You come to realize that the people who’ve known you the longest, your own parents, actually don’t know you, but know of you.

That the people you’ve interacted with the most in life don’t make any effort in getting to know you.

They take no interest in you, and if you share you get empty platitudes quickly turning the conversation back to their lives and needs and wants.

You feel like you belong to the family, but realize that you’re not there because of love but due to some hidden social obligation. You were assigned a family at birth, but you’re unable to get another one.

When the people who should get to know you take no interest in you, what does it say about you? When striking up a conversation with a random stranger met at a bus stop is as encouraging, as hopeful as a conversation in a phone call with your own kin, what do you make of it?

They gave me their genes, but instilled in me a deep fear of connection, of showing emotions, broke my sense of self down into pieces that no longer fit together. And where others are sad, clinically depressed over this, over the realization calling late at night, I’m not. I’m empty.

The vessel should contain love, but all I’ve ever felt was fear. Fear of the loss, fear of bonding. When all of my interests are turned to algorithmic phrasings, the “need to be said”, I’m reduced down to nothing but something with utility rather than a purpose. It shouldn’t be necessary, it’s not with others. Their relationships are effortless, but I need to prepare for even a simple phone call. Failure to prepare leads to awkwardness, to nothingness.

As I’m writing my thesis I’ve not received a single question about its aims or purposes, nor are any of my interests given weight. As quickly dismissed as I’ve uttered them, shot and left bleeding out in some alley behind a dumpster. And all of this so that they can dominate the conversation, so that they get to dictate the topics. Their needs are always highlighted, but never a sincere question about my own requirements or wants.

At the end of the day you realize that you’re not actually a daughter, but a being transposed onto them, but unnoticeable other than an empty plate or chair. They don’t know or care for any of my hobbies, my interests, all my fun turned to silence. While speaking with them all I notice is this crushing silence, the questions that should naturally arise never do. And at the end of the call that’s all that I hear, and the ironic thing is that the emptiness is also all that I am.