The Center Knows: The Mask

Update (6/10/16): This article describes what one therapist labeled my "Apparently Normal Person" (or ANP). This is my reality, and it is the reality of so many around me. It frightens me that we can be so, so disconnected from one another -- all in order to preserve the appearance of wellness and to continue the belief that if we do not show our pain, we will make the world a better place than if we show it . . . or, if we hide our suffering, somehow it will not burden others.

Nearly three years after this post, I am still struggling to keep the mask on, but it is not working . . .

10/13/13

The mask is fading, and yet I keep holding on to it with great force. For I am afraid to let go, not knowing if I will be able to find and accept the reality of life without its protection. Only love will soothe this kind of pain, this depth of fear I still hold.

I am only a few steps away from being like Cate Blanchett's character in the movie Blue Jasmine. She loses her mask over the course of the movie, and the film ends with her babbling on in endless anxiety - not really connected to anyone. That is how it often feels on the inside for me. Disconnection and dissonance . . . a constant, chaotic storm in my brain.

Sometimes I think it is too late, that love passed me by years and years ago - back in my twenties, when I was the most capable and felt the most free. Now that I am ragged, feeling unattractive - and anything but free - it seems less likely than ever that I will be able to find the love that seemed so readily available back then. I just did not know what I really needed then. I was only subconsciously aware of my desperate need for safety and love, so I pushed it away when it was offered.

Now I feel more alone than I ever have. I am unable to escape my fears, to reach out from behind the mask that protects them, and to find the love I so desperately seek. And it is not from a lack of trying, or even from a lack of giving out love - I do that as much as I possibly am able. I do it with friends, with my children, and at work. And I still am not able to internalize it as anything peaceful.

I am truly desperate on the inside, and yet still portraying some semblance of sanity - or at least attempting to do so - on the outside. It has struck me over the past few days how strong my need to appear well and high-functioning has been for most of my life. It has been the most damaging, yet most reliable narrative that I have clung to in my mind, a place of false security when allowing myself to be genuinely vulnerable seemed far too insecure.

Related to that narrative is my ability to stay dedicated - a somewhat genuine trait that has often been over-directed into my almost compulsive need to appear well. Even in the last nine excruciatingly difficult years of being a single mom, I have never slept in when my kids needed to be somewhere. I have not missed one day of work for any reason except when I had another obligation to meet. I have not once intentionally blown off something I committed to - not once. I did not miss one day of grad school, except for one class that I ended up dropping the semester after I was hospitalized for my severe depression. There is something almost frightening about my ability to stay dedicated, when there has not been one day in those past nine years that I have naturally felt like getting out of bed . . . and here I am still doing it . . . every day that I have someone to accommodate or a commitment to keep. I hope to be able to keep the part that is sincerely attempting to move forward in spite of the desire to shut down. But I need to release that horrible part that is desperate to please and accommodate others in order to be less of a burden, less in the way, less of a problem.

It is only a matter of time before I finally allow myself to fall, unmasked, unable to meet my obligations obediently. I will no longer have energy to hold on to the mask. I will surrender to the depths and finally release it, let it rise to the surface . . .