Terror and Closets: Living out a Lie

This is a thread about that sinking feeling when you find out that something about yourself that you can\'t change, like your beliefs, or tastes, would, if made public, ruin you. Get you ostracised, lose you the respect of people you care about, make you fair game for violent extremists to take down. Your death would be tragic, yes, so very sad, but, on some level, there\'d be an understanding that you deserved it, that it was a natural consequence of you... daring to be yourself.

While you\'re wisely living out a lie, hiding into yourself, you find yourself listening to horrible, inaccurate accusations being said about people who are like you. You can\'t take offence, you can\'t correct them... you can\'t even show sympathy without earning suspicion and disapproval.

This is a thread to discuss different versions of this same feeling, and how to manage it, and remain sane and whole in the process.

We are declining to open this thread. First, because it invites wangsting that belongs, if anywhere, in the Insecurities thread over in Yack Fest (shudder).

Second, because it's an open invitation to discuss stuff that is probably best kept private or between yourself and a therapist, counselor, or priest.

Third, because it's an open invitation to talk about how oppressed you are by the system, which is explicitly against our rules (no "Oppression Olympics").