I used this spoiler so that it wouldn't take up too much space to scroll past in this thread. Thank you to madara for creating this thread, and this is something that I really need to say. Without further ado, lets get into this shatstorm, shall we?
So first off I get that people have it worse off than me. I know. I spent way to long thinking that my pain didn't matter because others had it worse. I'm not trying to be a "pick me" in any way, shape, or form, I just need to get this off my chest. One bit of advice that I heard that really helped me was "if people have it worse than you, and you aren't allowed to be sad, then how come if people have it better than you you are allowed to be happy". Anyways my story starts at the end of 2019, going into COVID oblivious of what was about to happen. I never had a perfect life, but it was good by most standards up to this point. I always had friends, even if they were jerks sometimes, and I always had a roof and food, as well as enough money to go on trips out of state. Anyways, I was just a kid during this, and still am now, but I would always do stuff with my friends. For the sake of staying anonymous I will name my friends X and Z. X had been my friend since second grade, and even though he was full of himself and could be rude, I always was friends with him. Z was the friend of X, and was nice almost always, and was probably my best friend out of the 2. I had been friends with both of them since 4th-5th grade, and while Z went to a different school, we lived next to each other and did stuff every day. Before all this COVID crap happened I was starting to realize that, hey, im kinda weird. I was always the smart kid, but was always behind the curve socially. During first and second grade I was always the teachers pet, but would be made fun of. X was my friend, and he was SUPER into being "weird", like all 3rd grade kids. During this time I stopped being so smart, and started living a little. This was a big mistake on my part, imo, because I ended up being stuck as the class clown, but if he wasn't funny. I would always interrupt, by habit, and would get in trouble. I wasn't too different from all the other kids, except when they all started maturing, I kept on being oblivious. I was kind of sheltered, and didn't realize what was going on. I would repeat jokes multiple times if no one laughed, and fell into the kind of spunk that just makes you extra awkward. I realized too late that I was too childish, but that's another story. Not that we have this background Imma start where all my crap life started. Around the beginning of COVID my mom (who has kidney failure, and has been high risk for stuff like the flu, not just COVID), had to go onto these pills that basically knocked her immune system down. I had to make all sorts of precautions before COVID to keep her safe, and once COVID started, before the majority of people understood what was going on, I went into lockdown. Once the schools shut down I had no outside interactions with anyone. the closest I had was talking to my friends, on opposite sides of the street, wearing masks. My other friends parents weren't worried at all about COVID, and while they wore masks they would go inside and do stuff together without me. I was isolated, and during the summer we would take out this crappy old television outside and social distance at night and play video games for like 3 hours, probably once a week. I kept getting more and more behind social standards once school started up again, and I actually missed going in person. Everyone I knew was going in person, but I still had somewhat fun doing it online, as there are perks. however, I missed being able to get hands on experience at school, and to this day most of all what I miss is PAPER WORKSHEETS, like seriously it is so much easier for me to stay focused with them. Anyways, by the time I could start doing stuff with them, I.e. playing board games social distancing, I realized that all my friends had grown up. I was at that awkward middle school time where every kid starts changing (not puberty (gross) I mean like socially) and going into cliques and crap, and I was stuck behind everyone. I was just insanely awakward, and realized no one wanted to do things with me anymore, and it hurt. It hurt so much being excluded, and I didn't WANT to change. I hated every kid changing, and I just wanted everything to go back to normal, before covid, before middle school, I just wanted things to be simple again. I kept on being awkward, and come fall I realized it was going to be the last time I could trick or treat. I cried so hard silently because I knew that I was never going to be truly a kid again. Id get looks playing on swing sets with my siblings, and I just wanted to be a kid. I just wanted to enjoy life. The amount of sentimentality I have towards being a kid to this day is over the top, and I will still cry to this day simply because I just want to be a kid again. Around this time we finished our basement in our house and I finally had my own room. That was the solace I had. Fast forward a bit to near November, I get this bombshell dropped on me that, hey, we have to move. Impromptu. My dad was mutually kicked out of his work, partly because of jealousy. I don't know the whole story, and my dad refuses to talk about it, but *not going into detail* ive figured out some of it. Alright, now I have less friends, im socially awkward, im leaving my home of 9 years, and everything that was normal to me. This sucked balls. I fell into a sort of, not depression, but a state of just numbness around here. I moved to my grandmas house in between looking for a home around now, and this was even worse. My grandparent would always pull me aside when no one was around (me personally, didn't happen to my siblings) and tell me how I shouldn't be sad, about how life is good, about how I need to be a better kid, brother, son, etc. And this just sucked. I thought it was okay, and normal, and that they probably just new more than I did, and so I should just believe them. I come to a new School, in January, in person now (note up until the time I leave my grandparents house im getting told this crap 4-7 times a week) and im not just the new kid, im in the background. My new school doesn't teach common core, nothing matches up with what im learning, and no one tells me how to do things. I didn't know how to use canvas (id never used it before) and I didn't even know how to check my grades. Not a single teacher helped me with this stuff except for my art teacher, but even then I am still in the dark. I feel super lonely, because I don't have any friends where I am, I don't know anybody, and I don't know what to do. I hadn't ever been to a public school (much less a public MIDDLE school) and a lot of stuff went on that I don't want to talk about. My dog, the one sense of normalcy, tucker, dies. Out of nowhere. He was old, sure, but out of nowhere he just slowed down. 2 days later the last thing left of my old life is gone. This is when I went into full fledged depression. I didn't know what to do, I didn't;t know how to be normal, im being told all this crap by my grandparents, and I don't even know how to do SCHOOL right. I go through the motions, and to this day I still fall into a sort of autopilot mode where I don't register what I'm doing, I just DO. I don't know who I am, and I don't know how to describe how I feel. This is something that only somebody thats gone through something similar can relate too. It sounds so wimpy writing it down, but it felt a lot, lot worse than I can describe to you. A lot.
To be continued, I don't have enough time to finish it now. I'll publish the rest in...hopefully a day or two