Crossword-Solution: OVERCOMPENSATE 14 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 23

Real confidence has a realistic view of itself. It knows what it is capable of and not capable of. Real confidence does not need to overcompensate for anything, it doesn’t have to try harder to be more than what it already is. Real confidence does not beat itself up when it makes a mistake. Real confidence is secure enough to let someone else take the credit for something, without losing its own identity. Real confidence is humble. Real confidence recognizes its weaknesses an…

We’re at this really unique time, I think, in trans representation in popular culture where homelessness, depression, mental health issues, instability-in-general are still so very real and need to be talked about, but we’re aware that they’ve dominated “trans” stories for years and years. And we’re now finally at a place where we’re seeing some really positive representations of trans folks in pop culture, and there’s this new pressure -- at least, I feel it, within trans an…

I often think that the effort we put into trying to pretend something about us is true — that we are less than we are or more than we are or that one aspect of ourselves is the whole story — is based in a fear of being really known, of being truly seen, as we actually are. Perhaps we each have a wound, a vulnerable place that we have to protect in order to survive. And yet sometimes we overcompensate so much for the things we are trying to hide that no one ever suspects the t…