I recently read The Church of 80% Sincerity by David Roche. I picked it up after reading a chapter in Anne Lamott’s book Plan B about Roche and how he had inspired her. His book was extremely interesting and touching as he walked through his life and reflected on how he’d come to create his “Church of 80% Sincerity”. It is a real church, to him, it more or less exist in his head, and the heads of others who’ve come to embrace the lessons and rules of living that he found have helped him to both cope and thrive in life.
Roche has a sever facial deformity. A bit of what he talks about centers around how that has impacted his life, but much of it is in a sort of retrospective fashion. He actually never talked about his face (beyond a brief physical explanation) to any friends, including a spouse, until he was forty-something. He grew up with what he’d described as a surprisingly normal childhood. His parents were very encouraging and he learned from them not to say anything about his deformity, because they never did.
What built up though, was years of unprocessed thoughts, deep feelings of pain and questioning that he could share with no one. And what is conveyed through the story, is that they are the same depths of insecurity that we almost all have. Roche points out that the out front physical deformity he carries serves as a mirror to the many inward insecurities that so many face.

It’s a great book and you should read it.