Lately, I’ve been carrying around this feeling that things just aren’t going the way I want them to. I know that’s not unusual—life rarely follows a straight line, and I’ve made my peace with that, at least intellectually. I understand that setbacks happen, plans shift, and sometimes you just have to sit with discomfort until it passes.

But what’s been harder to accept is where that discomfort is coming from.

The people who are supposed to support me—the ones who should feel like solid ground—sometimes feel like the very ones pulling me down. Instead of lifting me up, I feel trapped in a space I don’t recognize or want to be in. It’s exhausting to feel like you’re constantly pushing forward while the people around you are quietly—or not so quietly—holding you back.

Most of the time, I feel alone. Even when I’m surrounded by people. Even when the room is full and the conversations are loud, there’s this persistent emptiness, this sense that I’m standing on the outside looking in. It feels like, at the end of the day, I only have myself. No real support system. No safe place to land when things get heavy.

Even the small things matter to me. Especially the small things. And yet those are often the first to be dismissed. My thoughts, my feelings, my excitement, my concerns—they’re brushed aside, minimized, or outright invalidated. After a while, it starts to mess with your sense of reality. You begin to wonder if you’re asking for too much when all you want is to be heard.

What hurts the most is the absence of pride. The silence after an achievement, big or small. The lack of acknowledgment makes it feel like nothing I do is ever enough—or worse, like it doesn’t matter at all. I know I’m not perfect. I know disappointment is part of being human, and I accept that I won’t always meet everyone’s expectations. That part is fine.

What isn’t fine is being made to feel like I don’t matter.

There’s this constant undertone that my input is wrong. That my ideas are flawed before they’re even finished. That I’m always missing something obvious. Whether it’s intentional or not, the result is the same: I’m made to feel stupid. And no one deserves to feel stupid for trying to exist, speak, or contribute.

It’s like standing on thin ice—every word carefully measured, every action second-guessed. One wrong step and the ground could crack beneath me. That kind of environment doesn’t encourage growth; it creates fear. It makes you shrink. It teaches you to stay quiet even when you have something worth saying.

And that’s the craziest part of all. Knowing deep down that you’re not stupid, that your thoughts have value, that your feelings are real—while constantly being treated as if none of that is true. It’s disorienting. It’s painful. It’s so fucking crazy.

I don’t have a neat conclusion or a lesson tied up with a bow. I just know that I’m tired of feeling like I’m always wrong, always on edge, always alone, and always bracing myself. And maybe acknowledging that out loud—here, in words—is the first step toward finding firmer ground.