On that note I also realized how much I used to mask when I was young in ways I hadn’t even realized. I always wondered why some of my stories/projects sucked so much and lost so much of my usual whimsy (however poorly executed at the time) and then realized those were all stories I wrote with others. I even explicitly remember feeling like I had to match their creativity/ideas/style, even in CREATIVE PROJECTS, otherwise it wouldn’t be “fair to others” (if I outshone them) and they might feel bad about themselves. And then that made me realize just how much I must have been doing that in my interactions outside of creating too. I watered myself down so much to fit in. I didn’t allow myself to show I was good at something because I realized it made me not fit in anymore. I knew who I was when alone but around others I felt like I was practically nobody, because I would’ve been too much had I really existed, and I couldn’t find a replacement identity