trying to control WHAT others appreciate about you is one thing.

but believing that you don’t deserve appreciation simply for normal human qualities is QUITE another, particularly if it causes to try to control what others appreciate about you.

it might even lead you to not present yourself for a great many experiences, because you think that all you have to offer is being abnormal, extreme, crazy, weird, special, different. (it’s not like people didn’t make me feel guilty for being normal as a child, nor appreciate me only when I was special and different (they did, and they did, nor is it like many of my interests genuinely were and ARE in things that are less common and normal than some.)

…