They do not just go away like the common cold or a stomach virus, as much as I used to try and convince myself or wish that they do. Mental health conditions can be lifelong battles. There are times I still feel like I need to leave a party because I fear having panic attacks from my social anxiety disorder. There are times I still feel so depressed that I cannot get out of bed and I sleep for 15 hours at a time. There are times I still wake up in a cold sweat and cry from vivid nightmares and flashbacks I cannot control due to my PTSD. They don’t know anyone else is feeling the same exact way they are and so they keep it all inside, behind their masks. That is literally why people feel so alone. Why did I used to hide my struggles? I was just contributing more to the negative stigma that surrounds mental health. That all changed my sophomore year of college when I started opening up with friends and family members about mental health. I was so embarrassed to show that I had struggles, that everything in my life was far from perfect, that I was far from being happy. I would go to therapy secretly each week of freshman year. For anyone else, I seemed like I fit in quickly, but I felt like I was still hiding behind my mask. Instead, I pretended to be this confident, positive, extremely happy person, not showing any signs of weakness or insecurity. Absolutely no one knew that two months before I moved into my tiny dorm room, I was sitting in an even tinier room in the psychiatric unit of a hospital after attempting to take my own life. I came to college and wore this mask the second I stepped foot on the campus.
Wearing my mask from one location to the next, with nowhere to take it off. I acted like I was completely fine, still wanting to fit in and be accepted by people who I should have wanted nothing to do with, and pretended that everything was okay…that I was okay. That I desperately needed someone, anyone.
I would drift through the school days, sitting next to some classmates who were cyberbullying me the night before or, even worse, sitting next to ones that knew it was going on and never said anything or simply asked how I was doing. If one person had asked, “How are you?” I would’ve broken down crying, let it all out, take off my mask, and say I was far from okay. I thought by asking for help, it showed weakness, so I buried it all inside, keeping a fake smile across my face. I joined right into the conversation, ate dinner, went back up to my room, and proceed to cry myself to sleep every single night. My mom and dad would usually be cooking dinner and my brothers and sister were talking about what happened to them that day. They say practice makes perfect and I have had a lot of practice.īack in high school, I would lay in my bed curled up in a tiny ball under all the covers, silently sobbing into my pillow for hours, after reading horrible messages on Facebook from both people I considered “friends” and from people I had never even met before. I would hear my cell phone’s ringtone next to my bed and wait for the torturous notification sound to go off after, letting me know I received another voicemail from a *67 anonymous caller, telling me no one liked me, that I was ugly, or that I should kill myself.Īfter pulling myself together, I would “put on my mask” and walk downstairs into the kitchen, acting completely normal, as if I had just finished my homework. And, if I do say so myself, I am extremely good at it, too good at it. I have worn a mask since my freshman year of high school. So, what do all my pictures have in common? They have always shown me wearing a mask. What if I told you that my pictures from high school don’t tell you that most days I felt like I was hanging on by a single thread? What if I told you that my pictures don’t tell you that I felt so alone? What if I told you my pictures don’t show me physically unable to get out of bed because of my depression? But, if you look at my pictures, they will tell you a thousand different lies. The key word is seem… Because there have been countless times, at least for me, when things are so far from perfect and I have never felt worse. It can make it seem like you are having the time of your life. It can make it seem like you have never been better. It can make it seem like everything is perfect. In fact, a picture can do the exact opposite. “ A picture can tell a thousand words.” But, what people often fail to mention is that it doesn’t necessarily mean the words are telling the truth about that picture. If you or someone you love is having thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK or text NAMI to 741741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor.
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