You can appear totally emotionally healthy (without actually being emotionally healthy)

I don’t lose my temper anymore.

I know not to get jealous or possessive of my friends’ time. I’ve learned not to guilt them into hanging out with me, or put pressure on people.

When I’m on a date, I’ve learned to ask more questions than talk about myself, and then to listen.

But I’m also not a pushover. I’m confident and can lead other people well.

In other words, most people out there would think I’m the paragon of emotional health. In many ways I am. Everything stated above is true.

But notice that all of these things listed above are entirely external; just when other people are around. I have reined in the outward-facing side of myself and certainly have healthy relationships and close friends.

But the internal world—which rears its head when I drive alone (in a hurry), or when I close the door of my lonely condo behind me—tells a different story. It’s a tale of hidden addictions (well, not really that hidden since I’ve written about them here for a decade, lol), and unmet desires which unfurl into an interior world of anger.

Will this anger ever bubble up to the surface and explode on some unsuspecting victim? Most likely not. Most of the time, it’ll remain where it is, beneath the surface, tepid and unaddressed.

It makes me wonder how many others walk a similar trail. How many other people come off as the most empathetic and emotionally regulated folks you’ve ever met—but it’s just a facade. And I don’t mean that as a jab. The reason we don these facades is out of pain and survival, not intentional deception.

How many of us don’t think we need therapy just because we can keep it together for everyone else?

How many of us think we’re doing fine just because, compared to others, we haven’t suffered that much, and we show up to work on time, and don’t lose our cool on others?

I’ve learned that it’s possible to live a life that appears entirely healthy and put-together for everyone else. We can even convince ourselves of this.

(I’ve gotten pretty good at lying to myself…maybe even better at it than lying to others)

But that doesn’t make one emotionally healthy.

Looking emotionally healthy ≠ Being emotionally healthy.

I’m not saying all this so you can look around at others and attempt to decipher what sort of issues others are facing when no one else is around. But more to say, are you growing exhausted by appearing whole and put together for everyone else? Do you need to address some of the things looming beneath the surface no one else can see?

Holding it together only when others are around is not holding it together.

Maybe you need to learn to be more gentle with yourself.

Maybe we all need to acknowledge that no one—including and especially me, myself…and you, yourself—has it together and has graduated from needing help.

No matter how good I can come off on the outside, if there are unaddressed wounds and profound aches deep inside, I’ll never be fully whole. I can convince everyone else, but I cannot bend reality to my imagination. Sooner or later, they’ll bubble their way to the surface.

Be gentle with yourself.
And be gentle with others—you don’t know what they’re pushing down too.

e