If you had asked most people how I was doing in high school, they probably would have told you I was fine.
Actually, they probably would have told you I was doing great.
I got good grades, I was very involved in activities, I had great friends, I showed up to school every day, I helped my parents out around the house and with my siblings, I looked exactly like the kind of student adults and parents don’t worry about.
The problem was that almost none of those people knew what was actually happening underneath the surface.
In middle school, we learned what depression was, what anxiety was, and what kind of impact it can have on people. I learned it, said “okay, cool,” then moved on with my life. I went along thinking that I was fine most of the time. Sure, occasionally I was sad or didn’t want to do something, but that was normal. But then COVID hit. And I REALLY learned what depression was. Because I experienced it in my everyday life.
I talked to my friends everyday, I helped around the house when we were doing online learning, I would go to school and activities once we were allowed back for in-person learning, I got a job, I had sleepovers, I went on trips with my friends, and it was great!
Being an A-student was also a lot of work, but was manageable. I turned my assignments in on time, I answered questions in class, I had conversations with my friends when we were supposed to be working, I was regularly starting and running a club with my friends, I was applying for colleges, I was meeting all my graduation requirements, I was singing in the choir – and being choir president for two years.
But I also had days where I didn’t want to get out of bed, days where I didn’t want to talk to people, days where I would turn on music in my earbuds and hope that no one talked to me so I didn’t have to have a conversation with them. Days where I would stay up super late doom scrolling in my bed until the early hours of the night where I forced myself to sleep for maybe two or three hours before I had to be up for school the next day. Days where I would intentionally not do my school work because I just had no energy to do them – or even fake doing them in front of others.
But no one saw that side of me, because no one was looking for it. But also, no one saw that side of me because I got so good at hiding it and acting like I was okay in front of everyone.
One of the hardest things about depression when you’re good at masking is that people don’t stop checking on you because they’re bad people. They stop checking on you because you’ve convinced them you don’t need it.
I stopped going to therapy because I was “getting better,” I lowered my medication dosage because it was “helping.” I was keeping my grades up, showing up to activities, and doing everything I was supposed to be doing, so everyone assumed I must be doing better. The problem was that none of those things actually meant that I was okay.
The strange thing about masking is that it works. That’s why people do it. That’s why I did it.
It helps you fit in, it helps you avoid uncomfortable conversations, it helps you avoid judgement.
But eventually, you can get so good at performing a version of yourself to other people that you start losing track of what parts are actually you.
And that’s what happened to me.
I forgot who I was.
I couldn’t properly express myself. I couldn’t distinguish between my real emotions and the fake ones I was portraying, let alone feel emotions in the first place. I learned how to slip into the mask automatically when I woke up, and only let it fall once everyone was in bed and I could just exist in the dark of the night by myself. I lost sleep because my thoughts were always racing so much that I ended up staying awake until I crashed every night. I used music as my lifeline so much that sometimes it felt like I could only express myself through my music (not that I actually expressed myself anyway).
There were days where all I did was listen to music – on the bus on the way to school, during my classes when I was supposed to be learning, on the bus on the way home, in my car in between campuses, during club meetings, at home, in bed trying to fall asleep. It literally became my lifeline. It was the only thing that helped to silence the depression, the doubt, the anxiety, and the hopelessness.
Looking back now, I can see that the scariest part wasn’t the depression itself. It was how normal all of it started to feel.
When you’ve been masking so long, you stop questioning it. You stop noticing how much energy it takes, you stop realizing other people aren’t constantly monitoring every facial expression, every reaction, every conversation, and every emotion before they show it to the world. It consumes you until you don’t even know who you are.
I thought everyone was doing what I was doing for so long. I thought everyone was exhausted all of the time. I thought everyone felt disconnected from themselves.
My default response when someone asked how I was became “I’m tired.” It became such a normal part of my life that no one questioned it when I said it. People started expecting the response when they asked me how I was. They tried making jokes about how “one of these days you’ll say something other than ‘I’m tired.’”
It wasn’t until much later that I realized how much of my energy was being spent trying to look okay instead of actually being okay. And the weird thing is that once you realize you’re doing it, it doesn’t just magically stop.
Every time I noticed myself masking, I would just get onto myself for not being able to actually express how I felt or tell someone how I actually was, or what I was really going through. I knew I wasn’t being honest, but I also didn’t know how to stop. By that point, masking felt less like a choice and more like a reflex.
Even after catching myself saying “I’m tired” so much, I didn’t want to change what I said. Every time I said something different, they would respond with “Hey you said something different for once!” What people don’t realize, though, is that having that reaction just forced me back into myself. I felt like I couldn’t change from my normal response after that because people would expect something from me, and I couldn’t even expect anything from myself at that point – let alone have the energy to think about what other people expected out of me.
I still catch myself doing it sometimes. The masking. I still have moments where my instinct is to tell people I’m fine when I’m not. I still have moments where it’s easier to make a joke, change the subject, or throw myself into helping someone else over talking about my own problems.
The difference now is that I recognize it.
I know what it looks like, I know what it feels like, and I know that pretending I’m okay doesn’t actually make me okay.
If anything, I’ve learned that the people who care about me would rather know the truth than the version of me that I think they’re expecting to see. And I definitely lost some friends along the way once they found out how I really felt, but honestly, I would rather not have them in my life than have to fake who I really am in front of them.
That’s probably the biggest thing I wish people would understand about masking.
Sometimes the people who seem the most okay are the ones working the hardest to convince everyone that they are.
The student who always gets good grades, the friend who always checks on everyone else, the kid involved in every activity, the person who is always smiling.
And if you’re reading this because you recognize yourself in some of these experiences, I want you to know something I wish someone had told me years ago.
You do not have to earn support by falling apart in front of people. You do not have to wait until things get unbearable to ask for help. And you do not have to keep carrying everything by yourself just because you’ve gotten good at making it look easy.
For a long time, everyone thought I was doing fine. The truth is, I wasn’t.
But the truth is also that things started getting better when I stopped trying so hard to make everyone believe they already were. And it turns out being seen for who you actually are is a lot less exhausting than pretending to be someone you’re not.
Talk soon,
Sophea
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