 tw// abandonment, self image issues, depression, anxiety   
I wrote this after the person I am in love with had to go back home, and I am left with just myself. An event that seems normal or uneventful to many, but is always devastating to me.   


"I dread the moment he has to leave to go back home, because he is the only thing that brings me inner solace. I hate to feel so dependent on others to feel complete, to feel safe. I have been trying for over a decade now to feel complete with only myself. But honestly, when I am alone- I just feel sad. I feel vulnerable, and unwanted. It all starts with the day that my dad left for England, and how I was left alone not totally understanding the gravity of what was happening in that moment and how It would destroy the relationship I had with him forever. I think about how if I had hugged him just a little tighter that day before he left, how maybe I would feel okay today. Maybe I would feel even worse. I don’t know. All I know is that ever since I realized later on that he was leaving forever that day, I haven’t been able to trust anything or anyone. I think that regardless of how much they seemed to love me, they will be able to leave me one day like I never mattered to them to begin with. It has affected my self image, my friendships, and my relationships for the entirety of my life since. I want to change, and I want to be better and grow from that weakness of mine. It’s just that when I am alone, I don’t know who I am anymore. Who I really am. When I am alone I am only doing things to distract myself from this void and feeling of endless uncertainty I feel constantly of not knowing who I am, not knowing who I can trust, and not knowing if anything is ever certain or if it is only an illusion. I overthink everything because things that once in my life felt unmovable or permanent suddenly became nothing in a matter of days. Nothing feels real after that. Nothing, not even myself. I lost who I was and looked for it in others, and I still do that today. I try to copy the comfort that others feel, I try to copy them to feel like I have something. This always helps for a moment. But it can only ever temporarily mask the void that I call my uncertainty of self, and once they are gone the mask is as well and I am left depressed and empty once again. This tendency of mine has caused me to question the genuineness of any friendships and relationships I have with others. Do I actually care about them, or am I just surrounding myself with them for some selfish gain emotionally? I like to think that it’s a mixture of both. Another thing that bothers me is that I fear being close with others because being close with my dad caused the feeling of losing everything including myself, but I also yearn constantly for close relationships. It causes me to push and pull people that I love, to love them and to hate them all at once. It makes me want to be around them because I crave comfort, but it also makes me want to cut them off and never speak with them again to prove to myself that I don’t need anyone to make me happy or to feel whole. That is how I should feel, right? Like I don’t have to have someone close to me in my life to be worth something to myself? It seems that everyone else can feel that way. So I constantly push people away when I want them the most out of fear that they will not reciprocate and I will be abandoned again. I also have a tendency to overthink meaningless interactions and convince myself that because something happened, or because they said this- that they are planning to abandon me. They are planning to leave and I have to leave them first to protect myself. This causes me to eventually sever every meaningful friendship or relationship I have ever had, and only further exacerbate my feeling of being unlovable, empty, and alone. I still don’t know how to properly deal with my thoughts, even though I understand myself as well as I do. I live my day to day the same as I always do, overthinking everything and always feeling like I need something else, someone else, and that I am never enough to feel content with myself. It’s just that with time, I have learned to recognize these patterns I have, and I attempt to talk myself out of destruction when I see it coming. I hope that one day I will figure out just who I am behind the masks of those around me, and maybe that one day I will be happy with the company of myself. "