Tag Archives for Mental Health

InkTober 2017: Day 31 – Mask

I’m done. I finished the InkTober 2017 challenge. I’m a few days late but I needed to take time out for self-care at a couple of points, and I’m glad I did because it tells me I’m prioritizing my health. The last prompt for the challenge is ‘mask’, which is an easy word for me to relate to.

Psychologically and emotionally, everyone wears a mask. Some of us wear more masks than others do. Each mask helps us to fit into a specific situation. Who are we when we are with our family, our friends, or in our workplaces? Then who are we when we are alone when the mask(s) can come off?

I wear multiple masks. More than ever, I wear them to obscure the effects of my illness. I’ve become quite good at hiding what my body is doing to me psychologically and emotionally. I don’t believe anyone, even those who know me well, have a clear picture of who I’ve become over the course of the past four years. Because of this, I’m convinced these masks have to stay on, otherwise my family and friends might be the ones who can’t cope with what I’m living with each day.

Although, I must say, wearing the many masks I do when I feel pain all the time is tiring. Always being hopeful is tiring. Always trying to be cheerful is tiring. Always trying to make others worry about me less is tiring. Most of all, always acting as if I’m okay so others don’t treat me different is tiring. Yet, I will continue to wear my masks because the alternative, showing the rawness of what I’m living with, isn’t an option.

 

InkTober 2017: Day 19 – Cloud

As a child, did you play the game where everyone would lay on their backs in the grass and look for shapes, usually animals, in the thick fluffy white clouds as they floated by? I loved that game. I also loved trying to see the things that others saw, although I wasn’t always successful. However, what I loved more was the slight dizzy feeling I would get as the clouds and their blue backdrop of sky moved above us because it made me feel as if I was moving too.

Sometimes I would lie on the grass for what felt like hours. Then when I finally stood up, I would feel unsteady. I always needed a moment to steady myself on the solid ground before I could start running around again with my friends.

I wonder if I’m the only one who felt that sensation?

 

InkTober 2017: Day 18 – Filthy

I was raised in a family where swearing, especially among children, was unacceptable – even taboo. Because of this, for most of my life I’ve considered swearing a filthy habit or something done by those who have a limited vocabulary and inability to express their thoughts without relying on profanity. I’m not so sure I believe that so strongly now. In recent years, as my illness has refused to subside, my opinion has softened. Maybe it’s partially because my pain medications have somewhat lowered my inhibitions or it might be that when I’m in extreme pain my mind doesn’t always function clearly.

Whatever the reason, swearing has become part of a shorthand for me to express my anger, frustration, and pain. However, I’m still a bit reserved about when I use obscenities. I won’t swear in front of my parents or elder members of my extended family, probably because somewhere deep inside me I still fear some sort of punishment for using what I was raised to believe is “bad language.” I don’t swear when speaking to the doctors whose support and efforts to get me healthy have been steadfast. And I definitely don’t use curse words in the presence of children.

So when, if not in front of all those I’ve listed, do I spurt coarse four-letter – and occasionally longer-lettered – words? I use curse words when I’m talking to friends and family (like my brother) with whom being myself, all of myself, is never questioned. I blurt them out when, frustrated, I fumble through explaining to my therapist how I’m coping with all aspects of my illness. I can also string curses together, better than a sailor does, when I’m on my own and hopelessly trying to do something that never posed any difficultly when I was healthy.

Although I may not swear in every conversation or every instance of frustration, I must admit that I don’t view doing so as filthy as I once did. It has earned a place in my linguistic arsenal as a tool that helps me get to the point of what I need to communicate faster than trying to search for the appropriate words when I need that energy to focus on what ails me.