“Do you think you wear a mask?’
‘I’m wearing one right now.’ Valentino smiled softly. ‘We both are.’
‘It’s a sad thought.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But sometimes I wonder about the alternative. Imagine if we had no secrets, no respite from the truth. What if everything was laid bare the moment we introduced ourselves?” - Catherine Doyle, "Vendetta"

I have always wondered what it would be like for us to truly share who we are and what we are going through. But most of us, say "I'm fine," when asked, "How are you?" Are we really? Because most of the time when we reply fine, we aren't fine at all.

So why do we feel the need to hide behind the mask of "I'm fine"?

Unfortunately, we live in a world where talking about feelings, specifically those that are commonly looked down upon is considered taboo. How many of us just start sharing our struggles with anxiety or depression with strangers? Or even our loved ones? We put on a mask to avoid showing signs of weakness in admitting to how we are really feeling.

I have heard and seen so many examples of people struggling with mental health concerns, or life challenges, and feeling ashamed to share it with those who are close to them. As a mental health counselor, I just don't understand how admitting our struggles is a sign of weakness. I think not admitting to feelings of loneliness, grief, depression or anxiety is a sign of weakness.

Personally, I struggle with saying, "I'm fine." When someone asks, "How are you?" I want to respond with an elaborate story about my current emotion, but I have to remind myself that I might be perceived as crazy. Since the social norm is to say, "fine" or "good," most people would feel uncomfortable with my response. But if more people took pride in revealing and talking about their feelings then we wouldn't have so many unnoticed or undiagnosed individuals becoming "threat to society."

Our social norms that require us to hide behind the mask of "normality" is a threat to society, not the victims of those norms. It's hard to see mass murderers and bombers as victims. Instead, we see them as deranged inhumane individuals out to destroy the world we live in. But they are victims of these unsaid norms that prevent us from openly talking about difficulties and mental health disorders. So they occasionally hide in fear and respond to a life of fear by making an irrational act in response to those buried feelings.

I know it seems like a difficult task, to change our social norms. But each of us can start by simply being honest about our feelings when asked, "How are you?" Let's work towards removing our masks and being our true self around our loved ones. We all have struggles and some more so than others and those who can admit to them, aren't cowards. In fact, it takes courage to admit to true raw emotions.

“Horror is the removal of masks.” - Robert Bloch