This post actually goes hand in hand with my other post today, M is for (e)motionless.

A quick recap of what happened – I went into the comments, basically got told I was writing blandly, and decided to respond. The commenter in question too…I guess a little offence that I wasn’t suffering the way he expected me to and not crying my heart out to my blog. Hubris was an accusation levelled, because of the size of my site – and in fairness, it looks like the commenter in question is terminally ill and was heading to hospice when he found my blog.

Which brings me to this post.

Masking – the hiding of emotions or compliance to fit in with others – is really common in mental health diagnoses. My psych, Dr C, frequently told me he could see my mask, and could see that there was something underneath that I was hiding, and that I’d gotten very good at keeping it where it was, but that I betrayed myself sometimes.

I used to think he meant I gave away that I was masking. I now think he means the thing I’m hiding is no more or less worthy of being seen, and that’s a betrayal in itself.

I am often accused – or told – that I come off paradoxically cold while doing kind things. I’m all kind, mothering, nurturing and caring, but I’ll matter of factly tell you exactly why you picked up that boo-boo and how to avoid it. I’m often not great at caring for myself in a panic attack, but when a friend hits that loop, I’m all calm and cool and I even touch people to check their pulse (actually the two handed pulse thing I do is for grounding them. It’s a bit…cheeky, but it’s (a) to stop them hitting me while I’m near them, (b) if I can feel their heart going too fast, the chances of finding the right spot is better with two wrists than one, and (c), it’s comforting. There’s a pressure point in the back of your hand that works to calm stress in most people. The other one that’s quite good for that is between thumb and first finger.

That’s actually where my masking is most obvious though. Like, yes, I mask whenever I’m around anyone I’ve got the mum mask for my kids, the ‘I really wasn’t hurt by that, you’re a fucking moron’ for various people until I calm down. The ‘I’m not sure this is the best idea but sure, let’s push that rock’ one for others. We all do. Masking though with mental health goes deeper than that.

Mental health masking isn’t just about ‘the appropriate face, mood, attitude for the right moment, it’s also about hiding. Hiding depression, anxiety, nervousness, anger…all of it. Masking is a technique most people with any mental health issue will exhibit. As it’s to hide everything, we’ve got a nasty habit of helping people without, as the truism goes, getting our own oxygen mask on first. Because we’re pretending we already did.

Masking also means though, that if we’re talking about all of this, it’s often obvious that we don’t open up, so we come off as emotionless sometimes. The bigger the problem, the more…neutral we try to be, at last that’s my experience.
In my case, I was trying to explain the whole of my world being turned upside down. Since October, I’ve not known whether I’m coming or going sometimes.

So. M. Masking. Of course we’re not the best people at expressing ourselves. For many of us we’ve spent a lifetime trying to work out how to fit in, be normal. So. Forgive me if I don’t always say everything about the meltdowns I’m having behind the scenes. Neutral doesn’t mean ‘sunshine and rainbows’.

More on masking – VeryWell