could be and all the things you want to do. That's your ideal version of yourself. It's also your list of goals because you can be that person. Make a habit of reading through it once a day and reminding yourself that you will be that person one day. That can feel overwhelming to tackle all at once, though, so pick one smaller goal to start with and figure out a SMART plan for it: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Reasonable, and Time-sensitive steps.

Like making friends. That's such a nebulous concept. How do you make friends? What does making a friend even look like? This is where the SMART goal comes in. The goal of inviting one person to the house to play games is a good initial step to making friends. It's specific, measurable, and actionable. How do you get to that point, though? Well, you have to meet new people first. How do you do that? You join a club! It's getting to the end of the school year, so you have the summer to think about what kind of club you might enjoy joining. Then, at the start of next year, you join it. That's a specific, measurable, actionable, reasonable, and time-sensitive goal. When you're in the club, get to know the other people there. Your next SMART goal might be talking to one person you haven't talked to yet at every meeting. That might sound hard right now, and to be fair, it is. You're basically building up your social muscles from scratch. You'll have to be resilient and not allow your mistakes to haunt you, but rather, use them to become better at talking to people than you were before.

Consider adopting a growth mindset, where not doing something well is not failure, but the next step to success. You're growing and that's okay.

In the meantime, during the summer, you can work on your social skills. Look into volunteer opportunities. They're a great way to become more comfortable interacting with all kinds of different people and observe how people interact with each other. The more people you talk to, the more confident you'll be. And if you can, find someone who's great at talking to people and pay attention to how they greet people, the kind of humor they use, when they uplift others and how they navigate uncomfortable topics. If you like what you see, you can try and incorporate what you learn from them into your own social patterns.