The masks we wear

“Be yourself!”

Good advice, right?

We’re often told this is the key to making friends, having good relationships, meeting romantic partners. And it sounds so simple. However, it is one of the hardest things to do, because it is frightening. What if being myself isn’t good enough? It’s a very human need we have to belong and to feel accepted, so we often go to great lengths to try to make that happen. And one of the ways we do that is by wearing different masks.

Wearing a mask involves adopting a persona or playing a different version of ourselves, while hiding the bits we don’t like. We try to figure out what other people might want from us, and give that to them. At the same time, we try to conceal anything about us that might lead to rejection. There are many different masks we wear

The happy mask

This mask means always being happy and cheerful, and never showing anyone that we are feeling sad or broken inside. It means sharing smiling selfies on social media, while not telling anyone that things are bad at home or that sometimes we just can’t get out of bed.

The coping mask

This mask means never showing weakness or doubt or struggle. With this mask on, we convince everyone that we are coping with everything on our plate, that we know what we’re doing and we are able to manage. Inside we might feel like we are lost, drowning or utterly helpless.

The helping mask

This helping mask is what we wear when we don’t feel we are worth others’ time and attention, so we make sure we are always the one helping and taking care of others. We put the needs of others first at all times, and become the ultimate people-pleaser, never saying no to anyone. We won’t ask for help, and we certainly never admit when we start to feel resentful of how unbalanced our relationships are becoming.

The uncaring mask

We wear an uncaring mask when we don’t want to show any vulnerability or weakness. We pretend things don’t affect us, even when they hurt us deeply. We pretend we don’t care about certain things or people, because we fear being mocked for it. We feign indifference to avoid being seen as needy. We pretend not to want something for fear of being disappointed if we don’t get it.

The perfect mask

The perfect mask is what we wear when we think parts of ourselves are unlovable so we must hide them away at all costs. We hide our faults, our flaws, our insecurities and our failures. We avoid trying new things unless we know we will succeed. We keep a wall up to ensure no one sees our darker side.

The chameleon mask

With the chameleon mask, we constantly adapt ourselves to who we’re with. We never confront or challenge anyone, or express strong opinions. We exhibit the characteristics we think people are looking for, and these change as we move from one situation to another.  We shave off all the edges of our personality that might be seen as strange, and eventually find that we can’t even remember who our true self is.

So what’s the problem with wearing a mask?

• It’s exhausting

It is so tiring and draining to pretend to be someone you’re not, and to pretend you feel something different to what you do feel.

• It’s unsatisfying

There is something depressing about living an inauthentic life. When we aren’t being true to ourselves, we can be left with a niggling sense of something not being right. Even if we have loads of friends, we can be left feeling isolated and alone. We can feel lost and at sea.

• It doesn’t work

The fact is that even if superficially our masks are fooling people, that doesn’t give us the sense of acceptance or belonging that we are looking for. It can actually make us feel worse, because it strengthens our belief that we are only accepted because people aren’t seeing the real us. It can leave with a strong sense of ‘Imposter Syndrome’, that we are fakes who are going to be ‘found out’ at any moment.

 

As scary as it is, we need to start experimenting with letting the mask slip. It’s a risky thing, like any choice we make that requires us to be vulnerable. But imagine the relief of having even one person with whom we can be truly ourselves – our messy, flawed, dark, weird and authentic selves. Imagine the freedom of not having to worry what other people will think of every single choice we make.

Ask yourself if the masks you wear are truly helping you, and what might happen if you took them off.  Experiment a little with small risks, and don’t be disheartened if it doesn’t go well every time. The experiment itself is an act of courage for which you can be very proud. We can’t control other people’s reactions, but we can experience the freedom that comes from not trying to.

The myth of prescribed grief

 

Caroline Lloyd, Student Advisory Group member talks to us about grief:

‘You should be over it by now’

‘How long has it been, aren’t you finished grieving yet?’

‘You shouldn’t be dwelling on it’

‘Haven’t you been through all the stages of grief by now?’

‘It’s been a year, you should move on’

 

As a bereaved person we are all used to hearing platitudes: well-intentioned friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances etc. want to offer their sympathies and this is their idea of support.   But as we know through experience; grief isn’t prescriptive.  It doesn’t have a timeline or a set pattern.  There is no benchmarking to see if we are doing ‘poorly’, ‘average’, ‘well’ or ‘excellent’ against some prescribed formula or table.  Grief is unique to the person experiencing it due to the unique nature of the relationship that’s been lost.  Two people of the same family who are bereaved will have different grief experiences because their relationship with the deceased was different.  We don’t just lose the person, we lose the role they had in our lives and the identity that gave us: mother, sister, daughter, niece, stepmother, aunt, friend, colleague….ad infinitum.

 

So where does this ‘getting over’ bereavement come from?  It stems from Freud – he suffered from the loss of his daughter and although he acknowledged that he grieved for her his entire life, he nevertheless published in his professional work that you ‘get over’ the death of a loved one.  As the godfather of psychotherapy, his word was gospel and this became ingrained in Western society.  It’s ironic that these two opposing positions were never questioned and given half a chance I’d love to chat to him and ask him why he espoused one thing in his professional life and acknowledged another in his personal life!  Unfortunately, that wasn’t meant to be….

 

This mantle was continued and superimposed on Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s studies from her book On Death & Dying, (Simon & Schuster/Touchstone), 1969.  Kubler-Ross wrote the book as a result of her studies and work within palliative care.  She was appalled at the way people were treated at the end of their lives and campaigned for better, more humane treatment.  Her book was not about grief per se.  These were five stages of ‘grief’ that patients encountered at the end of their lives.  I.e. they were ‘grieving’ for their life before it ended.  So whilst Freud and Kubler-Ross’s work was pioneering and still incredibly important and relevant, some elements have been elicited and misconstrued to perpetuate the myth that everyone who is grieving moves through these five stages and then it ends.

 

The stages that Kubler-Ross identified are:

 

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

 

Whilst it’s true that some people will experience all of these emotions as a reaction to the death of a loved one, not all will and not all will in sequential order.   Grief is much more complicated than this and encompasses the intellectual, psychological, behavioural, spiritual, physical, emotional, practical and social aspects of our lives.  This effectively means we all have an individual grief experience in any combination of feelings, thoughts and actions and every bereavement we have will be different but may encompass any or all of the above.

 

In my experience, the most common emotions following bereavement are guilt, anger, anxiety, regret and obviously overwhelming sadness.  What emotions you feel will be dependent on the nature of the attachment (I will write a blog about attachment theory at a later date) and relationship and this will also have a bearing on how long you grieve for the loss.

 

So how long does grief last?  How long is a piece of string?

 

Following the death of a loved one, we mourn for them in our own socially acceptable way and in whatever way feels natural to us, irrespective of theories and ‘steps’.    If we are unable to express our feelings regarding our journey to those around us, it might be helpful to just tell them that we are currently in the process of adjusting to our loss rather than ‘getting over it’.   We build our world around the loss of our loved ones whilst maintaining the relationship within our hearts and minds, whilst also honouring their memory.

 

This takes as long as it takes….

 

If you like to understand the origins of more of the myths of grief; such as why the death of a child is different, the different grieving styles, or learn what to say to a griever or how the internet is impacting bereavement, my first book “Grief Demystified” is available in the TCD library.

Caroline Lloyd

After a suicide

When a friend or classmate dies by suicide, it can turn the world upside down for a while. We may have experienced grief or bereavement before, but the feelings that follow a suicide are completely unique. Some have described it as “grief with the volume turned up”. The shock of a sudden death with the added knowledge that this person actually chose to end their own life can bring on a range of different thoughts and emotions, which can feel confusing or overwhelming.

It’s actually quite common that our own response will surprise us, confuse us or worry us. We might feel like we are overreacting (“I didn’t even know him that well”) or underreacting (“why am I not as upset as everyone else?”). Or we may feel emotions that are unexpected or uncomfortable (“Why am I so angry?”).

Our grief response is as unique as our fingerprint. Everyone responds in different ways. Even if we feel like someone else had the same relationship to the person who died as we did, we may be surprised that their response is so vastly different from ours.

It can sometimes happen that we get preoccupied with hierarchies of who gets to be most upset. We might feel we don’t have the same right to be upset as the deceased person’s partner or family member. Often these imagined hierarchies are based on simple categories. Family trumps friendship. Classmate trumps club/society friend. Longer friendships trump new ones. “Real life” friendships trump online ones. The problem with these imagined hierarchies is when they make us dismiss our own grief, or make us feel unable to seek support or join in with the rituals of the grieving because we feel we aren’t entitled to it, even though our feelings are 100% real. These hierarchies also over-simplify the nuances of why our own grief experience is so unique. Our friendship with the deceased might have been pretty new – maybe their other friends have never even met us. But if our connection to the person who died felt really special and intense, then our loss will feel huge. So we must try not to get caught up in comparisons, or judgements of our own or others reactions. Our reaction to the death will come from a combination of many factors:

• The unique relationship we had with the person who died – how close we were, how things were between us when they died, and whether there was any unfinished business.
• Our own history of loss – the experience of grief can “reawaken” the feelings about others we have lost, either recently or long ago, and we can feel like we are going through the loss again.
• Our own experience with being suicidal. If we have been suicidal in the past, it can be scary to recognise ourselves in the story of what happened to our friend, and perhaps how close we came to the same outcome.

So what reaction can we expect? Well, anything and everything, to be honest. We might feel numb, or we might feel despairing. We might feel heartbroken, and we might feel full of rage. We might feel deep sadness, while also feeling some relief or acceptance. We might feel rejected, or we might feel guilty. We might be unable to stop crying, or we might be unable to feel anything. It’s likely we will move between these different emotions from one day to the next, or even one hour to the next.

What marks suicide as unique compared to other deaths is that we are left full of questions, as well as full of “if only” thoughts. Our minds are likely to comb over the hours, days and weeks before our friend’s death looking for small moments where a different decision or a different word spoken might have changed the outcome. And we absolutely yearn for the opportunity to go back in time and make things different. We might feel guilt over things we wish we had said or done, or anger at others who we feel could or should have done more. Unless our loved one left a note (and most of the time they don’t), it is unlikely we will ever know for sure why they did what they did. That can feel unbearable, and in the early days particularly, that question of WHY will likely be at the forefront of our mind. Over time the best we can hope for is an acceptance of not knowing. We must resist the urge to settle on simple answers, that the suicide was due to one event, or one incident. This is rarely the case.

Whatever strong emotions you are going through, know that it’s a completely normal response to an abnormal situation. It might not feel normal – it probably feels absolutely awful. But know that it is normal. It will take a while to regain your equilibrium and return to feeling OK again. It takes time, but you also will probably have to push yourself a little back into your normal life. Initially, that will feel impossible, then one day you will notice it doesn’t feel quite so impossible. It can be tempting to withdraw from friends or push feelings away with alcohol or drugs, but this tends to make things worse or prolong them. The rituals surrounding a death (both the formal ones and the informal ones) can be really helpful. If for any reason you don’t feel able to participate in the official ones, don’t be afraid to make your own. Anything that marks the person’s life can be helpful – looking back over photos or videos, lighting a candle, visiting a special place or listening to their favourite music. It can be nice to feel an enduring connection with the person you’ve lost even after they are gone.

As you start to feel better, don’t feel guilty for that. Just because you go a day without thinking about them, or have a laugh with friends again, it doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten. Keep an eye out for upcoming milestones and significant dates that are likely to bring all the sadness back again – birthdays, celebrations, anniversaries, graduations etc.

Remember to seek support when you need it. If you have a tight and supportive group of friends or a very supportive family, that might be enough. However, if you are struggling to talk to people about this, or feeling alone in it, or if you are finding the emotions overwhelming, or if there are parts of your reaction that are too difficult to share (for instance if you feel guilty), please come see a counsellor. If your academic work is suffering, remember to get in touch with your tutor or supervisor to let them know what has happened, and they will help you if accommodations need to be made or extensions sought. Sometimes it helps to talk to someone who also knew the person who died, and sometimes it’s more helpful to talk to someone who didn’t. You also have the SU welfare officer, the S2S peer supporters and Niteline available to you. There is no need to go it alone.

New Year, New Me?

It’s two weeks into the New Year and some of you might be already beating yourself up for not having achieved all goals and or maintained your new year resolutions.

Having a fresh start and trying something new that takes you out of your comfort zone can be a really good idea. However, when people fall off the bandwagon that sense of disappointment can lead to more lingering feelings of guilt and shame. We all want to be the most amazing version of ourselves and be the best at being healthy or the best at self-care or the best at exercise or the best at college….the list is never-ending. We can become so caught up in all of the things that we “should” be better at that we never stop to think that perhaps maybe the only thing that we need to change this year is our opinion of ourselves.

One thing that can be helpful to think of this year is learning to accept yourself. In order to do this, we would have to give up on placing so much emphasis on how others view us. This can be a difficult thing to do and doesn’t come without practice. One thing that we can all start with is continuously reminding ourselves that “we did the best that we could possibly do” in order to help chip away at our own negative biases and assumptions.  We may be left with residual feelings of guilt and shame and self-criticisms. Sometimes it can be good to reflect on “what exactly do we do not accept about ourselves?”. Bringing awareness can act as an agent for our own healing and allow us to understand.

This can also lead to forgiving yourself for mistakes that you believe you’ve made. Stop punishing yourself, no one is perfect and remind yourself of this when presented with your own shortcomings. It can also be worthwhile in these moments to think of your own strengths and the parts of you that you like and enjoy.

Give some time to express gratitude and appreciation for more positive aspects of your life and the world around you. By doing this you can evoke a gentler voice that can move the focus away from the more negative aspects that we can all dwell on.  Creating a gratitude journal can help remind you to take moments out of your day to think of things you appreciate. This can be on your phone or a hard copy. If you don’t like writing having a gratitude photo album can also be a nice way to capture the parts of the day that brings joy.

Being more mindful of the difficult emotions that might arise and forgiving yourself for being human can be your New Year resolution.

Christmas Survival Guide: Fears around Food

Christmas is seen as a time of joy and fun, and for many, that is the case. But it can also be a time of high stress for many students. Returning to the family home, the gathering of relations, the pressure to catch up with everyone, financial stress, overindulging on food and drink. There are lots of reasons it can be a difficult and anxiety-provoking time. It can have very specific challenges for those with eating issues. This can include those with an eating disorder (diagnosed or undiagnosed), those in recovery from an eating disorder or those who struggle with food anxiety for any number of reasons.

What makes Christmas a vulnerable time

• Social events heavily focused on food & drink
• Huge amounts of food and extra-rich food
• Pressure to eat more than usual or eat ‘feared foods’
• Disruption of normal routine
• Eating in front of people
• Others commenting on what you eat
• Everyone talking about food, weight, diets
• Being around people who don’t know you have a problem
• First time home after college?
• After Christmas, emphasis on diets and ‘new years resolution’

What are the risks around the holiday season?

• Isolating yourself to avoid the stress or to avoid others watching what we eat/don’t eat
• Over-controlling your food to compensate in advance for the Christmas period
• Succumbing to the pressure to meet everyone else’s expectations, and feeling completely out of control

What is the best way to avoid these risks? Prepare, prepare, prepare!

Much of the anxiety and stress can be managed by planning for the weeks ahead, anticipating problems and coming up with strategies to avoid these problems or cope if they occur.

Preparation and forward planning

• Think about previous times you have had to cope with similarly difficult circumstances. What helped on that occasion? What did you learn?
• Don’t change your current eating in the run-up to Christmas. Depriving yourself now will only increase the risk of bingeing in the future.
• Don’t let Christmas anticipation take over for weeks in advance. Remember it is only a day or two.
• Plan your routine for Christmas day (and any other days you feel need to be managed). Stick to your normal routine as much as possible, but incorporate necessary changes and accept the need for flexibility on the day. Ask yourself “What do I need to do to make my Christmas day enjoyable and not make me panic?”
• Identify potential stresses that might occur on the day and make a list of them. Problem-solve each one on the list with various ways you might manage.
• Prepare responses to any comments you might get about your eating e.g. “It’s important for me to be able to manage things at my own pace for now”.

Negotiating with family and friends

• Enlist the help and support of those who know about your difficulties with food. Ideally, you will need at least one person you can confide in about this. You can then ask them to talk to other relatives on your behalf.
• Share your list of potential stresses with a friend or family member and ask for their help
• Talk to the person preparing the food in advance and see if you can negotiate some changes that would make you more comfortable. It is important to let them know that you are going to need some control/input when it comes to the food.
• Let people know how best to support you on the day, and what not to say.
• Help family understand that you might get stressed on the day, act abnormally or need time out.
• If you have supportive friends/family that you are not spending Christmas with, negotiate beforehand that you might call them during the day if you need to.

On the day

• Manage your expectations – don’t expect too much of yourself, of others, of the day.
• Remember that Christmas is about so many other things besides food. Focus on those other things that you enjoy.
• Plan your time where possible. Decide meals in advance if you can to avoid on-the-spot decisions which can be stressful.
• Use distraction to try and take the focus from food before, during and after meals
• Consider having music playing during the meal, and try to keep the conversation light
• Try to ensure that meals are not rushed
• Maintain contact with the outside world to keep some perspective. Make a call, send an email, message your friends.
• Go for a walk, play board games, watch a Christmas movie. Having an activity straight after the big meal can be helpful.
• Take time out for yourself if and when you need it.
• Stay with the present – don’t focus too much on the past or the future.
• It’s OK to say no. You don’t need to obey all the traditions or take part in all the events.
• If you get overwhelmed, don’t be too hard on yourself. Christmas can be overwhelming at the best of times. Keep an eye on that inner critic, and give yourself a break.

REMEMBER

• It’s just one day. It will go faster than you think. And you will manage it.
• Christmas is about more than just food.
• You deserve to be happy too. It is not just about others’ expectations.
• Try to be flexible, but recognise your own limits.
• Keep it simple. Stay focused on your own wellbeing and recovery.

Additional support over Christmas.

Bodywhys.ie: Online support groups on Wednesday 2^nd January and Monday 7^th January, 7.30 to 9pm

Face to Face support group on Wednesday 19^th December and Wednesday, January 2^nd, 7.30pm, The Friends Meeting House, 4/5 Eustace Street, Dublin 2.

Email support: alex@bodywhys.ie

Helpline 1890 200 444

Samaritans:  Phone 116 123

Email jo@samaritans.org

TCD Student Counselling Service closes at 5pm on Friday 21st December and reopens on Wednesday 2nd January.