It's hard to describe the impact of: - learning that the way you are is not OK - teaching yourself to fake being someone else - but not being able to fake it perfectly - and not being able to stop faking it around others even though it's horribly corrosive to your well-being - still having people misunderstand you and hold you to impossible standards - rinsing, repeating until you crash and burn - having to explain what happened to incredulous people who think you're "normal"