People Who Listen...

I have struggled with depression. And battling it alone is the hardest thing I have ever had to experience. This writing helped me through a lot. Even if you are not struggling with depression, I think a lot of people can relate to this. If not, a lot can be learned by its message. Please...hear what I'm not saying.

Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the mask I wear. For I wear a mask, I wear a thousand masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off, and none of them is me. Pretending is an art that is second nature with me, but don’t be fooled.

I give the impression that I’m secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without; that confidence is my name and coolness is my game; that the waters are calm and that I’m in command and I need no one. But don’t believe it; please don’t.

My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask, my ever-varying and ever-concealing mask. Beneath lies no smugness, no coolness, no complacence. Beneath dwells the real me, in confusion, in fear, in loneliness. But I hide this; I don’t want anybody to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness being exposed. That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant, sophisticated façade to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows. But such a glance is precisely my salvation. My only salvation. And I know it. It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self-built prison walls, from the barriers that I so painstakingly erect. But I don’t tell you this. I don’t dare. I’m afraid to.

I’m afraid your glance will not be followed by love and acceptance. I’m afraid that you will think less of me, that you’ll laugh, and your laugh will kill me. I’m afraid that deep down inside I’m nothing, that I’m just no good, and that you’ll see and reject me. So I play my games, my desperate, pretending games, with a façade of assurance on the outside and a trembling child within. And so begins the parade of masks, the glittering but empty parade of masks. And my life becomes a front.

I idly chatter with you in the suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that’s really nothing, nothing of what’s crying within me. So when I’m going through my routine don’t be fooled by what I’m saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m NOT saying; what I’d like to be able to say; what, for survival, I need to say but I can’t say. I dislike the hiding. Honestly I do. I dislike the superficial phony games I’m playing.

I’d really like to be genuine, spontaneous, and me; but you have to help me. You have to help me by holding out your hand, even when that’s the last thing I seem to want or need. Each time you are kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings. Very small wings. Very feeble wings. But wings. With your sensitivity and sympathy and your power of understanding, I can make it. You can breathe life into me. It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. But love is stronger than strong walls, and therein lies my hope. Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands, but with gently hands, for a child is very sensitive, and I AM a child.