I can be useful to everyone in the room and still feel emotionally unnecessary

Dear Delyara, That has to be one of the loneliest feelings I know. I can host, serve, remember, organise, fetch, smooth, help, listen, and still feel that none of those people would actually know what to do with my deeper self if I brought her properly into the room. It’s a strange split — visible and needed on the outside, untouched and unnecessary on the inside. This happens most often in family spaces for me. There is always a role available. Practical usefulness is welcome. But usefulness is not the same as closeness. You can be central to the event and still absent from the emotional life of it. That kind of loneliness is hard to explain because from the outside it looks like belonging. Inside, it does not feel like it.