The “mask”

Please hear what I’m not saying. Don’t be fooled by the face I wear, for I wear a mask. I tell you everything that’s really nothing, and nothing of what’s everything, of what’s crying within me.

– The “mask”

Ever since I first thought of suicide, no maybe even before that, I put on the “mask”. For me this social “mask” that I wear has probably caused me a whole lot more damage than hurt, yet everyday when I step out of my bed in the morning, I still put on this “mask”, even if it’s covered in thorns. Why? This “mask” that I wear only makes me seem happy, okay, normal even, it’s not like I couldn’t survive without it (although there is a chance that I wouldn’t be alive without it).

How I see it, this “mask” protects me from getting the blunt side of how society, especially kids my age (13) see depression, suicide and just mental disorders in general. It gives you a feeling like, ‘If I wear this “mask” no one will know I hate dragging through life everyday, and so no one will ridicule me because of that.’ Probably ever since mental disorders came to be widely-known (not well known – since we all know about the ignorant things people say about suicide – just known), there’s been a stigma attached to being open about your mental illness. After I told my teacher and the VP that I cut, they acted like they were walking on eggshells when they were near me. I could practically hear them saying “Oh be careful, she’s depressed, you don’t want to set her off!” So obviously, I didn’t tell them I was suicidal on top of that! I hated being treated like that, it made me feel inferior and guilty, like I couldn’t take them just acting normally around me, so I forced other people to go out of their way to be careful around me. Not to mention, my “mask” makes me feel like I am simply a coward for telling anyone, even if both the adults in the room are “complimenting” me on how brave and courageous I am for telling someone.

Another reason that I think I still wear the “mask”, is because a part of me is still very self-loathing. I cannot stand myself, my actions, words, thoughts. All of them make me want to carve out my chest cavity with a spoon, not that I’ve ever tried, yet. So I wear this mask that shows this, confident, uncaring and rude girl, so that I can coerce insults out of people to confirm my own self-worthlessness. Basically, I show people a girl who doesn’t care no matter what you say, so they test it out, and as they realize that I don’t care, they try more and more drastic measures to get me to react, and start saying/doing harsher things. Of course, it never gets to the point of bullying, it’s only ever childish name-calling or annoying things like tasering me, or trying to tickle me. And the more drastic measures they take (e.g. me doing something awkward, or accidentally making a secret obvious would start out as ‘you’re dumb’, followed by ‘you’re stupid’, then later ‘you’re so dense!’, then even later ‘you’re a retard’ and so on, with the insults getting worse the longer I stand there not caring).

After I wrote about the “not caring” bit in the last paragraph, I thought I’d expand on that a bit. The “mask”, for some people, helps to change their perceived reactions. So if someone told me that I’m ugly, my “mask” would show them ‘Sure, I know I’m just too beautiful for your eyes.’ but inside I’d be feeling like ‘I know! I’m a disgusting piece of ugly trash! I’m sorry for being born and ruining your day by being here!’. I’m sure some people wouldn’t have as harsh real reactions as I do, or the perceived reaction would be different, but that’s simply a matter of who’s wearing the “mask”, well in my opinion anyway.

So, that’s personally how I see the “mask”, how do you see it? And what does it do for you?