I don't think anyone has ever or will ever see my true self. They just see various extents of it, with ex-T being someone I trusted and loved enough to show a great degree of. Don't get me wrong - it's not that I don't care for her enough to show her the true me, but that I was never comfortable showing off this side of myself. To a certain degree, I've always been ashamed of it. The true "me" to me is the angry and scared little girl living day-in and day-out in an abusive situation, who is defiant to her parents and was a little tyrant among her peers. As time went on I learnt to mask the outward signs of disagreeableness with social adequacy and wry humour and this is what my ex-T saw even when I was describing my greatest trials to her. She has picked up on the disconnect between what I'm saying I feel and what I express in our interactions as I see the forced smile she puts on to mirror mine.

But then and again, what or who is actually the true me? I've spent so long living in between these different skins that they've sort of melded together at the seams and undermine one another without my conscious knowledge. I guess the "false" me is in fact not really that false today but initially emerged as an alter ego when I first began to control my anger/destructive tendencies so as to fit in. She began as a separate identity in a way but over time the two identities came together much more naturally. Even though I still keep up public appearances (a practice enforced by my mother "so others will not laugh at me" but actually to protect herself), I slip much easier into the role of the socially apt person now.