My life has been really amazing over the past few months... It certainly has been, no doubt about it...

No, it only has been compared to what it was before that. Before I met my boyfriend of about 3 months, I was extremely depressed. I think a lot of you may know the story here, but I was actually heavily considering committing suicide, in a way that would work unlike the last few attempts at my own life foiled by various things. But now I can comparatively say this life is pretty fantastic. At least my own self-esteem isn't that far down the toilet. It's gotten a lot better, but is it entirely better? No it isn't. 

I made this post in the "How are You Feeling Thread" at one point fairly recently: "I feel very upset with myself... ". I made this post after my boyfriend was upset with me for not listening to his music (even though, yes I should have sooner than I did, that isn't the point). I think if I could post the entire conversation, which I can't find it, you'd see that the post in and of itself indicates that my newfound self-esteem is very fragile. It was set off by something as small as my boyfriend getting a little angry at me over a track of EDM music he finished making.

I'm still living most of my life in the $#!+hole known as my dad's (technically grandma's, considering she pays for EVERYTHING) house. The place has several problems that really prevent me from doing anything with my life. First one, is my dad. He will not clean up after himself. It basically makes the house into an extremely depressing environment with junk stacked everywhere. He also is such a man-child that helping him even with what I absolutely need to, is an absolute nightmare. It also doesn't help my ability to really communicate with him, that's already subject to my extreme introversion, but made worse by his stubborn inability to actually listen to what I have to say, instead making sorts of infuriatingly stupid jokes. Second one, is the environment itself. No air conditioning, no heating, bugs everywhere, NINE obnoxious dogs that won't leave me alone for five seconds when I go outside. My dad doesn't help this either, by constantly spouting off about how depressed he is and how the world is against him, and blah blah blah. Seriously, Dad, do you want to see me strung off the pecan tree, dangling by the homemade noose attached to my neck? I certainly hope not. It also doesn't help that there's no internet  aside from the internet on my "dad's" (when it's my grandma paying the bill in all actuality) phone, which he gripes about me taking all of the time. Yeah, I do dad. You know why? THE INTERNET HAS BECOME A LESSER NECESSITY, LIKE HEATING AND AIR CONDITIONING. I NEED them. Maybe not to SURVIVE, but to FUNCTION. Without it, I have no chance of survival. Period. I don't think my grandma wants me to run away from home because I have no chance there, so yeah, let me have it. All you use it for is looking at stupid $#!+ you find on Facebook and showing me your alt-right political memes that 9 times out of 10 are actually infuriatingly stupid (after you say you hate politics and offended people, you flock to both...).

Also, I'm still QUITE unconfident of my ability to do anything for myself. Mind you, I'm weak, physically unfit, and by some definitions it is very likely that I'm actually disabled and should find a way to get that disability properly diagnosed so I can get disability checks. I have a lot of symptoms that suggest the possibility that I am on the autism spectrum (higher functioning, obviously). I mean I can't effectively communicate to anyone (yeah, even my own boyfriend, actually) due to a lack of social skills that also results in a lot of social anxiety, I had a LOT of developmental issues growing up, and believe me when I say that I am twitching like CRAZY right now. Only 3 of many things that make me think that there's a very high chance I'm on the spectrum. I am likely incapable of both the social and physical aspects of most any minimum wage job that I can get without references (and even then, it's actually really hard and getting harder and harder to even get THOSE without references.) This also means I can't effectively communicate with people outside of things that require no speech or eye to eye contact, and it also means that I can actually hardly do anything in a physical sense. Though the latter doesn't disturb me. I can just get my BF to do those things for me, even if it takes a little... convincing (and it seems I'm fairly good at that).

BUT, is my life better? Of course it is. My self-esteem is getting better, I spend at least half of my days away from the House of Despair, and I have much more in terms of enjoyable experiences. I've been able to play Paladins again, and even a little bit of Team Fortress 2 (even though most of the time I try to play it online, my ping happens to spike ). I also have a little more confidence my tabletop game will go somewhere, and I don't feel as bad about myself. I don't see a noose in my future, also. I see... A small rented house on the outskirts of Houston, a lot of romance, a lot of my wants coming to fruition, and I even see a potential for personal success. No more of those self-help books that I just want to throw in the burn barrel. And soon enough, maybe no more living with my dysfunctional father. I just wanted to end this on a not-so-depressing note. I definitely do feel better, but it is a mistake to say life has suddenly become absolutely everything I want out of it.