The Face I Never Show

Joelle Deyo is our Wednesday contributor.

She holds a degree in Fine Arts from Cal Poly, Pomona and is an artist residing in Glendora, California.

Joelle knows the pain of marital infidelity, betrayal and divorce, and she is a survivor of addiction, childhood sexual abuse, and Anorexia.

She brings a wealth of experience to Wings Like Eagles, and is willing to be transparent and real so that our readers who have traveled similar paths will have someone with whom they can relate.

She is an advocate for the recovery process, and is a firm believer that there is hope, and a fulfilling life on the other side of Crisis.

It is Joelle's hope is that her experiences, past and present, will bring perspective and encouragement to those who are in the middle of their own life battles and who have been stuck in the pit, just like her.

The Face I Never Show

Have you ever had one of those days when everything in your world is falling apart and you feel that if the next person who speaks to you isn’t either the Grim Reaper coming to take you away, or Ed McMahon for Publisher’s Clearinghouse, you’re going to lose it?  I have.

And, why does it seem that it is always in those days that you cannot escape the pressure to be “on” for everyone who speaks to you?  Wouldn’t it be fantastic just to be able to let your guts hang out all over the place, at least once in a while, and let the world clean up after you as you drag on through?

Oh, if only.

But, Crisis does something funny to us. It is often when things are blackest that we stuff our most fragile feelings as deeply as we can, adopt a polite, pleasant demeanor, and show the world a socially acceptable face.  This face says to one and all, “I am confident! I handle life’s hiccups with grace and ease! How can I help you?”  On the inside we might really feel like a weepy snarl of depressed bed-head in smelly, week old pajamas, or maybe we’re just rolling our eyes, but we’re not about to show that face to anyone.

Shortly after my marriage fell apart, things in my life were just plain bad.  I mean bad.  I was broke, sleeping on an air mattress in the corner of my sister’s old bedroom and half dead from Anorexia. Emotionally, I was teetering right on the edge of a precipice. I’m telling you I cried every day. Sometimes I fell asleep crying and I woke up just to cry some more.

Still, when my friends called on me to go out for the night, I rolled out of that air bed, dressed to the nines, slapped on my cat eyes and crimson lips, and rocked a sardonic grin that screamed “untouchable!”  Not one stranger would be allowed to see my broken heart.  Only a few of my family members, and even fewer of my friends had any real idea just how ravaged I was, body and soul.

I was so raw.  I am still a little raw, in truth.  Trusting others tends to chafe at some pretty mangled places in my heart, but I’m learning.  During those initial months after separation, however, I felt exactly like 120 lbs of human ground chuck:  unworthy, unwanted, unlovely, and unloved.  I trusted no one.  Just surviving lunch at a local restaurant was an agonizing exercise in “fake it till you make it.”  I hid my true face beneath a smile that was so brittle it could have cracked at any moment.

The masks we wear for one another are all about self-preservation.  Maybe they don’t change who we are fundamentally, but they do conceal who we are.  They encase all of our tender and fragile bits in armor so that we can make it through the day. After all, if no one can see our vulnerability, no one can use it against us.

When we are in Crisis we are so very, very vulnerable.  However, it is for the sake of healing that we learn when it’s time to put the mask on and when it’s safe to take it off. There are people in our lives who love us and have a great deal to offer, but who can only support us to the degree that we are willing to be authentic with them.

The final year of my marriage was an exercise in pretending everything in my world was fine. I had to be fine, because my ex-husband was not. He was constantly angry, frustrated, or in a chemically altered state. Though I was deeply depressed and struggling, it fell to me to carry the emotional weight of both his problems and my own. When I spoke up, he didn’t listen, so I shut up and played Sally Home-maker until it just about killed me. In order to see myself clearly again, I had to peel that mask, and every other mask from my face that I used in order to get by.

Excising false personas from my life was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. I didn’t know whether to sing from the rooftops or hide in a cave. Mostly, I wondered if anyone, myself included, had ever really known or loved me for me.

The concept of knowing another fully, and being fully known by them, represents a basic, universal human desire.  It’s a scary one too.  Who wants to be fully known if they cannot also be fully accepted? Is it reasonable to believe that everyone can or will love us for who we are, even for our quirks and scars, or perhaps in spite of them?  No.  But, it is absolutely reasonable and right to move toward deep, meaningful heart connections with some people.  Removing our masks for those precious few and allowing ourselves to be real and “in the middle of it” with them, is a key component of personal healing and the practice of authenticity.