Behind every mask.

We all hide behind the masks that we wear; more often than not we are unfortunately hiding than being our true selves. We do it to protect ourselves, to show the person that we would like to be, to cover the way we truly feel or maybe to try and make ourselves feel better. There can be many individual reasons as to why we put on our masks and which mask we put on.
A couple of the girls at work always say things to me like, “you are always so happy”, “can I have some of what you’re having”, “you are always singing”, now unfortunately if truth be know this is more than likely them responding to one of my masks, I am in general a happy person but quite often can be hiding behind my happy persona. As my good friends know I often use humour to hide my true emotions or to help me through difficult situations, I was in a motorbike accident a few years back and for the whole experience, from initial impact and during my time in hospital I didn’t take off my humour and happy mask until I was left on my own, I was the only patient on the night in A&E laughing and joking with the doctors and nurses, when I got sent down for the required surgery the anaesthetist couldn’t believe I hadn’t been given any drugs other than an asprin because I was so happy and care free, he even phoned through to A&E to check. In this situation I believe I wore my mask to try and protect those that I loved from worrying about me and to lighten the whole situation.
I truly believe that you can find good in most if not all situations and always try to find the silver lining, granted sometimes you really have to look and really want to find that glimmer of hope, but it is always there although sometimes it doesn’t seem apparent until after the event.
I believe that life makes us into the person that we are today, and it is how we deal with life that builds our character. I have always said that age does not guarantee wisdom but life does. The way I respond to a sad event, in public, maybe completely different from someone else, and maybe that is a bad thing; maybe I should feel free to show my true feelings at the specific time. But I have become accustomed to dealing with things, as we all have, in my own way, I protect myself by wearing a mask and only when I feel safe do I remove it. This is something that I have always done and is probably considered a very male trait. During my college years I was one of only a few guys in my class and in my circle of friends I was the only guy. I always felt that I had to be the strong one and in some Neolithic way thought it my job to protect those around me. I have become very adept at burying my true feelings and emotions, keeping them hidden from sight and only ever letting them out in what I would probably perceive as a moment of weakness. This is true for the deepest of my emotions, you will still catch me crying through my favourite weepie film or at a story of heroic exploits, my heart strings are often tugged and often display themselves in a physical way, but to get to the roots of my feelings you would need to dig deeper than just a tear wiped from my cheek.

Maybe all this means I am a difficult person to know, or to know well, but that is what makes my close friends close friends. They have gone to the effort to know me, they have been with me through some of lifes attacks and victories and now know that in a moment of trauma that I am feeling the pain and sorrow even if my outward persona doesn’t display it. We do what we do to survive, some of us need to show our emotions to others, some of us bottle them up and store them away, some of us, like me put on a brave face and then in a private time grieve. I don’t see a problem with the first and third of these, the second can be a hazardous path, emotions need to be released for us to deal with them. If you bottle up your emotions and store them one day you will run out of room, and the next time you open your cupboard door to put away another bottled emotion you may find them all come crashing down on you.

Deal with your emotions as you see fit, but they must be released, either in private or with trusted loved ones.

Emotions that are kept locked away will one day try to break free and in doing so may just break you.