The Dangers of Masking

Recently I almost posted a photo from a rough time I was going through a few years back. A very real, emotional, stress filled image. Then I didn't. Not because it wasn't real, but because it was.

I'm ok with people knowing I'm human and I struggle with human things. That should be pretty obvious. But in that instance I didn't want sympathy or understanding, I was trying to show that we're all in this together, and it's bumpy at best. But I was worried how people would see me based on sharing that low point.

Which brings us to the dangers of masking and maintaining an internal and external persona. I did end up posting that photo and I'm glad I did. It opened up an amazing conversation and a new passion project.

No, Seriously, Are You Ok? 

I talk to leaders in creative companies every week. For every person who seems to be having the best year ever, there are two or three who are quietly getting crushed. And many of them have been hiding the weight of their situation for a long time.

We all hide things. Because if we share that our business is struggling, a prospective client might read it as a red flag. Say there are challenges, and a team member might lose confidence in leadership. So the mask goes on again and again until we stop taking it off. Because removing it starts to feel dangerous.

But so is keeping it on. Showing a polished version of you while suppressing what's actually going on means running two versions of yourself at once. How you truly feel, and what you feel is safest to show instead. That duality is exhausting in a way that plain hard work isn't.

Research on sustained masking links it to anxiety, depression, and a form of burnout that hits faster and harder than any fatigue. Because pretending to be fine is often what's keeping us from getting better.

Working remotely has, unfortunately, made a brave face easier to maintain and harder to see. In person, we can sense when people are off. A tired look, a snippy answer, an awkward pause. But on a video call, none of that shows up in the same way.

There's a real difference between adapting to challenges and disappearing into a packaged persona. Reading a room and adjusting your delivery is a valuable skill. But suppressing how you actually feel, over and over, until you're not sure how you really feel, is something else. A slow leak that takes a little more from you every day until you're simply not you.

This is the part that got me thinking. What if there was some way to say the truth without fear of how it looks or the impact it might have? And not just yelling into the void with no one listening, but with someone real, actually seeing it.

When people are given genuine anonymity, not just privacy, they report the truth about how they're doing at up to four times the rate they do when their name is known. The facts don't change. Only the environment does.

So, I created a simple form where people could anonymously share how they feel and a human would see it. If you want someone to know how you're feeling without knowing it's you, I hope you'll share what's going on.

That's also why the Bureauverse events are so important to me this year. Somewhere to say the real stuff out loud and see someone else nodding along in agreement.

Whatever it takes to put that brave face down for even an hour and breathe freely is worth it. You'll feel better. I know from experience. ❤️

If you're quietly keeping it together while it looks like everyone else has it figured out, I see you. And you're not the only one. If you can, find one person you trust, take that mask off and tell them how you really feel. That's what being brave really looks like. And if you just can't, you can always share it with me anonymously.