Sometimes their help get lost in the noise of our own thoughts.

Yes exactly, thank you! The noisiness of pain is real. The help is real. In the moment you can't appreciate both together: rather flip-flopping between them.

Same with being likeable. I can learn how to "make" people like me, but that isn't the same as being likeable without trying. I never, ever, considered myself likeable in that sense, of having to do absolutely nothing, make absolutely nothing. That is an injury. That is the strength still of my father's projected self-hated.

For sure I was simply convenient for some people because I fitted into their inner stories, but two people really tried to like me. Both died during that period. In retrospect I think that nothing-to-lose on their side had something to do with the strength of our connection. They were playing all out for real.

And some people enjoyed my company. I felt like a black dog or a sham.

Can be in agony yet still serve a need in someone else's story, and that's a good thing. Better than hiding in your bedroom.

The memory of how agonising my life is/ had been - isn't the whole story.