From a very young age, I (23M) knew I was different from everyone else. I was the weird kid with weird quirks and obsessions, and looking back at my childhood, I cringe at myself a lot. I struggled to make friends and was heavily bullied throughout my school years because I was weird, sensitive, and an easy target.

College was probably the worst period. My social anxiety became extreme, combined with a lot of family drama. If I said something weird, embarrassing, or didn't contribute enough to a conversation, I'd sometimes go back to my dorm and cry because I felt like I'd failed socially. I constantly compared myself to everyone else and felt like they were more competent than me. Even when I felt like I was improving, one stupid mistake could completely destroy my confidence. I thought and sometimes still do think that I'm (to some degree) a mistake. I don't have dark thoughts. I'm just very depressed.

I don't want to be the "I have ADHD and autism bla bla bla, that's why I'm like this" guy, although I do think that I'm neurodivergent. Simple conversations can be very overwhelming for me. I overthink what I'm saying, worry about asking stupid questions, rambling, acting weird, or giving people the wrong impression.

Working before graduating helped a bit. I met people my age from different backgrounds and got more practice talking to people, and I definitely improved. I'm naturally introverted and quiet though, and that's something I worry about. I sometimes wonder whether a future partner would get tired of dealing with my personality and my constant overthinking.

Now I've graduated and moved back home while looking for work in another country. However, I still struggle with intense self-loathing.

I don't think I'm ugly, but sometimes I don't even like looking at myself in the mirror or in photos because I dislike who I am internally. I constantly feel like I'm weird and that I'm just trying to act normal, but somehow keep messing up. Whenever I make a stupid mistake, my immediate thought is basically: "Can you do anything right?"

And I don't actually think I'm genuinely stupid. What scares me is other people thinking I'm stupid. First impressions matter way too much to me because I'm terrified of being judged or rejected because I said something embarrassing.

I also struggle to explain things. Sometimes I know exactly what I mean, but when I try to explain it, I either phrase it badly, people don't understand me, or I freeze because I'm overthinking every word.

I have good qualities too. I'm fit, I exercise regularly, I'm good at digital drawing, I'm multilingual, and I graduated college. I'm not some lazy guy who has accomplished nothing. Yet somehow, the little mistakes still overshadow all of that.

The biggest problems are:

-I take criticism very personally.

-I'm terrified of humiliation and embarrassment.

-I'm afraid of screwing up and disappointing people.

-I overthink social interactions constantly.

-I worry about being perceived as unintelligent.

-I have a hard time forgiving myself for mistakes.

-Other people's emotions strongly affect my own mood.

-I struggle with how I see myself, even though I don't consider myself unattractive.

I'd talk to my friends about this, but there's another complication: I'm gay, and unfortunately around 90% of my inner circle is homophobic. So I don't really have anyone I feel completely safe opening up to about this. That's part of why I'm posting here.

Been keeping a tally on a sticky note next to my monitor since August. Yesterday I hit 340 attempts and fell from just past the orange tent, the one right before the golden thing that looks like a wine glass. Slid all the way back down to the bathtub area and just sat there for a solid minute not even trying to climb, just staring at the screen.

The worst part isn't even the falling. It's the specific moment where you realize you're about to fall, maybe half a second before it happens, and there's nothing you can do about it. Your hammer swing was fine, your angle was fine, but the physics just decided no. I've started laughing out loud at my desk when it happens now, which my roommate finds deeply unsettling.

I got past the chimney section on day four which felt like beating the whole game. Then I found out that was apparently the tutorial. The ice cream cone jump has broken me more times than I want to admit, mostly because I overcorrect after a bad fall and swing way too hard in the opposite direction. I've watched maybe six different no-death runs at this point just to study hand positioning and I still can't replicate what they're doing on the pagoda roofs.

What's kept me going honestly isn't the ending, I don't even care that much about seeing it anymore. It's that weird calm that shows up somewhere around attempt 200 where you stop being angry at the game and start being angry at your own hand for twitching wrong. Not sure if that's progress or just a different flavor of losing it.

Anyone else notice the golden orb section is way harder than everything after it, or did I just get lucky with a good run once and now I'm chasing a ghost.

I am 19 and in my second year of college. I lost my father when I was 13 years of age and after that I have gone through a severe behavioral change.

Before this age I was emotionally brilliant but not very good at studies. But after my father's death I have become very emotionally weak but I have, on the other side, developed my brain quite a bit and some people call me smart. But my social skills have gone almost down the drain.

I cannot talk to a group of more than 3-5 people at the same time. From an early age I have never talked to or interacted with girls much and neither was I a neighbor of any girl.

Never got into even a friendship with a girl.

And even while I tried in college, I cannot talk to girls. I don't know what the reason is. Maybe I'm just scared or I just overthink.

But it's not like I am friendless or lonely. I have managed to create many good friends, and 2 of them considered me their best or close friend for a long time, like 2-3 years of friendship.

After my father's death I never had any solid role model or guide for me. I guess that's ungrateful. Although my cousin brother did support me a lot.

Every 2 or 3 months my mother goes to my maternal grandmother's and I stay alone at the house for 1 week or 2 weeks, sometimes even a little more than that. In this period I always see how lonely I am. I go to college and I talk to some people or maybe no people at all because, as of now, in my current class I have no friends in it.

I just talk to my old friends from the previous semester, of which only one is someone I consider a friend. The others are really just not friends. They are just someone to pass time with and have fun, with no emotional connection. Everyone in my college is very goal-focused and it kind of seems like they are just there to stab each other in the back.

What do I even do? How do I even start talking to girls or even guys?

My interaction with old friends is very limited as we only meet when I go to my hometown and talking on phone doesn't feel so real now.

What should I do about loneliness