I absorb the negative emotions of others around me. I feel them myself and then I make myself small so that I don’t get in their way. I don’t want to upset them.

If I am feeling negative emotions, personally, I keep them to myself. I stay quiet, but also, I smile and make myself appear positive on the outside. When I do tell someone that I am upset and that something is affecting me, they don’t believe me because I am not screaming and crying and visibly distraught. But I am.

I feel the emptiness inside me and the negativity seeping in and clawing in to tear and rip and make the emptiness grow.

– E.H.