I’ve Been Thinking: Some of Us Have Been Hiding Behind Masks for Years

As we move away from mandated mask wearing as we were required during the height of the pandemic I realized in one of my existential examinations of my life over the last 18 months that some of us have been wearing masks for years whether we knew it or not. From our teen years forward most of have been wearing a mask in one shape form or fashion for years.

[Photo Credit: Wix Stock Photos]

From the time we are little most of us are conditioned to show only one side of ourselves outside our home at places like school, a friends house, at church or other places and conditioned to behave a certain way. I’m not saying that is all bad but as we grow older our authenticity for many of us becomes muted or stifled by social norms, protocols, hard lessons we have learned or by being burned by people we trusted as well as experiences that profoundly changed the way we allowed ourselves to be seen by others. You have probably heard the expression “out of the mouths of babes”. Children are intuitively in touch with their authentic self saying what’s on their mind free to be who they are but slowly are molded by parents, life lessons, society and peers. As we enter our teens we start to develop our “masks” we wear to filter what we want people to know or think about us.

I was trying to think back to the moment when my younger self became afraid of being judged, not liked, or mitigated and developed the need to stifle my true self. The answer is really at many junctures over the years but I think it started in high school. You see I grew up in a strict Italian Catholic family and attended a Catholic High School. I loved my days there and have lifelong friends but it was during those years I started to question the doctrine of my religion but was afraid to express my feelings for fear of being shunned by my family and friends.

It was at this point I started wearing a mask to hide my true feelings and I went along saying and doing all the ”right” things showing the people in my world the devoted perfect Catholic school girl I thought I was expected to be. It felt phony and deceitful. I went through the motions of church on Saturday evenings, followed the ceremonial rituals such as confession & confirmation but all the while not convinced I was my authentic self. I struggled for years wearing the mask of “devoted Catholic follower” and it was suffocating. Fear was my driving emotion that prevented me from saying and showing what I was really feeling.

Once I got to college there was a shift. I felt a freedom to make my own choices without guilt being thrust upon me my by well meaning parents that just didn’t understand any other viewpoint on religion. I was forced to attend church each week out of obligation for a religion that seemed mostly concerned with oppressive rules and regulations that were grossly outdated in my opinion. I found my authentic voice slowly and by my mid twenties chose to leave the church, take off the mask I had been hiding behind and live out loud my desire to move away from this part of my identity. In order to do that I had to have faith in myself first and develop a confidence to break away from what my family still believed in order for me to be able to address religious faith in a different way. I spent the rest of my twenties exploring where I belonged.

Believe me when I say it was not without backlash and disappointment. I knew this going in but refused to be in the closet about it anymore. I would no longer be practicing Catholicism & when the time came I would not be raising my children Catholic either. I have never regretted this decision or did I seek approval. My only desire was for others close to me to accept my choice and respect it just as I respected their religious beliefs but no longer found them aligned with how I wanted to live my life. As the years passed I eventually identified with a different religious community with my guiding principle being the golden rule: “Treat others as you would want to be treated”.

Sometimes it is a struggle to abandon the masks we wear out of fear or other negative side effects. However, hiding behind them can stifle the person we are meant to be or the life we are meant to live. As one of my old bosses once told me “Fear has two meanings: Forget Everything And Run OR Face Everything And Rise”. At some point we all have to decide which side to be on.

XO & #StayCurious