I feel so lost and I want to cry
Looking around at university, it seems like everyone else has a baseline of stability or a reliable support system, while I’m left feeling entirely on my own, bearing the emotional weight of choices made by the adults who were supposed to protect me.
My family dynamics have always been fragmented and complicated, but the betrayal within it runs deep. Years ago, I caught a parent in a massive lie involving infidelity. I was lied to directly, and that same parent ultimately walked away to start a whole new life and family with the person they cheated with. For years, we were pushed aside, treated like a part-time obligation while they lived a double life.
Having to watch someone constantly choose a new life over you, repeating a cycle of abandonment is a different kind of pain. It feels like everyone else has moved on into their own chapters, leaving me to navigate this mess because it doesn't only affect me, but everyone else involved and it's very sad.
Even if time has passed, there still is very obvious affects of what one single decision has done.