You Seemed So Happy
By: Jessica Mardian
There were two screens. One for those who didn’t and never needed to know what was going on and another for instances with my inner circle where I had to fake it. I could seem happy to everyone else but me. Underneath the screens was the reality of what I was experiencing — an open cut. I didn’t realize how effective this survival tactic was until months after I had given it up. In a conversation that started out small, until there was an opening to say what had really been going on all that time to someone who didn’t know I was faking it on the outside for so long. And unlike I would have been months ago, I wasn’t filled up with fear at the idea of mentioning that I had been in a not-so bright headspace. Their eyes widened at the words I said: “I was really depressed and just in a terrible place a few months ago. I don’t know how I made it to class at the end of that semester”. There it was, the screens lifted; I had stepped across a line only I had marked “do not cross” in my own head, unscathed. They responded to this moment of vulnerability with empathy and this: “I had no idea. You seemed so happy”.
In the fall of 2019, my junior year of college, I went through a rough breakup — now looking back, the relationship wasn’t the healthiest either. Something I had given so much of myself to what was pulled out from under me and in the crash of emotions came depression and panic attacks. Physically, it was difficult to get out of bed; I had little to no energy. Getting ready, I would stare into my open closet, something blocking me from making a clear decision on what to wear or even caring in the first place. Thoughts moved slowly. Unworthiness and loss sunk into my body and couldn’t be shaken out. The panic attacks would come and I’d be unable to breathe, collapsing inside from emotion. All of this and I still couldn’t bring myself to therapy. I kept rotating between screens, cluing a select few people in on different aspects of what I was feeling — but never really sharing the whole scope of what was going on.
I felt the need to keep up the screen and create this fake appearance of someone “doing okay” for a lot of reasons. I was terrified of going to therapy; having internalized the stigma around it. I believed that there was a threshold of problems you had to have to consider therapy a worthwhile option and I didn’t meet them. Basically I gate keeped therapy from myself. A part of me was also convinced that if I just kept trying to be okay, I would be. Somehow by following my routines and getting through each day I’d eventually just feel better. A “fake it till you make it” strategy is not applicable for your mental health. With friends at times, I felt like I had to seem better or else I was being a burden and ruining a good time. Quickly the people I felt comfortable sharing what I was going through closed up to fewer and fewer. Continuing to keep up a screen between what I was actually going through and how everyone else saw me, seemed like the only option.
Throughout undergrad I was a Resident Advisor, meaning I had been the one helping others through mental health issues — even walking with them to therapy appointments. The encouraging and supportive language, the genuine concern for someone’s well-being, was lost when I looked myself in the mirror. Stigma had wrapped it’s way through me. All the resources that had once seemed like accessible, clear choices to use were murky. Those survival tactics were breaking down everyday but fear still held me back. Eventually I hit a boiling point and found a therapist I trusted. In my sessions I worked to take down the blocks that kept me from asking for help.
In the wake of that low period with my mental health, I realized just how easy it can be to hide what’s beneath the surface and how exhausting that can be. There’s still a belief that it can be detectable when someone is struggling with their mental health. That’s not always the case. Someone can have so much going against them in their own head and present themselves as if all is okay. Sometimes you can be struggling and not fully realize the extent of it. I was someone who had accessibility to mental health resources, had helped others in their times of need and I still had blocks stopping me from admitting I should try therapy. The pandemic, with so many people experiencing depression, anxiety and other mental health issues for the first time under stressful conditions, has created some movement in changing the ideas that struggle is detectable. A lot of this work continues in the notions we hold and interactions we have in our day-to-day lives.
