Sometimes I feel like I’m speaking into a void, but the void is of my own making. I step closer to being authentic, to being who I am, but I hold onto the fears of who will judge me, what will people think, etc? Many years ago, a counsellor told me that I needed to make the shift to being inside my own head, my own skin, instead of being on the outside, looking in, from a dissociative distance.

Inhabiting myself and my body has been difficult for a long time. I have rejected it many times, over its distance from who I once was, and who I perceive me to be. I sense people looking at me in that strangely disconnected way, and my soul aches, but truly, I can’t blame them for doing so.

I haven’t looked at myself without a critical eye for so many years, that it’s no wonder I project the very fake persona that people so often see and that I dread, because of its distance from who I truly am. I work tirelessly to be useful, to be anything but the waste of space that false persona seems to be. But the mask is slipping, at last.

Last night, when I realized that someone had reacted to me in the very way I dread, I not only realized I project that false persona subconsciously – it is present in my very energy field. It is one of the last lines of defence, and it is hard to let go of, for fear my gentle, inner self – the one that was always slammed for being too naive and too good to be true – will be left stripped bare in a final blast of hatred.

Last night I spoke these words and, for the first time, I meant them, “It’s their loss, if they don’t want to know me. I’m a great person.” Not great in achievement, in ego, or perhaps in any other measurable indicator, but in heart and soul, I am powerful, precious, and beautiful.

It only took me forty years to learn that.