The biggest laughs often mask the deepest pain. There you are each morning, brushing your teeth and putting on a perfect smile all the way out the door. To the outside, you’re completely put together. You have a job, you remember your friends’ birthdays and you give great advice when someone else is in crisis. But beneath this absurd, streamlined functionality there is a deep malaise that absolutely de-spirits you. There is a heavy weight on your chest that nobody can see. Welcome to the complicated, unseen world of hidden depression.
Human psychology leads us to think that depression has a clear picture, like someone unable to leave their bed. Sadness, we expect, should be apparent. Mental health, however, is seldom that straightforward. Hidden depression, also called smiling depression, is a disguise artist. It enables a person to engage with everyday life while feeling entirely empty inside. To really get this secret war, we have to peek behind the scenes of that unflagging performance and look at the unexpected strengths that come from pain, and find out beautiful ways to really heal.
The Draining Experience of the Show
If there is a worst side effect of hidden depression, it is the degree of total isolation that produces. Because when you do your life well, no one thinks to ask if you are secretly drowning. You turn into the strong one, the person that keeps everybody else from breaking down. Since you never drop a single ball, the world just keeps tossing more things at you. You lose the battle, excruciatingly pace around in your head all day and plaster a pleasant smile on your face.
This daily performance takes an incredible amount of mental and physical energy. Human psychology knows this as cognitive dissonance, the painful chasm between how you present yourself to the world and how you feel inside. Hints like saying “no” to one more form of self-care, exercising or attempting to make a run for it before the stresses of home grind you down again if you succeed. And suddenly you’re staring at a wall, completely incapable of making even the most basic decision about what to eat for dinner. You are not merely tired; your bones feel weighed down with a fatigue that cannot be cured by sleep.
“We are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.” — Ernest Hemingway
The bodily struggle of this performance dramatically erodes your mental health. Your brain interprets this ongoing masking as a high-stakes survival challenge. It inundates your body with stress hormones. You coexist with a brittle, hard knot in your stomach and a crushing weight in your chest. And when you do find the courage to remotely indicate that you are struggling with it, people tend to not take it seriously. They cite your career, your social life or the fact that you have a spotless house as evidence that you are doing just fine. This invalidation plunges you further into the dark. You start to feel that your pain is not valid, or even more perniciously, that you don’t deserve help because you’re not the traditional image of a person in trauma.
Reality Check: Having to be productive is not the same as peace. The capacity for doing tasks, meeting deadlines and smiling in conversation is not a relevant indicator of mental wellness.” You can be the most successful person in the room and also desperately need a life raft.
The Empathic Guardian
It seems like a very strange time to try and look for a silver lining of this weighty, tiring disease. The human mind is a highly complex, extraordinarily resilient organ, though. The same psychological mechanisms that leave you with existential ache also create some of your most beautiful, powerful qualities. Your mind is on a very reactive frequency. Yes, this sensitivity is internally quite painful, but it also brings with it stunning compassion, emotional intelligence and brutal love for others.
A mind working around hidden depression is an intensely observant mind. You pick up on the subtle change in a friend’s tone of voice. You know exactly how to include that person standing awkwardly at the edge of the room. You know just how it feels to hurt in secret, so you do your utmost to make the people around you feel safe, seen and welcomed. The pain that you keep secret makes you an unyielding, ever fierce and compassionate protector of others.
Additionally, the armor you put on daily is a heavy load. You face days that seem completely unmanageable, but you show up anyway. You continue to show kindness to strangers. You still add to this world. That takes a level of grit and resilience that’s just staggering. You’re not weak for being depressed; you are impressively strong for bearing such weight with such deep grace.
“The bravest thing I ever did was keep on living when I wanted to die.” — Juliette Lewis
When the things that might be hidden in your depression are put under a microscope, you can see that it actually is telling you what you want, which is a connection to happiness and joy. You wear a smile, because you are the one who is more about harmony and wants to keep those you love be at peace. Your brain is stuffing noble qualities, loyalty, strength, love and transporting them under the duress of exceptional pressure.
In short buddy : Your pain doesn't determine who you are, but the way you love others when you're hurting says a great deal about your precious heart. You don’t need to be kind, brilliant or successful for sadness. You own the goodness, not the depression.
The Possibilities: Knowing When to Take the Mask Off
The moment you realize that you don’t have to earn your right to exist through unceasing, perfect performance is the moment proper mental wellness begins. Which is not to say that recovering from a hidden depression means you will suddenly no longer care about your life or the people in it. It means you will learn to take care of yourself with that very same zeal and energy you use to protect everyone else.
Then the road to recovery begins when you begin questioning the rigid code written by your depression. You have to practice intentionally pulling the mask up just for a few moments at a time. Start with something incredibly small. Tell a trusted friend that you’re just having a bad day. Leave a single chore undone. Give yourself permission to feel angry or hurt, frustrated or deeply sad without having to immediately fix the emotion.
Your nervous system will first ring alarm bells when you do this. Your brain will be screaming that vulnerability is a recipe for disaster. But sitting with your discomfort, you will see the world continue to spin. The sky will not fall. Your friends aren’t going anywhere. This gentle, deliberate honesty rewires your brain at a time when the neuroscience behind the practice was still nascent. It tells your nervous system that you’re safe, even in those times when you aren’t pretending to be all-perfectly-happy.
Engagement with professional support for mental wellness provides a necessary, stabilizing space for this work. A therapist offers a space where you don’t have to put on a smile. You can take a seat, you can sit down and just say that you are tired. Therapy allows you to disassociate your true self from the cheerful persona you project. You get to know the warning physical signals of a depressive crash and apply somatic tools to comfort your body. You learn to be able to breathe deeply into the belly, communicating with your brain that the immediate pressure has passed.
A Softer, More Realistic Life
For years, you’ve made a theater of your own mind and body where the curtain doesn’t drop. You have borne the heavy, invisible burden of making sure everyone and everything is perfectly comfortable to your own direct detriment. But you are a human being, worthy of rest, grace and unapologetic quiet.
Mental wellness is not about healing yourself so that you can bear even more. It is about the practice of setting the heavy bags down. You are allowed to be messy. You do not have to know the answer. You are allowed to cancel because you feel like a sack of potatoes, too heavy to move.
That move from simply acting to also engaging in life is an utterly brave act. You will feel immensely exposed, and vulnerable as you gradually peel back the heavy armor of the concealed smile. But the life underneath that armor is one of true peace. You will find that the people who really care love you for your true, messy heart, not for your perfect score. Take a big breath, let go of the mask and give yourself the deep luxury of just being you. The world will hold you even when you stop holding it all together.
Sign in to leave a comment.