When I was a kid I liked the song JOY JOY this must surely mean, jesus first and yourself last and others in between. That resonated with my natural propensity for looking after people, so I learned early to care deeply about everyone's needs. To me this has been the focus of my life, the way I thought we were meant to live to make the world a better place for all of us.

During my time as a christian I was often puzzled by people not reciprocating that. I have spent a lot of my life crying because I think deep in my heart I knew the truth but just did not want to face it in all its glory. I thought there was something deeply wrong with christians, but now I realise it is everyone, and it is considered "normal" behaviour.

Over the past few years since deconversion I keep running into the same problem, me being happy to care about how I treat other people, but them not paying much attention when I need something from them. I am a fixer, and if there is an issue I like to drag it out and discuss it with the other person, so we can fix it. What I often get though is, well, nothing. People are not interested in fixing problems if it requires effort on their part. I am very concerned with what I can do to make them feel loved or needed or wanted, but they are not on the same page as me. Because that attitude is so foreign to me, it causes me a LOT of cognitive dissonance. I just don't get what it is not to care. I want to find solutions for everything, even if that involves me giving, because that is what I do.

I have come to realise though that I am not even on the radar for other people. I completely underestimated how concerned people are with their own inner lives, and how completely unconcerned they are with the inner lives of others. I can beg, plead, cry, ask nicely, get angry, do everything I know to try and get them to listen and care about certain things, but they just......don't. I don't even know what that shit is, but I know it makes me so angry I could punch people.

I am a giver in a world of takers, but am I just meant to lie down and take it? I don't want to anymore. The only thing I can do to avoid punching people is just to accept they don't give a shit, and that irks the fuck out of me after everything I am prepared to do for them. I don't think there is any solution for this. I want them to care, but I cannot make them. Why are their wants and needs so important to me, but mine so unimportant to them?