Therapy Bits

At first, the mask was protection.
It was safety stitched together from smiles and small talk — a shield against questions I wasn’t ready to answer. I wore it because it was easier to pretend I was fine than to explain the fog, the heaviness, the strange distance between me and the world.

The mask fit so well that even I started to forget it was there.
I learned to laugh on cue, to say “I’m just tired” when I was actually unraveling. I mastered the art of blending in — becoming the version of myself that people expected, not the one trembling underneath.

But masks aren’t meant for long-term wear. They start to fuse with your skin.
After a while, I couldn’t tell where the performance ended and the truth began. The lines blurred; the smile felt natural, the emptiness felt foreign. I looked in the mirror and saw a stranger smiling back — flawless, convincing, hollow.

The hardest part wasn’t putting the mask on. It was realizing I’d forgotten how to take it off.
Every attempt to lift it felt wrong, like peeling away something essential. I had hidden for so long that my unfiltered self felt unbearable, too raw for daylight. And yet, the longer I kept it on, the harder it was to breathe.

Now I’m learning — slowly, painfully — that it’s okay to be seen without it.
That I can exist without the layers of “fine,” without the practiced cheer. That vulnerability isn’t weakness, it’s oxygen. And that the world, though sometimes unkind, can still hold space for what’s real.

The mask once kept me safe.
But now, safety means taking it off.

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