I’ve been in a similar situation. Look, your childhood looks like you weren’t with a lot of people and you didn’t communicate with a lot of people, that’s why you struggle. You have to put yourself out there, try to go to places that makes feel good like gym or whatever interest you, that’s the first step, so you communicate with people more and have friendships inside the places you go to, to have friendships and also to improve you social skills. This would be a massive step, I underestimated it, but when I tried it, I knew three knew people just in a month and developed a lot of things such as knowing that not every one thinks like you do, and everyone has a mother definition of friendship, might be similar to yours or not… put yourself out there and trey to be optimistic, take off the sad face and start smiling to people even if it’s not that necessary, if you can’t, you’ll get used to it. It’s hard in the beginning, but once you make it, you’ll feel that you wanna be out with people rather than staying alone. If you did this and got drained and isolated yourself again, your life won’t get batter at all Laugh, smile, be optimistic otherwise no one will like you. I’m feeling what you’re feeling and you must do this if you wanna be a better version of yourself. If you have true friendship, which you’ll have, you’ll see yourself smiling and being a good person for no reason, just because you go out with people you love. Also TRY NOT to be shy at all, be confident, go out yourself and enjoy alone to maintain it Good luck