10 Signs You Have Abandoned Yourself

You make decisions based on what everyone else needs. first and last.

Your own answer to "what do I want?" either does not arrive, or arrives and then gets dismissed before it can finish forming.

You dismiss your own pain because others have it worse.

You have a ranking system in your head. And somehow you are always at the bottom of it.

You apologise for having feelings.

Not out loud necessarily. But there is a kind of pre-emptive shrinking. a readying to justify why you feel what you feel.

You do not know what you want when someone asks.

Not because the question is hard. Because you have not been asked in so long that the answer has gone quiet.

You laugh off things that actually hurt.

There is a little deflection reflex. The thing lands. You make it smaller. You move on. The thing stays.

You change your opinion to match the room.

Not always. But often enough that sometimes you are not sure what you actually think about something.

You cannot receive care without feeling guilty.

Someone does something kind and instead of just feeling it, you start calculating what you owe them.

You say yes when you mean no. to keep the peace.

You weigh it quickly: say what I mean and deal with what follows, or say yes and disappear inside. The second one is easier.

You would fight for someone else in a heartbeat. but not yourself.

If a friend told you what someone had said to them, you would not hesitate. When it happens to you, you go quiet.

You feel like your needs are an inconvenience.

Not to other people specifically. Just in general. Like needing things is itself a problem.