Fake A Smile

“Living souls around me
They don’t see
Just staring, closed faces
Fake a smile
Shaking hands, shake their heads
But they don’t speak
Only demanding the right numbers
Of me, breaking into pieces
I’m breaking into pieces”

Singer Liv Kristine sums up how I live my daily life in her song “Fake A Smile.” I am an army wife and currently unemployed due to our most recent move and the ever-failing job market. However, I manage to stay busy, volunteering in my church community. And, I do honestly feel a deep devotion to my Catholic faith. Knowing these things about me will make you think I am a hypocrite.

I walk around with an empty feeling every day. I feel as though no one truly knows me, and I feel like I care more about others than they do me. The few people in my life that are truly close to me brush me off constantly and continually take me for granted.

I have been married seven years, less than half of which I have spent as a military wife. I feel always as though I am sacrificing everything for the sake of making my husband happy, whereas he can not even be bothered to set aside an hour of his free time to spend with me. He would rather play his video games, read something on the web (either via laptop, or if we are not home, via smartphone), or simply leave the house completely. As a result, I end up at church with growing frequency, although I feel that everyone there simply expects me to handle some task or other, making me responsible for an abundance of ministries and jobs. All of this stresses me out, and no one, not even my identical twin is ever willing to take time out to listen to me.

I suppose that some of this is partially my fault. I do have “trust issues” so to speak, as I have been deeply wounded by people close to me quite frequently. So, instead of “letting on” that I am in pain when I am around people I only allow to be acquaintances, I “fake a smile” and press on with my day. I have gotten really good at making people think I am happy in my life and that things are always great in it. But this is quite the opposite of the truth.

I’ve been down the therapy route before, as I have, in my past, been the victim of extreme abuse that had lasted a long time. My doctors had prescribed medications that they assumed would help me, although I simply felt empty and completely indifferent. In my opinion, feeling this way is no better than always feeling hurt and alone. I am a caring person, and I don’t want to lose that in order to “cure” my depression. I only want to feel cared about in return. And in my 27 years of life, I cab honestly say I have never felt that way. Never.

My screen name means “empty spiral,” a term I find very fitting for the path that my life has been on since my birth. But I don’t want it to be. I feel increasingly that suicide is my best option, my “way out” from the deluge of pain I endure on a daily basis. I just want it to be over.