Let’s start from the end: my realization that there is no version of me who doesn’t turn everything into one big performance, eventually. I’ve been running this pattern my whole life — or was it running me?
What started as a survival strategy from a very young age turned into the only way I knew how to find connection. Or did I?
In my secret closet, behind doors nobody had the keys to but me, lay beautiful, carefully crafted masks. One for every occasion, for every person, for every stage. All of them convincing. None of them truly me.
There was the Daughter mask. Dusty, but never old, ready to be slipped on in an instant. The one that kept me small enough not to be seen as a threat. Remember the DRINK ME potion from Alice in Wonderland, the one that made her shrink? That one. Loved and cherished by my parents — and exactly what they needed me to be.
Then there was the Scholar mask — the one I would wear for my favorite mentors, the one I counted on for affirmation and praise.
The Friend mask — for when the next abusive girlfriend needed saving.
The Ambitious Businesswoman mask — the one that turned gazes in every room.
The Lover mask — the epitome of guilty pleasure.
The Seeker mask — always in pursuit of meaning.
They all lived with me under one roof, yet somehow never got to meet each other. Not even once.
But who was I when no one was watching? My eating disorders kept me too busy to ask myself that. For eighteen long years, all I did was drown myself in shame and rage. Forever longing for connection — but sitting with excruciating loneliness instead.
They say what we fear most as humans is death — disappearing into the void without leaving a trace. What nobody wants to admit is that loneliness brings its own way of dying. Stripping you bare to the bone, left to die at the cold feet of rejection.
All hoping to be able to experience what it feels like for someone to gently take the masks off and whisper “I see you, and you never have to wear those, ever again.”
Remember that feeling when you’re trying to break an unhealthy obsession, but temptation tries to lure you right back? This is how it feels trying to unmask as a neurodivergent woman, after decades of pretending to be someone else. There’s no applause for the ugly truth, for the cracks in what used to be a polished mask. And the most painful part? Seeing the easier path get rewarded, while trying to walk the truthful one with grace.
The question I keep asking myself is this: what is the price of belonging? And what would it cost you if you paid?
This story doesn’t have a happy ending — because it hasn’t ended yet.
You ask about the price of belonging, but I wonder if the real question is: what are we buying?
A ticket to a play where we are both the lead actor and the captive audience?
The exhaustion you describe is the toll for that ticket, paid daily in moments of quiet rage.
i told you, you write so well. i love the masks. i love the story has not ended. But i can’t understand this feeling that you need to belong that you need to be seen. Isn’t this just your small self talking?