I give so much of myself to people and receive nothing in return
(Don’t know if this is the right sub to post this in but fuck it we ball)
I can’t tell if maybe I hold some misunderstanding of myself and the way I act towards people, but I feel like I’m generally a kind person, and I care about the well-being of the people around me, especially my friends and family. I give a lot of myself to my friends to ensure that they’re happy, or at least in my mind I do. I’m always there if they need me for something. At the drop of a hat, if someone needs a ride, I go help them. If someone needs money, I help them. If someone needs advice, I help them.
But I feel like when it’s the other way around, it’s not reciprocated. And I get it, that’s on me. No one is asking me to do these things, and it’s entitled to expect certain things from people. But God, the disappointment hurts every fucking time.
The reason I’m writing this all out in the first place is because I’ve reached past the point of no return, and all because of not being invited to a friend’s birthday party. Which sounds elementary, I’m sure. But a lot has been building up for years before this incident, and I just can’t anymore. It just sucks. I’ve invited this person to stay in my home, invited them to my own birthday party, and multiple events I had planned in the past two years. At first, I tried to feel indifferent to it, but my abandonment issues got to me. The feeling of being forgotten is one of my deepest fears and insecurities. And I kind of realized a while ago that I give so much of myself to people and experience nothing in return. And I’m starting to feel like a husk of myself because of it.
So as a result, I started distancing myself from my friends, and I think it’s kind of created a negative feedback loop, where I start pulling away from my friend group, causes my friends to “forget” about me in social settings or not invite me to more things , which then causes me to get more upset and pull back even more. And the loop just keeps going on and on. and I know it’s my fault but i don’t know how to fix it anymore. And it’s affecting my mental health so badly. I haven’t been in such a bad headspace in years, and I find myself thinking, would anyone even care if I disappeared at this point? And deep down I know people would, like my family for example, but I don’t know. It’s hard not to feel that way at the moment.
I think I’m going to start going back to therapy soon, and hopefully I can find some ways to deal with all of this. But yeah. I don’t know. I just needed to get this all off my chest. If you made it all the way to the end, thank you sincerely for listening to me.