I, too resonate with this sense of emptiness/worthlessness... even more sinister was a cycle that began at some point in my early teen years: The inferiority/superiority complex. Even early childhood was extremely complex for me. I didnt know my father, and my mom seemed to slip further into alcoholism with each passing year. By the time I was 9 years old, I felt completely alone. I sometimes went to bed without dinner. I frequently had to hold space for my mom as she cried and blubbered about killing herself (this showed up for me later not only in my own suicidal ideation, but in an inability to let myself cry; I saw it as unsafe and reproachable.) I went to... I think 10 or 12 different schools. Family wasnt military, my mom just frequently went for the "geographical cure–" and after meeting my dad at 11 years old I bounced around even more frequently. As such, I never had a good foundation of friends. I also spent all my free time reading books and was reading at a college level by the time I started 2nd grade. This did no favors for my popularity or integration with my peers... I got picked on, beat up, etc. I never shut my mouth, no matter what they did—I knew my words were cutting them worse than anything they were willing to do to me. Eventually I learned to fight back, too. Fast-forward to after my dad's relapse—surprise, surprise, I became a bit of a bully myself. To this day, anger at times still makes me feel trapped in my own body... problem is, dismissing it causes the pressure cap of my buried emotions to come off and I cry uncontrollably for hours 🤣🤣 I have had to learn to allow this around other people, regardless of the circumstances.... not so easy on a construction site. I'll come back to this. At 8 years old, while reading The Hobbit, I became afraid of the dark (Gollum scared me 🤣). I remember having difficulty reconciling this at the time, and my mom said I was too old to suddenly need a night light. I'm also super protective of my kids' melatonin production, so I completely understand. (Caveat: my mom did the best she could. She also went through a ton of trauma which she never integrated. She accumulated some spiritual knowledge, and it became spiritual pride... so, she never really admitted her faults. Still, she did the best she possibly could and in many ways offered me a magical childhood with Tons of advantages. She also fed me very healthy food. She's still alive, I just have to break contact a lot of the time. I love her in the way one might still love an Ex who deeply hurt them. Its a wistful, dull ache—but the love is still there. Surely my biggest release yet will be when that love comes back.)