Quote from Anais Nin

I find that many of my clients are not a fan of small talk. The idle chatter of surface things seems foreign and uninteresting.

That is often because so much of their lives has been lived behind a mask and now that they realize it was a mask, they no longer want the falsity. The mask can feel quite painful and distasteful.

They wear a mask because growing up in their home it was not safe to be their authentic selves, or people in their lives need them to be okay and not admit how much they are struggling.

They wear a mask because their authentic gender and/or sexual orientation was not acknowledged or seen as okay, or they did not want to hurt or confuse their loved ones by being their authentic selves.

They wear a mask because they are Autistic and had to learn to hide their true way of being because it was disturbing to others and they were told it was wrong.

They wear a mask because they learned they would only be loved if they were what others needed.

There are so many reasons they have had to wear a mask, and once they start to lay that mask down, they often don’t want to pick it up again. And that is okay.