Found the perfect description of what happens when we allow a personal flaw or struggle to so dominate our lives that we think everyone else sees us the same way as our inner critic.
This is an excerpt from an interview in Good Weekend (Mar 3, 2007). The subject shares about his sexuality crisis and how he tried to keep it a secret for fear of how others would view him. What's remarkable is that the conclusion he came to could very well apply to our own thorns in the flesh. Replace references to homosexuality with your own particular challenge and see what I mean.
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I've learned since then that the true torture of the closet is that you are at heart a prisoner of yourself: of how you see yourself, and how you imagine others will see you. Homophobia plays a large role, and to that extent it keeps you locked away. The problem is that you eventually see hatred even where it doesn't exist, and become a victim of something you are only guessing is waiting to harm you.
For the duration of the shoot, life felt good nearly all of the time, even with the limitations my heart and mind were placing on it. As the film came to an end, I could look at my life and imagine it as a party, with everyone gathered to celebrate my success. If I excused my secret from the room, asked it to stand outside, I could look around at the gathering that remained and be grateful that I had come so far and built such remarkable friendships. Then I'd invite my secret back inside, and realise that the only person in the room who still hadn't worked out how to like me, was me.
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