“We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.”

Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind 

Masks. All of us wear them. Everyday we cloak our identities or our true feelings by suppressing our thoughts or acting in certain ways.  Some of the masks we like and some we don’t.  Some we are forced to wear to get along in life, and others we wear voluntarily and are afraid to remove because we feel the costs of doing so would be too great.

I believe some metaphorical masking can be healthy and freeing. But when masking is a permanent part of your work and home life, something is truly amiss.

Just like a surgical mask cannot be worn 24/7, our metaphorical masks must slip off eventually.

When is it safe to stop hiding our true selves and come out from behind the mask?

This is a tough question that I’m afraid I don’t have the answer to! I would suggest dialoguing with the emotions that come up when wearing the mask (whether it be positive or negative) and take in this awareness. The mask, if its been on for awhile, will have some protective factors that you want to be aware of before taking it off. You want to have safeguards in place. For example, you may want to replace the mask with a “more loose” mask or shed it all together in front of people that you trust and that won’t judge you for it.

There is A Freedom behind Wearing Masks

Masks can be undeniably fun.

Centuries ago, Masks were used as protection from “evil spirits.” Most of us have happy childhood memories of dressing up for Halloween; since Halloween celebrations with disguises gained popularity by way of massive Irish immigration in the 1840’s, the holiday has become America’s third most favorite, beaten out by only Christmas and Thanksgiving.

The German language has a word for the happiness such customs bring called, Maskenfreiheit-the freedom conferred from masks.  The freedom can be literal; at Carnival for example, hiding one’s face can be liberating.  But it doesn’t have to be. Think of the feeling you have when you’re in a setting and know no one. Perhaps you get a small thrill from striking up a conversation in a bar with a stranger, in which you would share things you would never tell someone you know well.

In my private practice, clients often tell me about the freedom they experience when being in the company of strangers; they describe this freedom as if the fear of judgement is non-existent in these moments.

Hiding Our True Selves: Top 3 Masks We Wear

I’ve found these to be the top 3 masks we wear to disguise who we really are.

• Social Mask. The Masks we wear because of a negative message long ago and now we face the world as if that message were true.  Maybe we are the “Intellect” of the friend group or the “Mother Theresa” people pleaser type. Whatever mask you were in public-the more you keep this up, the more exhausting it becomes. And the more you fear taking the mask off because, “What if people see the REAl me?”
• Emotional Mask.   This mask is the one we use to hide our emotions. We hide behind fear or anger, and shame. If we are insecure, we may hide behind the mask of bullying.
• Who Am I Mask. When we burn our lives to the ground and we don’t yet know how to be in the world, we sometimes try on different masks to see what “feels” right. This is one way to identify our “real” persona-the person we were always meant to be but kept hidden away from the world & maybe even from ourselves. But as you begin to understand your destructive impulses, you start to see that every part of you-good and bad- has a story to tell.

Hiding our True Selves Can Be Freeing but it Can Also Cause Havoc

In a world where everyone expresses themselves freely is probably undesirable. I, for one, would have been fired many times without my masks. But all of us can mask and unmask in healthier ways.

3 rules for masking and unmasking in healthier ways:

1. Take a Break from yourself. Engage in bustling group activities like a writing group or group entertainment. Find ways to lose yourself minus the constraints of everyday life and the responsibilities that it comes with.
2. Let the mask slip off around people you love and trust.  The most important relationships-the ones you spend the majority of your time with- are the ones you should feel comfortable letting the mask slip off. They want to see the authentic you.
3. Make sure you like what’s behind the mask.  As exhausting as the mask might be, the prospect of letting it slip off may be terrifying; especially if you don’t like what’s underneath.  Maybe you’re ashamed of carrying anger, guilt, sadness, or shame you carry bottled up inside.  If this is the case, staying masked means missing out on the opportunity to face reality and understand what these emotions are really trying to teach you.  Awareness is the first step in increasing one’s resilience and helps us to move towards acceptance and healing.

Getting Started with Writing Bravely Now

Writing can be a deceptive act. It is its own mask. When writing, we reveal, we hide, we dissemble, we resemble, we direct, we entangle, we clarify.

But it also can be a liberating act. This was the case for me. Much to my chagrin, writing was the least anonymous thing I could do.  Every choice I made said something.

What choices are you willing to make?

One choice you could make is to hold out your gifts (masked or not!) in community with expressive writing.

I believe the magic of expressive writing is to be able to share our stories and our true selves in community.  None of us will make it through this life without having experienced some form of suffering. 

The beauty of a writing community is that it is a safe space where we can listen to and tell stories that are brave, unapologetic, and true. We are here to write our way through to our future selves.

If you are interested in learning more about the Writing Bravely Group, click here!

To listen to the Writing Bravely series podcast episode highlighting masks, click here!