I am decluttering at the moment, and I am very surprised by some of the things I am finding. I have been shuffling about in the same rags for years now, since I did not consider it worthwhile to dress when nobody was going to see me, and I had thought that I needed to look at buying clothing.

Obviously, since I am losing rather a lot of weight at the moment – replacing the icon and logo with a new image is the current priority for the website – I do not want to buy anything.  The plan is to emerge as a completely new visual concept before I let Ina out in public, which takes a lot of work.

To my surprise, I find that I am quite a snappy dresser, and had twenty pairs of fairly nice trousers.  I also had a full cupboard full of jumpers.

The biggest surprise today is that I am clearly very kinky, and have a couple of dozen items of very restrictive underwear.  I haven’t worn any of it, so it is all brand new and in a variety of sizes.  Evidently my alter ego/non-repressed self is quite a gal.

Caring for others involves a lot of hiding your personality. There is no point in tarting yourself up to be covered in half digested food, poo or anything else, so you end up shuffling about in your studio clothing, if you happen to be me.  Even when I go out for my twice daily walk I am in glue covered clothing.  This is how I end up with three wardrobes full of clothing that I barely remember – there is no reason for wearing any of it.

I suppose this is why they try to insist that you have a day off now and again.  It doesn’t seem terribly relevant when you redirect your life around constraints you have had no control over.  I didn’t even insist on privacy until a couple of years ago, so it was necessary to hide any aspect of personality from any potential intruders.  I like to leave a pair of vibrams out now, since it disgusts my sisters.  Beyond that, I try not to tell anyone anything.

The point of hiding behind Ina, was to express myself without interference.  It turns out that even I was interfering, since I have clearly been hiding things even from myself.  Obviously, I was aware of my sexual proclivities in the past, but I hadn’t realised quite how much I was avoiding thinking about it because of sheer misery.

Distracting yourself with friends does not help with this, since naturally you concentrate on more sociable topics.  I certainly don’t discuss my sexuality with my exs, since they are either aware or were not capable of dealing with it.

So, I wonder, have you considered what you are avoiding by hiding behind your depression?  Would it help to identify and indulge whatever that is?