A Mask

Okay. So today's job as to sort out the layout of the blog.
Which I've done. The quote and image at the bottom of the homepage pretty much sum up everything about this blog in two small portions.

This blog is more about me. I've got trouble expressing myself. Serious trouble. I live behind a façade like a mask. The mask that makes people not see me.
This mask is something I put on when I'm out in public. I suppose I'd better explain, that my other major fault.

I suffer from depression. I have done so for about 3 years, and have suffered in silence. I have only recently been opening up to my friends and partner, so I've been hiding for a while. I grew used to putting on his happy, 'I'm fine' exterior to get through my days at school and work without somebody turning around to me and saying "You look down. What's wrong?" Because when I first started having depression, I refused to admit it, even to myself. I just told myself I was having a bad day. But the bad day turned into a bad week. And the bad week turned into a bad month.
Before I knew it, 4 months had passed, and I was forced to accept that it wasn't just a mood which was going to pass.

Shortly after I admitted it to myself, I started to grow aware of myself putting on this façade, this mask of happiness. I will admit. It was good for me. If I was slipping down into what I like to call the darkness, otherwise known as the dark mood swings of depression, this mask would stop me. I would go out and have to put on this mask and it would level me off at whatever level I was at until I was alone again. And....as I had to wear this mask for at least 9 hours each day for various 'public' things, I wasn't too badly off.

This mask is slowly not helping. I've grown so used to putting it on, so used to wearing it, that I, myself in my own head am starting to use it as a disguise, and continue to slip into the darkness beneath my mask. Now that doesn't help. Recently, only if I am actively using the mask as camouflage and interacting with people, does it work. And I'm doing that less, because my depression has been getting worse. Ergo, the need to get my feelings out and be able to express myself, so to this blog.

The really sad part about this mask, apart from the fact that it's slowly not working, is the fact that I've gown used to it, and can use it too well. It now, rather than helps me, hides me. When I most need people to turn around to me and say "What's wrong? Don't lie to me and tell me truth." This mask of mine is the strongest. Nobody can see through it, not even my partner of 2 1/2 years. I can't deal anymore with the fact that I feel alone in my own head.

Below-average-hurting-human-being

Samantha.