PS C:\> tar -xf Faking_It_Not_Making_It_v1.zip

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Application_Install.exe

I killed the pattern of performing for other people. That part is real and it stayed dead. But somewhere in the healing, I started performing for myself and for the world watching, hand hearts, big smiles, always happy, always spreading love. The love is real. The smile was covering something the love couldn’t reach.

I have been telling myself and everyone else I am more healed than I actually am, while crying the second the camera goes down. This is me taking the mask off in public, on purpose, because I can’t keep healing while I’m still performing healed.

That is the application. The rest is the source code.

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Source_Code.txt

The open-source code below is free, for you to analyze, modify, and build your own application with.

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> what I already promised myself: tuos_promises.log

In TuOS, I have written:

I am being my true self instead of performing as something I am not. I am no longer performing a persona to please people. I am no longer auditioning for love. I am no longer making myself into whatever someone needs me to be to avoid abandonment, rejection, or loss of love. I am no longer pretending to be someone I am not just to avoid being alone.

And I have written:

I am eliminating my pattern of performing personas to please people.

> the version I said out loud: apexis_record.log

In Apexis, I wrote:

I am showing up honestly with myself and others.

I am feeling free as a bird from my old toxic patterns and behaviors.

I am being real, not performative.

I am communicating my struggles, challenges, wants, needs, and feelings, openly and promptly, instead of avoiding them and holding them in.

I am facing my shadows and I am tending to them as I discover them.

I am allowing myself to grieve my losses. I am letting my tears out instead of bottling them up.

I AM NOW AUTHENTICALLY AND GENUINELY WHO I REALLY AM AT THE CORE.

> the pattern I didn't count: undetected_process.exe

At the end of June I said “Not a single identified pattern repeated.” I have said similar words in several posts.

So in terms of identified patterns, specifically performing as someone I am not to keep others happy, I haven’t repeated it. However, comma, I have been putting on a show for myself and making it visible to everyone for months. Not for their happiness, or approval, or for fear of rejection from them. But more for fear of shame. Mostly internal shame. And the self-hatred that goes with it. The shame and self-hatred that has led to the death of every relationship.

> the show was still running: hidden_process.exe

I have been putting on a show for myself and the public. Hand hearts. I love you in ASL in every selfie. Big smiles. Fun moments. Always happy. Always happy. Always spreading love. The hand gestures are 100% real and so is the love I spread. It’s genuine and authentic. I really do love and wish happiness and less suffering for everyone.

But the smiles and fun moments? They were the mask covering up the deep pain, sadness, sorrow, and grief inside.

> what got ripped out: missing_files.log

8 months I blew up my life and the partnership I deeply valued. I lost a special woman in seconds. I lost my identity in the days and weeks following. I lost most of my friends and all but two genetic relatives. And it has destroyed my heart. I have been faking it until I make it. Thinking if I just emulated the feelings I want to have, they would somehow manifest into actual reality.

But they haven’t.

I look at my selfies and tell myself how happy and healed I am. I am happier in my life with the healing work I have done. I am happier because of sobriety and better mental health stability. I am happier in many ways. I have healed a lot and am continuing to heal every day. So in that aspect I am happy and more healed.

But there is a sucking lung wound where I ripped my former partner, friends, family, communities, events, activites, and other things out of my life. Some were absolutely necessary. The friends who kept me in my patterns needed to go. Same with the family and some communities who continued to light my nervous system on fire.

But one part that I cut loose, I am still grappling with. I am still deeply hurt and confused by that decision. I still carry regret, guilt, and deep remorse every day. Blowing up the partnership has led me to great amounts of healing, which I am grateful to have had the opportunity and motivation to do that work, but I still don’t feel in any way, shape, or form that blowing up the life I had with this special woman, and blowing up her life, was the right move or necessary for me (or her) to reduce our own suffering and increase our happiness.

This work could have been done in partnership, instead I threw that all away in a split-second destructive decision because I had become overwhelmed from running away from my problems and avoiding all accountability for the impact of them.

I have sat with this for 8 months now. There hasn’t been more than 15 minutes that have passed by at any time in that entire 240-day period where I haven’t felt the weight of my decision, the guilt, the remorse, the regret, and the consequences of it. Often times, its not even five minutes between waves of these feelings crushing me inside.

> the two words that won't quit: error_state.log

It eats me alive. Today it came to the surface in a hard heavy cry. And another one moments later. Two hours after that, I felt so heavy that I couldn’t bear sleeping in my tent another night. I promptly tore down my camp, threw everything in my car haphazardly as fast as possible, and drove off.

My mind is still grappling with the reality that what I had and was special to me, may very well be totally destroyed and gone forever. No matter how healed I am. No matter how much I have changed. No matter how many patterns I have eliminated. No matter how sober I am. No matter how stable my mental health is. No matter what amends I have made. No matter how hurt or healed they are.

We may never be able to look at eachother, have a conversation, or make any kind of contact, let alone heal any of the damage that exists between us. There may be permanent tension and devastation between us that is forever unresolvable.

“There may” I say. That is the part my brain gets stuck in. The part that keeps the grief alive and burning a hole in me. The part that makes me want to believe I am healed and happier. If I am all the positive things, then “there may” be a chance that we would be able to find a way to discuss the things that never got discussed and we both may be able to find closure to that chapter of our lives and actually heal and be happy. Even if we aren’t together. Even if we say what we need to say and never say anything else again. My brain can’t understand the concept of a person being physically alive AND permanently gone from my life. Amplified by the fact that I was the one that killed it. It’s worse than death of a loved one. Because the possibility of the loss being reversed always exists. Even the most damaged relationships still have a chance, even if microscopic, of resuming in a better and healed way.

This specific loss has hit me harder than anything that has ever happened to me prior to it. Nothing has compared. Nothing has hurt more. Nothing has shook me to the core this way.

Nothing has broken my heart the way that this loss has.

> mask.exe has stopped responding: force_quit.log

So I’m done posting selfies for a while. Done posting adventures and fun memories. Done with the healed and happy posts. And back to the heavy grief. For as long as it lasts and as long as I need to move through it. I can’t do the healing work while avoiding the grief. And I also feel that avoiding the grief for a bit has allowed the space I needed to do some healing work. They hold hands with eachother. And now I am transitioning back into grief and doing the work around it, so I can eventually have the space to do healing work around other things.

I’m not living in my codependency and people pleasing performance patterns. But I am living in a pattern of telling myself and the world that I am very happy and very healed, while quietly crying and hurting every fucking moment outside of the selfie camera view. I have done immense amounts of work and found happiness I have never had, but nothing close to the levels I am telling myself and the world about. I’m not being honest with myself. I’m not being honest with others.

I’m faking it and not making it. And that mask is off and I am not going to put it back on again. That is the healing I need to do to find the happiness I want to feel.

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