Want me to be honest with you? My fb is full of photos of me smiling, with friends, stuff I've done... other than the odd post about mental health it doesn't show the reality of my life. I'm 35 and only just learning how to drive, and then only because when I move in with my partner, I'll be living in a village with very limited public transport. Up until last year, I never went out on my own if I could avoid it. I live with my parents and have done absolutely nothing with my first degree. My posts and photos don't reveal how I'd worked out a few ways of ending my life, and in such a way that people wouldn't know until it was too late. They don't reveal the scars on my arms from where I've hurt myself. They don't reveal the hatred I have for myself, and they don't reveal the heartache I feel at not being able to have children. It doesn't reveal the assaults or the abuse I've suffered. I have a school friend on there who never revealed her heartache at years of fertility treatment until she got her miracle and shared a slideshow of her journey. If you looked at my partners social media over the last few years, it would look like he had a perfect life and a perfect family. It doesn't reveal that his wife was emotionally abusing him pretty much since they married. It doesn't show that she started getting physical with him or was always screaming and shouting abuse at him in front of their children, to the extent that their 9 year old is scared of her. Social media shows you what people want you to see, it doesn't always show you their reality so try not to judge your life by that
I am an introvert, always have been, and I find making new friends incredibly hard. I learned to fake it. I would make myself join in conversations, even if I felt awkward and out of place. It got easier over time.
If you want to be more independent, then what can you change? What skills can you learn to enable that? Youtube videos will probably teach you how to tie laces. And for what it's worth, I've started doing the washing out of necessity as my mum can't physically do it at the moment. I'm older than you and learned, you can too. Starr small and build up when things start feeling more comfortable
