If there's one thing I cannot stand it is people speaking out of turn. Today's society of keyboard warriors is bringing about a more brazen person. Now, being from the north and living in the south I hear things like, "Northerners are rude." Some people call us blunt or outspoken. A good number of southerners are realizing that they are no better because they just talk behind your back, but I see more and more people from the south gathering their gumption and speaking in ways they might not otherwise if it weren't for their time on social media.
Still, as we ALL have become less sensitive to the person on the other side of the screen, I think it's time we begin to reign it in a smidge. Recently, I decided to stop faking. So often we say the line, "Fake it til you make it." And I often joke about doing that myself. But the truth of the matter is, faking does not help anything. I wanted to run a social science experiment. As someone that has battled with depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, and chronic pain, I have discovered that I spend a good portion of my life faking my emotions. I started to dig around in my brain and ask the question, "Why?" It took my little experiment to reveal exactly why our subconscious tells us to fake. I can go ahead and tell you that there are reasons people choose to fake their feelings. Sometimes, we just don't want people to know what is going on. Other times we might be ashamed. There are times we tell ourselves we must "hold it together." Mostly, I believe it to be a lack of trust. Years ago, I was confronted with the idea of how our social greetings should be more, particularly within church walls. When someone asks you, "How are you?" What do you respond? Well, I think for the most part we answer, "Fine," to those we casually know, and then are willing to share more of the, "Not good at all!" with people we trust. Someone once told me that if they ask me how I am doing, they are asking because they want the real answer. That was heavy for me. Why can't we tell someone that asks how we are the truth? I think a big part has to do with social norms. We want to look like we have it all together, yes. But we also don't want to bog people down with our troubles. It isn't polite. We push our emotions down for the sake of society. And that's where my experiment picked up. You see, Sunday, I was in a flare. I didn't start that way, I was only tired - go figure. But the chapel was freezing. Cold makes my legs tremor and begins a flare. The music was poorly mixed and far too loud. Over-sensitivity to sound makes my head begin to get jumbled. It's like the old TV's with their snowy screens. And the combination of the two made my skin crawl. I just wanted to get home. As we were leaving, we were stuck in a line at the door, just me and Caleb. A man ahead of us - acquaintance- turned around. He said hello and I returned the greeting. But I didn't smile my fake smile. I didn't ask about his family or anything. I simply said hi. My demeanor is that of if I were in my home in a flare. Not great. So his brilliant response is, "You're happy." I cannot express to you the words that wanted to spew from my mouth. "What do you care if I'm happy? Do you think that is an okay statement for someone that is visibly unhappy? Why are you such a flipping idiot?" I didn't. I simply answered sarcastically, "Always." He looks to Caleb, who is visibly happy, and says, "He's happy." To which I respond. "Always." After a few more moments of awkward, "Who says that?" playing in my mind I decide to head to a different door and get in the car. After a while I decide I need to pee, and should do so before we leave. I get out and walk towards the back of the building. There I pass (with much distance) another young man. He says "good morning" and I respond the same. Again, I do not fake my emotions. His response? "You seem tired." You can image what went through my head on that one. I answered, "I am," before walking inside to use the restroom. There I let my mind run free. "Really? You mean my diagnosis of chronic fatigue will mean I'm tired? No way!" And then I thought some more. When I fake my emotions, it makes ME uncomfortable. I have to work twice as hard to play nice. I have to work to express a smile when I don't want to or just don't have the capacity to. It gives me more internal pain. I suffer from behind closed doors. When I don't fake my emotions, it makes OTHERS uncomfortable. That first response of "You're happy," is his defense mechanism. His subconscious is saying, "Something is wrong with her." From there, he will have either conditioned responses or his mind will start scrambling. For him, the easiest way to put it back on me was to call out my displeasure. He could have said something like, "Are you feeling okay?" And I could have told him I'm in a flare. It could have led to a great discussion about fibromyalgia, unseen illnesses, or just not knowing about what is happening in other people's lives. But he didn't. Why? Because we aren't friends. He didn't care to know why I was unhappy. So instead of asking, he tried to call me out for him as if I needed to put my smile on because I'm making him uncomfortable. I'm sure he thought I would respond with, "Oh I'm fine, just tired," or something to the likes of it. That man will never care about his abrasiveness. It isn't in his nature. Perhaps I have made him rethink how he speaks to people, but probably won't. The second younger man will not have it register. He won't pick up on it. But I ask this - what would the world look like if we didn't fake our emotions? The initial thought is, it would probably look sadder, more depressed, more angry, more bleh. But what if, hear me out, because we show our true emotions, people begin to see that something is wrong and look to help? What if we now have more communication? What if we find more collectiveness, and therefore hope? I think I'm going to continue my experiment ... Perhaps we'll see.
1 Comment
Becca
1/16/2020 06:51:04 am
On my trip to Ireland I had the worst migraine on the first day we were there. From the last hour of the airplane ride, to the taxi to the hotel until I finally rested my head that night. I had missed a bus tour the afternoon, but didnt want to miss out out the dinner and show that evening. Ya kno, cuz ur in Ireland!! I'm stll in massive pain, but I paid for this so suck it up. Problem was I had resting bitch face to the extreme. It hurt to make any sort of expression on my face or even move my eyes. The dinner was so uncomfortable. I looked like I had the demeanor of a teenager with a major attitude problem. We were at a big table with like 15-20 people. Some people at some point asked what was wrong. I could barely just mutter the word "Migraine". Some people asked my friends "what's wrong with her?" The thing was that there were only a select couple that really cared and sympathized with my pain and weret judging me. There was so much anxiety running through me during that entire evening. 30min bus ride to the restaurant, dinner, performing dancers, and live music for like 3hrs, and 30min bus ride back.
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