one thing about people irl is that sure you can have plenty of friends and they can all love you, but no one likes a bore or debbie downer aka if you struggle mentally and they will disappear or not understand if you act as such
they only like a version of you, not the real you
it feels like all my energy goes into that and that happy bright version is not me pretending, it's genuinely a part of me too? but then at night or when I'm not busy I just can't imagine how it was me that was joking around and making everyone laugh, I can't fathom how I seemed so content and put together when I feel this way