On the extreme ends of the same spectrum

I have this crazy recurring dream of sorts (it happens when I'm awake not when I'm asleep...still it's an imagining that is far short of a "day dream" since it's more of a nightmare). Regardless of what I should call it, it is awful. I fear it.  And it's rather simple.  A friend or family member says, "Oh, Alicia, it's so good you're still the same old Alicia." No one has said this to me. But I fear it.

I am not the same.  Yet if you ask me exactly how I have changed, I fumble around for the specifics. So many ways. So many ways.

I've moved to the extremes, I believe. And--here's what's strange--it's the extremes on both ends of the same spectrum.
I am stronger and I am broken.
I am more compassionate and I am more judgmental.
I am much more open and I am much more private.
I stress much less and I worry much more.
I am much more thankful and I ask for much more in life (more than it can now give me).

And now the big question...why worry about whether other people "see" me now or not? Who cares, right? Well, that's tricky. We all want to be seen of course. (Sadly how deeply do we really get to know many of the people in our lives?) What's complicated is that all the people in my life want me to be happy again; they desperately want to believe that "I'm all better" and being "just the same" would prove that really. All of that bothers me because it feels like they are forgetting Miles and they aren't seeing me because they so blindly believe I'm "all better." But loss and grief are already so damn isolating. I feel that I've seen into this place that not many other people see. And if someone believes me to be the-same-old-me...well, then, I'm just all the more alone...in all my extreme-ness.