how can I stop this madness?

the endless anguish it causes!

fear of losing my mind, my sanity --

has made me aware of everything around me;

yet I remain blind to what is right before my eyes.

I open my heart, here and now, to show you all

what I have buried deep down inside of me;

you will know all of my weaknesses, even if

they may prove me a pitiful, shameful being.

How can anyone be expected to be passive and submissive and follow what is required of them when their very own nature defies it? I did that for a long time, you know. I did that for at least 10 years. It wasn't easy, but from the beginning I was only a child and I wanted to please everyone, I wanted to make everyone happy with me, and I thought that if I could only try, I would somehow gradually become who they wanted me to be. It was the only thing I ever knew, apart from who my parents were.

People churn out so much junk in order to finally produce something beautiful and wonderful. Sometimes it's just cleansing to get rid of some stuff and try to start anew in some way. I've done that with my old journals. From time to time I go through them and I'll rip out a page or two and shred them into teeny tiny pieces with my own hands and throw them away. It's not like they held anything remotely important. Sometimes it was a doodling here, an angry scribbling such as "F--k this!" there. Sometimes it was a string of incoherent thoughts mashed together. I've whittled it all down to a boxful, for now. And that's from 6th grade to senior year.

I've recently taken a few personality tests online, and the results have turned out to be pretty accurate so far. One of the results showed that I was a "Reserve", which means that I tend to hide myself so well from other people that I also end up hiding from myself as well. I tend to push down some of my feelings that often I don't even know what I am really feeling until later, much later. And it is true. I have noticed this about myself, but I've always thought of it as being a small, unsignificant part of myself. But I'm starting to realize that I always do this. And my husband knows me so well that he knows what I'm going to feel before I even know it. It's funny because when he confronts me with my feelings, I'm always like, no! that's not true! I don't feel that! and he'll stare at me with this yeah, right! expression. It's pretty scary that he knows me so well, and I really don't like it at all. I'm totally uncomfortable with it. But I can't really do anything about it, except get used to it. We've got a great marriage, we have a great life, and I would never risk it for anything so stupid.