will you miss her when she's gone?

The shrinks have a name for it: The False Self. It's the mask we put on to prove to other people that we're ok, that we can handle it, that we need nothing and no one and are utterly, totally, completely self-sufficient.

We never break down; we never fail; we never have moments of self-doubt or insecurity. We're always together, with it, controlled, on top of things.

"How are you?" "Fine." What the hell else are you supposed to say? Can I say, "I'm not fine"? Then what? Will you care? Will you just ignore me as if I'd never said a word? Does it make you uncomfortable? Is that my fucking job in life - to never fucking rock the boat? To never let you know that everything's not fine, that there's a crack in the varnish, a hole in the boat?

In fact, there are thousands of holes in the boat. So many they can never be repaired. She's sinking, slowly but surely, lower in the water every day. One day you'll look out there, toward the familiar profile of her gunwale against the sky, and there'll be nothing - just a blank space where she used to float. And you won't really feel anything, because you knew all about it - you expected it, all along, it was just a matter of time

Sure there's a brief lump in your throat, it takes you a while to adjust to the new view - that smooth expanse of nothingness where once there used to be a human being.

But you fill the gap quickly with the usual busyness and distraction, and before you know it she's but a faint memory, as if she never existed. Which she never did anyway, except as a sort of vague image in your mind's eye, an idea, a concept. She was never real to you in any way, shape or form. You always kept her at a distance, like the boat - a safe distance away from shore, so you'd never have to really see what terrible shape she was in, how her paint had peeled, her boards rotted, her oarlocks gone and her rope frayed and knotted from breaking so many times. Maybe she didn't sink - maybe she drifted away with the tide. Who knows.
***

The shrinks make it sound as if people with a False Self are an anomaly, are unusual, the exception to the rule.

I would argue that, no, it's just the opposite - we're expected to put on a false self by our whole culture. People spend their entire lives creating these images of who they think they should be, propping them up on the lawn like cardboard cutouts to distract everyone from what's really going on.

Those of us who try to be real, who bleed and cry and ask for help - we're merely seen as weak, as pathetic, as losers. People move away from us, embarrassed by our need and helplessness. They turn away in shame, afraid that somehow our bad luck will rub off on them and they'll catch it too, like some communicable disease.
***

The fact is, no one cares whether I sink or swim. People reach out, but it's always a one-shot deal - there's no continuity, no long-term connection. Relationships seem to be about as strong as wet tissue paper. The people who stay in relationships all seem to have made some kind of deal with the devil that I simply can't stomach: One or the other of them has to suck it up in a way that must be like swallowing broken glass every day. Every relationship I see seems to have some kind of massive power imbalance that totally fucking sucks.

I don't think I'm even capable of falling in love any more - I feel so completely disillusioned and let down about everything. Nothing makes sense; nothing adds up. I feel like I've been wandering, drifting most of my life, looking for some port to anchor in, a safe haven, a place to be out of the weather.
***

The thing is, when you grow up in a family where nobody has your back, nobody sticks up for you, nobody's there to catch you when you fall - you develop this prickly self-defensiveness born out of the inablity to ever truly relax, ever feel truly safe or at home with yourself.

Because no one seems to 'get' you, to be there for you, to understand or care about what you might be going through, even in the most superficial, "I'm curious about that" sort of way - well, you begin to feel like you don't exist. Like you're not there. Like no one can see or hear you.

And you begin to get angry about that, because people are always stepping on you, tripping over you, acting like you're this invisible person that no one can see.

At some point you begin to believe that there must be something severely wrong with you, like you're defective in some way, that you're just simply wrong. As if your very existence was a mistake, an error, something to be deleted from the ledger of life at someone's earliest convenience.