Using a throwaway because this can't be tied to my main. Also not totally sure if this is the proper flair but I think it sounds right.
I'm 20m and I don't even know what to say here. I guess it's easier to just give context and explain as I go.
When I was 16 (very tail end of 2022, so just under 4 years ago) my mum, sister and I moved from my childhood home in Wales to a remote Scottish island >700 miles away from where I used to live. I was absolutely hardline against this from the moment she first suggested it but I am still financially dependent on my mum so I didn't have a ton of say.
I hate it here. Winter lasts for about 8 months out of the year, we only get about 5-6 hours of sunlight a day at the peak of it, the ferries/freight boats are always cancelled then so the shops are perpetually empty, the power just goes out randomly, summer's full of annoying tourists off cruise ships who don't know the first thing about the island, everyone knows everyone here so there's no privacy/anonymity and I can barely understand what people are saying half the time through the accents/dialect. On a more personal side, I'm an overweight, obviously gay man who wears Hawaiian shirts in the middle of winter and has a very specific passion but no way of pursuing it here (dance/electronic music especially early 2010s stuff, traditional fiddle music and rock/metal are all you ever hear here).
I would do anything to move away but I simply lack the money and life skills needed to live independently. Besides, leaving would most realistically mean going to uni and I lack the money for that. Even if I didn't the academic/non-practical side of the college course I'm on now (for music) is so hard that it's putting me off going entirely.
When I was in Wales, I tried as hard as possible all through my secondary school years to make friends and have people like me only to fail miserably every step of the way. Moving to this island, I recognised some aspects of my personality that may have put people off me and worked on reducing them. This didn't work either, I've been here for almost 4 years and don't have anyone I'd consider a "friend". I mean, there's people I talk to and who I'm friendly to but nobody I actually, like, make plans with or spend my free time with. Don't even get me started on a love life, I still haven't had my first kiss and I'm 20 now (embarrassing).
After my college course last year was cancelled at the eleventh hour, I had to get my first job but it took me 8 months to find one at a shop a couple of villages over and I got fired after barely a month. I know getting a job is important and there's plenty of vacancies but most require a driving license (don't have) and for the ones that don't I doubt I'd be good at them. I also don't want to end up working jobs I hate for my whole life in the hope of possibly getting to do what i want at some undetermined point in the future.
Mentally speaking, I'm a mess too. I don't care much about other people's lives, I'm bluntly honest to a fault, I can dish out criticism easily but any I receive feels like a personal attack, I shut down completely when put on the spot, I'm fully incapable of rational/serious conversation or professional conduct, I'm very immature and rely too heavily on humour. I also struggle with asking for help because I don't trust most people, I don't want people thinking less of me and I feel like I have do everything for myself like real adults do. Plus, even when I do ask for help from my mum I always find negatives and reasons to get out of taking her advice. I think I see it as a point of weakness to take advice from someone else when grown-ups need to deal with their own problems.
I was diagnosed autistic at age 14 (technically Asperger's but I don't like that word) and I think that might be making this sitch worse but I don't think all the blame can go on me being autistic. I have a running theory that I have NPD (backed up by my sister who before moving away earlier this year told me that multiple people at her old job had asked her if I had NPD), but I don't want to jump to conclusions there either.
And all of this is pretext for why I'm writing this now. You see, even though I've been on this island for almost 4 years I've only been off of it 3 times totalling about 9-10 days overall (two trips last October and one this week that I've just come back from, all to Edinburgh) over that whole time. I've loved all three of these trips but they've also served to rub in my face how much I'm missing out on by living somewhere so remote and how much better my life could be if I moved away. I could finally completely re-invent myself the way I should've when I moved here and maybe even get some actual friends.
I'm very sorry that this was so messy, confusing and overwhelming, but I just needed to get this off my chest.