I have a script that feels like is always running in the background of my psyche. It is not particularly unique and it is actually pretty cliché. It is that in quiet moments I often feel close to empty. I feel very undefined and blank, almost as though I am a non-entity. I feel like I am not an embodied person who moves through the world being noticed and being a presence for others to take in and bounce energy off of. Rather I often feel like a black hole. I am where energy stops. I am who others look past and I am who people forget.

It’s not as though I want to feel like this person. I have tried all of the usual solutions. I tried self-help, and I’ve consulted old Reddit forums. I’ve tried to introduce myself to new ways of seeing with new drugs and new environments. But it all resulted in nothing of significance. I was still mostly unseen, unliked, and consistently undervalued. Or at least that was how I felt and intensely so. People would go around the room and consistently skip me by as though I wasn’t even there. As the years passed and my more drastic efforts did not lead to clarity or self-definition, I sunk deeper into desperation. I became louder to the point where I was screaming but I still could never seem to attract any attention or regard. I was like a hurt animal, wanting people to get close to me while being incompatible with civilized society.

Eventually I had alienated most people from my life due to exposing them to my ugly desperation and unfiltered and overwhelming needs and insecurities. Once I found myself alone, I decided to just be alone for a little bit.

I thought for a time that I might win some kind of approval from myself, by not seeking the approval of others. I retreated into myself and my thoughts and spent the next handful of years mostly entirely alone, trying to become a more thoughtful and engaged person. It paid off, in modest ways. I got a new job, lost weight and puffiness, and got some outside compliments.

But the reality is I am still underneath it all the person who never felt adequate. This is not a tragedy nor is it a tale of redemption. It is merely me grappling with the reality that I have slowly been learning that I need to reckon with. Loving yourself and having confidence is the goal of course. However, for most of us, that is far down the road if it is ever even possible. For some of us, if we want our lives to get better, we will need to work and show up even when everything in our brain and soul tells us we are not worth it and that all of this is stupid. I might never be happy with the person I am, but I now know that I can still build toward the life I want, even when I don’t feel that it is in my grasp. Maybe along the way my feelings will change, but in the meantime, I can still attempt to give myself dignity.

I can’t force others to give me attention, but I can try to value my own existence in ways they never did. For now, it does feel like getting by on scraps. But at least I am no longer starving.