What do you all think about the role upbringing has in all this? From the time I was very young, I understood that my job was to make myself (and my family/parents, by extension) appear perfect. I got very good at surface presentation. I developed the skills of not demonstrating my real self or my emotions - I was early labeled 'too sensitive' and 'over-dramatic' just for expressing myself naturally. I learned that I had to have the capable mask on for the outside world, even though I was in great pain internally.

As an adult, I don't really know if I can switch that off. Even if I'm in the depths of my depression, if there's a 'public showing' of myself somehow (school meeting, work call, whatever), the mask automatically goes into place. It's so ingrained, I don't know if I could undo it if I tried. And my internal state is often so unpredictable that I have no intention of trying to change this.

I do notice that when I put the mask on and present the 'highly functioning' person on the outside when it doesn't match what's truly going on for me, I pay for it later, sometimes severely. Like, if I was a 5/10 on a scale of depression or anxiety severity and had to function publicly somehow, afterward I would be more like a 7-8/10.