The mask

“All it takes is a beautiful fake smile to hide an injured soul and they will never notice how broken you really are.” – Robin Williams

Every day of my life, I walk around with a mask on. On the outside, there is the life that that my friends, family, and teammates see, but on the inside, there is a whole other life. Raised in a middle class family and given the opportunity to attend college and play sports, most would say I have it pretty easy. Most of the people that “know” me would identify me as a hardworking and confident recent college graduate, hockey player, and sports fan. By no means am I ungrateful for the life that I have, but there is a side under my mask, that no one sees.

Now imagine that feeling dialed up to ten.

My mask covers my social anxiety disorder and depression. I carry this weight around with me every single day, like a thousand pound backpack always pushing me down. My social anxiety is something that I’ve experienced my whole life. It comes in the form of creating a false perception of what others think of me. Social anxiety, for me, leads me with constant worry about how others will judge me. In most cases, social interactions appear to come somewhat easy to me, but inside, the weight of my anxious thoughts is unbearable. Most people can relate to a feeling of nervousness when giving a presentation or being in the spot light, but now imagine that feeling dialed up to ten for a task as menial as checking out at a grocery store.

In combination with my social anxiety, depression is added to complete the vicious cycle of my internal state. In my senior year of college, with school and hockey ending and the thought of getting a job on the horizon, I reached a point where I was ready to take my own life. In my mind, I had no way out. Depression creates errors in your thinking, where even the most intelligent people fail to look at the situation objectively. After texting my family and saying my final goodbye, I had come to believe that my time was up and I could no longer carry this weight anymore. I’m not quite sure what prevented me from executing my plan that day but it has become part of my healing process. Although thankfully I am here today to talk about my story, there isn’t a day that goes by without me thinking about the state I was in roughly a year ago, and sometimes find myself in today.

While it remains the hardest test of my life, I’m committed to the fight.

For the most part I’ve been able to deal with my social anxiety by avoiding some situations and pushing the limits with others. I was able to skirt through, until now. Now, my biggest test is finding a job. I continue with the therapy I started five years ago. While it remains the hardest test of my life, I’m committed to the fight. I think part of what keeps me going is derived from my need to help others in a similar situation also keep fighting. I hope, if anything, my story can help someone out there know that he or she is not alone.

The stigma created around mental health has been an immense barrier in my growth. Growing up playing hockey and other sports my whole life, it was easy to confuse mental toughness, with mental health. Through social cues and anecdotal evidence, my brain connected talking about feelings with weakness. “Man up, stop complaining, get over it, take the skirt off.” For those of you that grew up in sports, you know these phrases are quite common. While some folks are able to let these comments roll off their back or even become motivators, I digest them differently. They have led to my idea that if I wasn’t perfect, I was worthless, that if I did the slightest thing wrong, I needed to run away and avoid the task.

It starts with ME, with YOU, and with US.

One major motivator that helped me get to a point of sharing my story was the guilt of being the innocent bystander. After all of my criticizing of the stigma that exists, I realized that I was doing nothing to combat it. It starts with ME, with YOU, and with US.

“In 2014, there were 42,773 deaths by suicide in the United States. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death; homicide ranks 17th. It is the second leading cause of death for 15 – 24 year olds” (SAVE.org).

It’s okay to occasionally fake a smile, but it’s not dangerous to show a frown.