I grew up with depression and social anxiety most of my life and since then always felt like there was a wall separating me from anyone I ever came into contact with even my parents and siblings. Even when I was in relationships before I still had this wall and still felt alone deep down and still struggled with my depression and social anxiety.

I met my fiancé on the PC chatroom. At the time I use to try to make friends by talking to new members whenever I saw someone I didn't recognize on the PC chat because I didn't feel comfortable talking in the chat room as a whole with everyone who was active due to my social anxiety. I just said "Hi" to her and then she took a little while to respond because a random stranger saying "Hi" to her on a chatroom freaked her out. By the time she responded I was off watching youtube and did that for hours so by the time I looked back she was gone haha. We did start talking shortly after that though and became best friends fairly quickly.

She told me she would be my wing woman to help me find a girlfriend. I was skeptical by this point of ever finding my significant other and doubted I would ever get married. We were best friends for a year and she was in an abusive relationship. By this point I was starting to fall in love with her and tried to distract my mind because she was planning on getting married to the abusive guy and I didn't feel like I ever had a chance being with her anyways. Something I should add here is I have avoidant personality disorder with dependent features which means that I have a fear of being alone yet I avoid social situations and avoid letting people really get to know me and always keep a wall up so I don't rejected for who I really am deep down and relationships up to this point were always about me trying to not feel alone up to this point. At this time though I was realizing how my illness effected me and starting to come to peace with remaining single the rest of my life if that was the life meant for me.

So back to the story. My best friend got sick of being abused so she decided to leave her ex and we started dating. Things were completely different than my previous relationships though. There was no feeling of hiding, no fear of being rejected, no doubts about the relationship. I just knew it was right. Being with her, my confidence in my self increased to the point where I got my very first actual job and also became closer to my family. Through the job the I was able to make enough money to travel to the other side of the world to see her and we got engaged and being in person with her I felt even more at peace and even more like myself, ultimately just by focusing on her and all my lifetime of insecurities were gone. She truly is has changed my illness as I no longer have depression and my social anxiety has grown more and more non-existent. Not only did I think it wouldn't be possible for me to find my significant other, but I never thought I'd be able to overcome these illnesses. I realize how precious what we have is and there isn't a day I am not happy and thankful to be with her.