For me:
- feeling the contradictory urges to show my true self to others and to hide my true feelings, thoughts and preferences in order to not only avoid conflict, but to avoid rubbing others the wrong way or drawing too much attention to myself as well.
- the challenge of tearing down the beautiful illusion of connection in order to have the building ground for real connections.
having trouble revealing my true self (and to a lesser extent, a tendency to idealize certain others) can make it difficult to form deep, sincere relationships. If I have special feelings for someone (romantic or not), I'm especially reluctant to reveal anything that the other person would dislike about me, even if it's something that's essential to who I am. It's like part of me wants to hold onto the pleasant illusion of perfect connection with the other person, rather than facing the messier reality of who we both are and recognizing the areas where we haven't connected yet, which is necessary to form genuine connections (that become deeper over time rather than becoming stagnant and insincere), but could also result in unresolvable conflict, finding that you're just too different and that the desired level of understanding is unlikely to be obtained, and total separation (someone leaving).
- sometimes, an inability to feel life as deeply as I want to. I feel more numb to the highs and lows than I once did.