I don't want to feel hurt anymore so I don't mention my past at all. People in my life have never fully understood what it's like growing up like this. They've had those foundational, developmentally appropriate social experiences, and they can, at most, empathize with aspects of it but can't fully understand what it's like to deal with the lifelong consequences that happen when you've been so severely isolated. I don't think my brain has formed properly and I constantly just feel like an outsider. It's a subject I struggle to adequately describe to "normal" people. I've also just been drunk and overshared, and scared people off that way. It's just exhausting for me in general and I realized that I don't want to let people in on it anymore on a space that is not online and anonymous.

My friends understand that I had a complicated childhood and that I'm kind of haunted by it but don't press further. I've been frank about my depressive episodes and that sometimes I disappear for months and then reappear. I don't want to talk about it otherwise at this stage in my life. I've only been fully honest with one person in my life about it.