Faking it

Warning- this post turned into a rant about Im not sure what. Please feel free to ignore
Hey. So when my mood is low I always start thinking that everything is bullshqt. And I start to question if there was really ever a time when I was ever not ****ed up. Like did I just pretend to be okay and functioning all those time but I have always just been like this and am good at hiding it??

But then I see I have a degree and a job and an apartment and cats and am still alive, so perhaps i haven't always been faking it. I suppose part of my problem is that when I am out in the world, I don't really present as depressed until I am an emergency. I can joke and laugh and sound rational and ****. Even with my T I sometimes act better than I feel. It's not on purpose. I think it's just so second nature to be that sane version of me, that I don't show anybody the real version of me.

Even when I was hypomanic as all get out after my first trial with Wellbutrin, I was staying up for days with no sleepi and going to work and commuting back and forth 2 hours from my parents house every day. I moved an entire upstairs 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom of a house and recreated it in the downstairs by myself while my parents were away. (My parents were planning to move downstairs since my sister moved out so they wouldn't have to use the stalrs so much).
When it finally came to the ridiculously heavy bedroom set and I realized I couldn't lift it, I started drawing out these elaborate pulley system sketches and looking for rope and ****. Yeah like I was gonna be able to move a giant heavy dresser downstairs by myself!!!
So when that failed i called my aunt and uncle and best friend and asked if they could help me. They came over and we moved al the big stuff. And NOBODY seemd to notice that I was out of my ****ing mind. (My T at the time figured it out after I called her and said how my mind was moving too fast for me to breathe). So I think I am very good at hiding what is going on in my head.

Im sure people notice when i am too up or down but I think it looks somewhat subtle. Or else they notice and just don't say anything. When I was living at home and Prescribed celexa and my mood started to go way up, my parents were just happy that I finally was doing things again and that I wasn't depressed. I think I am clever and charming and more fun to be around when a little high. But maybe that is not real. I don't know what the **** is real anymore. I just feel like a pathetic loser who can't even keep food or clean laundry in the house and who is too screwed up for anyone to ever want to date.

Jeez- this went way dark fast...

I guess my winter depression is still here.
I don't even remember the point of any of this and don't really need anybody to respond or anything but I think I want to save this so I can read it later.
Don't quote me. I may decide i want to delete this laTer.

I think I somehow lose my memory when I start to feel like this because it feels like I have never not been like this. Even though rationally I know that is not true it sure as hell feels like the truth.

Anyway this was just random rant from me so I don't spam the board too much or start sounding like a negative Nellie in other people's threads.

Take care all. It's nice to know you guys exist and are out there in the world.

I swear you are reading my mind when you right your posts because I can relate to them so well.

LOL that was fun to read and I understand your thoughts and feeling. I too feel like I 'fake it' a lot and at times when I'm way off base people don't notice or having any idea what's going on in my head. If they did they'd say I was bat s''' crazy. I'm not doing well at this time, I had a few manicky days in a row out of nowhere and have since crashed. I've had worse though but this depression feels like it's been going on forever and the manicky stuff seems so far removed and like it wasn't even real. It felt like a drug experience at the time actually. I was sure I was a very very smart person, I invested a chunk of money into stocks out of the blue and without thinking much about. Oh, and then I thought my mom was dead because an angel visited me in a dream. I actually completely came to terms with the death. A week later it seems unreal and I am barely eating. All I've done for days is rest and sleep. I know it will end and I'll have a normal period again. I have always come out of episodes at least enough to be in the 'faking it' stage where I'm so-so but make it seem like I'm doing great. I have rapid cycling type 1 and we've had a really hard time getting to consistent stability. I have several 'normal' weeks and then am cycling again. I enjoyed your post and hope it helped you with getting your thoughts out.

It's likely many of us grew up "faking it" and continue to do so in our adult lives.


WC

When I was first diagnosed I was in a clinical trial with a doctor who is world-renowned for his knowledge of bipolar. One of the other doctors in the study told me at my 2nd visit that people who are high-functioning with bipolar are the best actors in the world. I always remembered that, both to reassure myself that I could cover up a lot and because sometimes I needed reminders that I needed to be more honest with the people treating me. Now things are different; I'm not high-functioning by any means and I don't hide things well from people who know me but back then it was a big revelation.

If you want to delete any thread you've started you can email a moderator and they'll delete the whole thing if you'd like. Then you don't have to worry about quotes (and the edit option goes away fairly quickly after you post so you can't just erase what you wrote for too long).

What if you become tired of faking it? Then what?

What happens if I get tired of faking it? Good question.
I think it's exhausting to fake it but it's all I seem to know how to do. I think maybe I would become too broken to be fixed. Idk. I don't even know what the hell I am trying to say here. I dunno if i am a really good actor or if people just see what hey want to see. Im okay. Until I'm not. I wish I had a lid on my head and my T could lift it and just look inside. Or so I could rip out my brain from my skull.

I feel like you know how on the news you see loved ones of somebody who committed suicide who are so shocked and confused because the person who offed themself always seemed so happy and stable.
I understand how that happens. They are people like me.
(Don't worry- I'm not suicidal;Ive just always been scared that i will off myself one day).
I hope this is okay to say. That is not triggerish material bc I don't know how to insert that fancy button that hides it.

Anyhow, I suppose I am just thinking out loud. I think that maybe I am still me even when I am faking it, just maybe the edited for television version.
It's just sometime I feel like such a fraud. Like I am carrying my "functional member of society" card in my pocket at work. And then going home and sitting in the corner of the bedroom in my pjs for 2 days in the same spot rocking back and forth and eating paste.

I ask because faking it is becoming harder for me and not sure what one would do when in such a confusing situation.
But I love this response
"And then going home and sitting in the corner of the bedroom in my pjs for 2 days in the same spot rocking back and forth and eating paste."

Yeah that last sentence made me laugh a little as I was writing it...

I sometimes wonder how people would react if one day i just stopped pretending and freaked the **** out. If I was going to do it though, I would do it right. Go all in. No half assed breakdown for me. I would make sure it was memorable. Stark raving fxckng mad. But in my mind my story would end there. So I keep on trudging along wearing my heavy sanity suit everywhere I go; going to work, grading papers, making small talk, swapping recipes and pretending to be one of them. Sanding off my pointed edges so that my square peggedness will fit in their round world.

Really?? That's how bad I am that I don't know the difference between 'right' and 'write'...??!!

You literally have described how I deal with my bipolar! I refer to it as like a mask I wear to hide the pain or the hypomanic *****. A lot of people in my regular interactions at work and outside don't see the real me. I wrote a poem about it once way before I was ever officially diagnosed I'll see if I can find it and post it here

Gina- no worries. I knew what you meant!
Shamrock- Yeah if u find that poem I hope u post it. I'd love to read it.

Sh$t. Why oh why do I check work email at home. I never learn. I think I was hoping to see that we were having a snow delay but instead I got to read about some bad news. Grrr.
Why does the universe always crap on you when you already feel like crap?!

I am going to bed. This day needs to end already...

It's nice to know that someone actually sort of understands what it feels like to be me.
Good night. Be safe. Take care all.

I can relate so much! My t didn't want to diagnose me because apart from everything I was telling her that went perfectly with bipolar she couldn't SEE my moods that much. I don't mean to fake it. But I had to learn to control myself very early on in life so I know how to hide things and usually in episodes disappear from my real friends for a while doing the crazy stuff without anyone seeing.

And I know the feeling of "I have never not been like this" so well. When I become depressed it always feels like it had been like this forever. I forget that I know what it is like to feel good. I think I haven't been well the times I have been well. It is an ugly trick of the depressed mind.

Your post resonates with me, very much so. It's like ... a big part stays "invisible." I very much felt this early on in my diagnosis and my life was structured that I had to play the part...the professional, the wife, the mother, the always-there friend. I smile a lot naturally so people had no idea, except my family.

My family. They didn't like it. Some empathized...one person. She couldn't hide her shock and sorrow for me. She really cared about me and her reaction was like I told her I had terminal cancer. We were sitting on the edge of a swimming pool when I quietly told her. After her reaction, we just went back to acting normal.

My job would have been toast. Well, that happened later lol.

I was blatantly stigmatized by someone I really like last week. I understand everything being ******** and faking it. Eventually, it caught up with me, faking it. But I still do a lot. I changed who I have relationships with...people that understand. Inside my home, I'm just me. Occasionally I fake it because I think the circumstances warrant it to achieve a goal.

I'm amazed at how people think I'm just "nuts," sometimes. I act your had an extended family member tell me I ALWAYS act bizarre. Really? C'mon. I wasn't even offended, I'm much happier than that person is....they are "normal" but don't seem happy.

Sorry for getting off track, this thread resonates with me, a lot. A lot of it is ********. I skip the ******** and do the good stuff. I hope you keep this thread open. I totally follow you. Try to be yourself, I know it's hard. Maybe I'm weak. I could only keep a major facade (to everyone) that I was OK for three years.

I'm totally "me" now. I'm disabled, things changed so much. I can't work anymore but I fill my life with good people. I dyed my hair blue, three shades. Not manic. I just wanted to and I love it. My family wasn't supportive nor my spouse. Unbelievable. A lot of people just can't relate. We get you, at least.

We are more than our disorder. Thinking of you. xo

Wow. I honestly didn't think I was making any sense...its kind of thrilling to discover that there are other people out there in the world who actually understand what this feels like- I mean it totally sucks that you have to suffer with this crap, but it feels good and somewhat foreign to me to actually feel heard. Or to even speak at all, I suppose.

I worked all this week. Its funny but I think that maybe I feel the most like me when I'm teaching. I mean, not the me that can't get out bed and wants to walk into traffic, or the me that wants to do irresponsible stuff and scream at people to shut the hell up. Not her. But the me that gets super excited about crazy ideas and projects and feeds off the kids exaggerated sense of wonder and thrill at seeing cool stuff for the first time. I like that version of me and I don't think that it is fake. I may fake feeling good when I don't, but otherwise I am my own crazy self in the classroom. Kids don't seem to mind weird.

When I attempt to do the rest of my job, that I am totally acting at. Pretending that I give a **** about grades and tedious paperwork, committees and meetings, schedules and deadlines, the boring hard stuff that overwhelms me and makes me sometimes hate my job. None of that is me at all and it takes a LOT of effort to do it at all, never mind actually appear to be competent at it. Its like I am not even the same person anymore. And I have to be this together, even-keeled person so that coworkers actually believe I am capable and responsible. If I can't summon the strength or energy to get out of bed and need to take a day off from work, I have to make up some physical sickness to explain the reason for my absence.

I don't think I know how to even express what I am feeling half the time. Which could be why I suck at therapy. I hate feeling vulnerable and not in control in front of other people. Actually I'm sort of questioning whether I even know how how to stop pretending to be more functional than I actually am. I wish I could be one of those people who says fxck it and tells the whole damnx world about their MI. I want to stop being my own body double. But I am terrified to be found out as a fraud and a liar and a crazy person. Because then I would have no job and no friends and not even the illusion of a life.

I wonder if this superpower of mine started when I was a kid. When I got sick I had to be okay with everything that was happening so that my parents could be the ones to freak out and worry. I remember my mom commenting on how calm I acted, she was impressed with my maturity. Did I really start faking it at 12 years old?! Or am I just reaching, trying to come up with some concrete and tidy reason that I am like this.

Its interesting that people on here who can no longer fake it seem happier. I suppose it must be a big relief to take off this damn mask and just be able to breathe and not have to always be okay. I think that because I don't always "look" as sick as ppl with a mood disorder who are less adept at faking it, that sometimes I question if maybe I am really not that bad off after all. But if I am being totally honest, at other times, I am terrified that maybe I am so very much worse than I think I am...
Years ago I was ready to check out and still did not think I was anywhere near close to being an emergency. What the fck is wrong with me??

Well, I guess I needed to rant a little. The fact that other people on here seem able to relate to this sort of sucks though, because it is evidence that perhaps I really am bipolar. I think my contradicting diagnoses and the fact that I have been able to fool a lot of people sort of made me convince myself that I don't really have a serious mental illness. That it is all a mistake. When I wrote in my first post how all I wanted was an accurate dx, I lied. I don't want this. I don't accept this. This. Is. Not. Me.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

Hey. I sort of feel like i ended my last message too negatively. I didn't want to leave that as the last thing I said because it sort of comes off with me sounding like an axxhole. Ah well. I decided not to delete anything on this thread because even if it is ugly, it is honest and what is in my head.

Anyway, i think i am obsessing too much about **** lately. I need to chill out a little. I have felt blah but been keyed up at the same time. Fidgety, constantly doing **** with my hands. I need to shut off my brain for a little while. I think maybe i will let myself sleep in tomorrow after all. I just want to feel normal and not feel like i am somehow constantly apologizing to the world for being like this.

Have a kick *** weekend everybody.

I found the poem naynay99 it was written about one of my favorite singers but I wrote it also about myself.
3/19/14 12:41am
Alone they sit at the cafe/
Enjoying the warm coffee/
Taking in the hustle and bustle/
Of the Paris city/
His facial hair is his mask/
To hide the insecurities of what he feels/
They gaze into each others eyes/
Her golden brown hair glistens in the sun/
Her radiating smile and sky blue eyes/
Blind all those who look upon her/
They met in a coffee shop, she's so beautiful/

I want you to do a short search for Joseph Campbell ... he was a world renound mytholigist ... his " theme" was the masks we wear ... our self imposed covering to hide the real us ... his path to bliss is to throw off this false mask and let our real self come out ... that we all are the same under our masks ... that we are all one ... in the east this would be called enlightenment ... you show a great sense of self awareness ... personally I feel we all are "carriers" of mental illness ... like a virus it lurks under the surface ... in some it never appears ... in some it has always been there to see ... and as in my case i believe it can flair up and go away temp almost at will ... and it has a mind of it's own ... I think learning about our masks has done more to keep my mi at bay than all the meds in my cabinet ... if your interested I suggest checking out the Joseph Campbell Companion ... which is a collection of essays and lectures compiled after his death ... ever hear of star wars ... he was Lucas's council on the mythology to use as the base of that story (quest) ... which is why it has hit such a nerve with the human condition .... every human on this planet wears masks everyday ... children have not learned this yet ... the very aged usually drop there's at some point ... though I can not prove this I do believe some mi souls have become expert at there mask ... maybe the best at it ... do you need to drop it ... your decision ... but it never hurts to understand these things and then come from a place of strength .... remember today is the beginning of the rest of your life ... are you happy as it is ... or do you need to change ... scary ... yes ... but knowledge is power ... best wishes friend .. Tigger.

Oh, reading Joseph Campbell, nice idea, wiretwister. It certainly shows the universality of masks.

I've related to a bunch of stuff you've said, Naynay. A quote (from a show I'm obsessed with ) came to mind...

How do I take off a mask when it stops being a mask? When it's as much a part of me as me?

Elliot

True, right?! I mean, pretty much everyone wears a mask of one sort or another. But we (as BPers and other mental health issues) do have more of a time with it. But we're in this together. Things you say resonate. I don't really even see negativity to worry about. You're just talking about something real that others relate to.

Great thread.
I resonate with this/you.
I find myself thinking about this thread often when away from the forum.

A niece visited this afternoon. She'd wanted to share about her husband's severe anxiety and his mild depression. She'd also talked about her anxiety and PTSD. They both prefer to keep these challenges a "secret."

A niece ( a daughter of a different sibling) visited two weeks ago and wanted to talk about her severe anxiety, her depression, her suicidality. She'd quietly admitted herself to a psych hospital 4 hours from home two weeks earlier. She'd like to keep this all a "secret."

These nieces are good friends with one another and spend time together, yet are using their masks with one another, when they'd likely feel understood -- and possibly supported -- if they'd dared to share a little more with one another.

There's a lot of anxiety and depression throughout the family and everyone thinks they are hiding these challenges from one another. This can eventually lead to avoidance/isolation and further misunderstandings. I think everyone would be much better off sharing with one another, getting rid of the sense of shame and other negative feelings which lead people to keeping these secrets from one another. Perhaps they'd feel understood and supported?

*Sigh*


WC

I've never been able to hide my emotions. I wish I could sometimes. I definitely don't now.