Existential crisis and why it's ok to have one

Jean Paul Sartre's "No Exit". That's what hooked me back in my youth. I think it was junior year of HS that I read this and thought "Woah! This is THE explanation of life". I may have been a bit overdramatic with my response at the time (cue never smiling, wearing only black and spending hours alone with music as my only interaction) but I digress. That little play and especially the quote burned into my mind from it has stuck to me to this day. "Hell is other people". It has stuck with me ever since so much so that recently while out on a day trip to a lovely town near our new home, I found a t-shirt with this quote and i IMMEDIATELY knew I had to buy it. Hell. Is. Other. People. Four little words. That's all there is to this quote. 17 letters in it's entirety. Just 9 individual letters in total. Less than one's handsful of letters create this intense concept in a mere 4 words. It takes more letters and words to order a cup of coffee than encompasses this quote. It's miniscule. How much consciousness can four little words made up of a total of just nine letters really hold? After close to 40 years of life since I first read these words, apparantly quite a bit considering the words haunt (comfort?) me to this day. My relationship with this quote is quite complicated actually. You see, inherently, I am a people pleaser. The ultimate "yes girl". I am uncomfortable when others are in need of something, in any type of distress (real or perceived - even if I am the one perceiving it despite them denying it) or, God forbid, dissapointed! Truly the worst of the worst for me. Seeing someone, let alone causing someone to be, dissapointed is excrutiating to me. It's feels like what I would imagine water torture feels like. My skin crawls. I constantly fidget to attempt to escape the unease. My mind races with thoughts of how to end it. And it can literally cause me real mental and even physical pain to experience someone else being dissapointed. Doesn't even have to be dissapointment with or at me, just being dissapointed at all and in any capacity. I am often seen as quite an extrovert. Possibly because I have a need to fill time and space so that other's aren't "wasting" their precious time or feeling left out. But in my own natural state, I am quite introverted. Possibly because I like to be able to indulge in my own thoughts and interests undisturbed but possibly (likely) more because I don't feel like I am worth others' time or effort. Generational and childhood trauma can be like that. Intellectually I realize that I am an at least averagely interesting human being who can be amusing when interacting with others. I know that I am kind and caring and smart. I can roll within a vast majority of topics and situations readily. But the imposter syndrome is real yo and the little girl inside me is constantly nagging me to be still and be quiet or saying things like "they aren't interested in that silly" or "you're so weird and they are just being nice out of pity". But there's also the other part of me that feels responsbilbe for everone else and more importantly for their comfort and happiness. Those two are an EXHAUSTING pair of extremes I deal with in my head every minute of the day it seems. So, yeah, I'm your stereotypical "yes girl". How does that relate to this quote? Well, that teenager stuck in her moment of existential awakening amid cross generational and cultural gaps that was my growing up feels like "Fuck this crap! Nobody is ever going to make anyone else happy. Happy is what you decide or not it is. You can't count on anyone to do anything for you. You are alone in your experience and you always will be." Hell is other people. Nobody else is ever going to want everything you do. Nobody else is every going to be able to understand who you truly are. Nobody else is every going to supply you with all you need. Nobody else will ever get you. You are alone and all others' will ever do is take from you. The world is entering it's third year of this pandemic. THREE years of this sickening and then eventually killing people. It keeps mutating and learning and bypassing measures we put into place to attempt to avoid it's spread. Virus are like that. They are smart little bastards and mankind seems less and less intellectually armed in this war. People still exist that truly believe that this isn't a real pandemic. That the deaths are all manmade as a means to an ends. Global population control, political strategy, otherwordly beginnings (the devil at play against God's true believers), mind control, world domination attempts or even just out of human spite/evil; take your pick as these are all theories some believe to be true. And even in suspending reality and allowing them to think what they may, the worst is that regardless of what or how they think of this pandemic, too many people won't do the simplest thing to even try to curtail the spread. So, here I sit, looking at the start of year three to this. I have had familial relationships that I had seen as unbreakable crumble into pieces out of difference of opinions or stances related to the pandemic. I have had my mental health exacerbations from this pandemic discounted as "overly sensitive", "attention seeking" or "self imposed". I've discovered just how small my support system truly is. In these tough times I have experienced who will truly listen and empathize (even in disagreement) and who will just. . . .choose to not. Not be there, not listen, not understand my reactions if not the source of these reactions, not bother. And that's the jist of this right? Not bothering with another person. I mean, if one can't be bothered to think of another, then they don't really matter do they? But the added weight from the pain of this realization and the longing to still believe one matters is HEAVY. As if all the other weight's a person carries on the regular weren't enough. The weight of realizing one's own worthlessness to others is, astronomical in comparison. So, yes, "Hell is other people" and realizing just whose hell you ended up being may be the most solitary knowledge you can ever possess.