The Mask and The Sanctuary

I believe that most of us who live with mental illness wear a mask.  This mask helps us hide our mental illness from the people and physical spaces around us.  I have lived much of my public life behind a mask.

I wear a mask at work.  When I'm at work, I often appear to be doing well.  I'm happy, I smile at students and colleagues, I am able to get my work done, I have excellent conversations with my kids, I am on time to and prepared for meetings.  However, on the inside, I struggle with worrying whether I'm doing enough for my students.  I want to do my projects perfectly, although with 400 students on my caseload and an increasing number of assignments and duties being laid upon me (each of which I accept from my administrators with a smile on my face), it is impossible to do things perfectly.  "Good enough" has never been a part of my vocabulary; "perfect" has been my goal as far back as I can remember.  Rationally, I know this is not attainable or sustainable.  And I think that's the reason I have slowly been crumpling under the pressure of work.  I can't be the perfect school counselor, the perfect coordinator, the perfect problem-solver, the perfect e-mail answerer, the perfect listener...it's just impossible.  But I am working hard to do the best I can under the circumstances, and I am reassured by those that matter that my "good enough" is still exceptional.

I wear a mask at family gatherings.  I hate admitting this, but family gatherings make me unbelievably anxious.  I enjoy my family members, but being all together sends me into an internal panic.  We're loud.  We're excitable.  We're loud.  We're passionate.  Oh yeah, and we're LOUD.  I'm hyper-sensitive to loud noises and chaotic environments, so family gatherings (which are inherently loud and chaotic) just by their very nature send me over the edge.  I dread holidays because I know it means a lot of time with family.  I physically feel sick before gatherings and find my stomach in knots for hours beforehand but I rarely talk about it for fear of people thinking I am a terrible daughter/sister/grand-daughter/niece/cousin/whatever.  Within the first hour, I'm always more than ready to go back home or, if my family is hosting, retreat to my bedroom.  But again, social norms say that's unacceptable and that I should want to be a part of the action and that I should try to be as funny and loud and entertaining as everyone else.  So I tough it out until I can't take it anymore.  And without fail, I cry from emotional exhaustion and feel emotionally hungover for hours (and sometimes even days) afterwards.  When social conventions say that our time with our family is the most important and happy time (and when you do enjoy your family - just in smaller groups), it makes you feel like a garbage person to admit that family exacerbates your mental illness.

I wear a mask in public.  Mental illness is confusing, because I often feel like I want and need to be social at times (you know, in controlled settings with safe people), but sometimes when it comes time to being social, my first instinct is usually to bail.  I have done this a lot before, especially when I'm not in a good place.  These days, I do feel like I have better control over my mental illness, so I'm not flaking out on my friends like I have in the past.  However, I always have to fight the urge to text and say I'm not feeling well.  Regardless of who the person is or what we're planning to do, this is always my feeling.  I'm working incredibly hard to push through these feelings, though, and to follow through with my friends.  And 9 times out of 10, I wind up having a fantastic time and we laugh a lot and create wonderful memories.  But when I get home, I crash.  I need a lot of time to recover after social situations.  I used to be embarrassed by this, but as I am learning more and more about how to live with my mental illness, I am feeling less ashamed of taking all of the time I need to recharge.

This brings me to the place where I can take my mask off and breathe easily: my sanctuary.  I'm living at home, and my bedroom is in our basement.  We have a family room down here as well.  Our basement is my sanctuary.  I spent much of my free time down here doing everything I need to in order to take care of myself.  I read in my sanctuary.  I write in my sanctuary (yes, I am writing this from my desk downstairs right now!).  I draw and paint and color in my sanctuary.  I text with my friends in my sanctuary.  I nap, clean, eat, rest, cuddle my dog, learn, listen to music, cry, watch my favorite Netflix shows...it all happens in my sanctuary.  My holy, sacred space where I can take off my mask and allow myself to be 100% me.  I'll venture upstairs to talk with my parents at times - when I'm feeling energetic, I typically have "diarrhea of the mouth" (as my parents call it) or I'll make them laugh with my spontaneous song-and-dance numbers.  When I'm feeling vulnerable and anxious or depressed, I'll spill what's on my heart to them.  And when all is said and done, I return to my sanctuary to rest my soul again.