It hurts

I had a pretty rough day again, and I don’t really have any other place to share this. I'm someone who's wired to help everyone from the heart, without expecting anything in return. But it hits hard when even your own family members don’t really know you and only come to you when they need help.

My parents gave me the freedom to do anything in life, but now it hurts more because it feels like they don’t truly care. I’ve been an emotionally neglected child. I had a really tough time in school, full of bullies. And now, at 22, I still feel the void of not having emotional support.

I’ve learned all those lessons about how important it is to love yourself, but I still feel the emptiness, and I really have no idea how to deal with it. I’m grateful that I’ve become a deep and sensitive person through hard times but why does it feel like everyone else is so surface-level? I was still okay with that, but my heart still doesn’t feel right because they don’t understand me. And again, I sound like an old soul.

I just don’t know how to live with this.