Pretending to have my sh!t together to the world had me falling into a heap when I'd shut the door in my one bedroom apartment. The fake-ness and inauthenticity was haunting me and I kept people at go-go-gadget's arms length so they couldn't see the real me. I would deflect conversations away from myself, defend my reasons for shutting people out and was defiant in many ways. But as always, something's gotta give and the loneliness I felt was too painful to bear.