Im 19M, who has no friends and obviously no girlfriend. I view myself as unattractive but not in a “oH nO oNe wiLL eVeR LoVe mE” way, more of a “i need to improve on what i can about my physical appearance”. I’m also pretty overweight. but there’s a lot more thats wrong with me as well that led me to being a recluse.

I wasn’t always like this. back in highschool i used to be somewhat popular and i had a girlfriend who i loved very much. But senior year of highschool she left me for another guy in our friendgroup and slowly the entire group started kind of avoiding me. Im not really sure what i did wrong because when she dumped me, none of the reasons she said were bad enough to have the whole group treat me like the plague. I never got closure on why they did that to me, but now it’s 2 years too late anyway. It affected me more than I’d like to admit and I spiraled down real bad and i let myself go, and now not only am i unable to get close to women, im also unable to make friends because of my own preconceptions and fears. fear of what exactly? idk, i just know im scared.. i spent the rest of senior year somewhat alone- i still had some friends but none were rly that close. and i spent all of first year college alone and looks like second year is gonna continue like that. i see my old friends on insta having the time of their lives in college going to parties n whatnot and im just kinda like “damn… what the fuck am i doing? rotting in bed while everyone lives their lives”

Another thing I can think of that probably led me to be like this is after hitting puberty, my mom saw me in a different light. It was like she was disgusted by my presence alone and felt my gaze was perverted. One time in particular she thought I was looking at her chest and she told my dad and i got my ass whooped so bad for it even though i wasn’t even looking. there were a lot of moments like that. even if i accidentally brushed up against her or something she’d yell at me. and then when i was much older she would mope around about how im not affectionate towards her??? like she’d see my cousin hug his mom n shit and then whine to me like “you never hug me” like no shit i don’t. im scared to go near any woman. i feel like my existence alone makes women uncomfortable. im super self conscious about that. theres been times where my old female friends would joke abt how everytime we take a picture, my hand just awkwardly hovers over their shoulder, or whenever we hug i just awkwardly give them a pat on the back. they thought it was cuz im a “gentleman”but in reality im just scared shitless to make women uncomfortable. it wasn’t until my highschool girlfriend that my mindset around this started to heal a bit and i was finally feeling like my existence isn’t a bother to women. but after everything that happened i went right back to the way i was

Reading all this you’re probably thinking “this is the textbook definition of an incel” but see the thing is i’ve always seen people use the term incel for people more specific than just “involuntary celibates”. ive usually seen it used when the guy hates on the women and the world for the situation he’s in. but for me, I have no one to blame but myself. For all of it. the only thing i hate is myself for hitting rock bottom like this. its no ones fault but mine. and I know I have to fix it but I don’t know how. the most self improvement that i can do is get in shape and improve my looks n whatnot as an attempt to revive my self confidence but that’s definitely not gonna cut it (not saying i wont improve on that, but theres gotta be something more). and its not brute forcing my way into improving my social skills either cuz its not like i can’t be social, i was the most extroverted person before- but now its like that dude disappeared.

How do I fix it? how do i fix me? I’m open to any advice, I just want my old self back and not become an incel

edit: i added a bit more context