She had a reputation for lightening the mood. The one who made difficult meetings bearable. The one with the right comment at the right time.
She played the part so well she almost believed it herself.
She went home every evening and lay on her couch in the dark. She wasn’t sad, exactly. She was empty. She had spent all of herself during the day and there was nothing left for the night.
She hadn’t told anyone. She wasn’t sure how you explained something that looked, from the outside, like thriving.
Some of the most depleted people we know are the ones who seem to be holding everything together. The funny one. The calm one. The one who always has an answer. We project our feelings onto people who seem fine, and so we never ask them how they actually are. And they, having learned that their role is to reassure, don’t offer.
I’ve done this. Performed fine so thoroughly that I forgot I was performing. It becomes its own trap. If you’re always the one who’s okay, asking for help feels like a betrayal of what everyone expects from you.
She can make a whole room laugh. She cannot sleep. Those two facts live in the same person, and nobody at work knows both of them.
What would happen if she showed up one day and just said: I’m not okay?
Humor is a real coping mechanism. It works. It connects. It also hides. For the people who are funniest in the most difficult moments, the question worth asking is: who sees them when the audience leaves?
She is holding a lot of people together. She is coming apart. Nobody can see the seam because she hasn’t let them look.
Some things worth sitting with:
- Do you have a role in your life that makes it hard to show when you’re struggling?
- Who in your life actually knows when you’re not okay?
- What would it cost you to let someone see a version of you that isn’t performing?
You might also find yourself in He Always Said He Was Fine. He’d Said It So Long He Didn’t Know Anymore..
Inspired by a real story shared anonymously online.