Please Don’t Say That, Part I

“Pretending to be happy when you’re in pain is just an example of how strong you are as a person.”

Please don’t say this to me. Please.

I get it, we mask our pain. And we mask it a whole lot. For many reasons. For work. To ease social situations. To make others comfortable. To sometimes just make things easier on ourselves. And, yes, because of this idea we have to be strong or perceived as strong.

Masking Chronic Pain

But masking our pain and putting on a facade is a tool we use and not something we should always utilize. Or feel we should have to use.

The problem I have with the way this is phrased is how it links pretending to be happy with strength. And I don’t think they should be linked at all. Perceived strength and chronic illness is an issue. And pretending to be happy is an entirely different thing. Linking them is something else entirely.

So first issue here for me

Do not encourage me to fake a facade and tell me it is because it makes me ‘Strong’. I already have felt for too many years like it’s weak to express pain which made me minimize pain to literally everyone. Including, I might add, medical professionals because they have spent years not believing me. So I internalized that stigma and began to minimize my pain to actually be believed. And to Not Make A Fuss.

It is such a horrible thing to do to myself. This idea that expressing your suffering is a weakness. But so many of us our conditioned to do it. I think it destroyed a part of me doing it for so long. I think that is why I don’t want anyone saying this to me.

Because I must present a stoic, strong facade. Don’t want to show that I can’t handle the pain. How horrible that would be. How horrible if for one moment people actually understood the impact chronic pain has. I mean, wow. That would just be so wrong. Nope, must present a brave front.

Please, do not encourage that when for decades I have been doing that to my own detriment and have been trying to break those walls down little by little. To finally be able to express just a little bit of my actual reality.

Its a flaw to ignore the suffering of all- to silence all the stories around us.

It is a flaw in our society as a whole that we as men and women are perceived as weak if we express our suffering. Grin and bear it. Suck it up. Don’t make a fuss. No one wants to hear you complain. Its shameful. Its embarrassing. Its… just not done, is it? No matter how much we say people should talk about their mental health, a part of society really doesn’t mean it. And a whole part of society doesn’t even want to see disabled people. And a whole part doesn’t want to think about pain and illness. It is uncomfortable. So you silence is welcome. Your fake happiness? Is more than appreciated.

No one wants to see or hear your suffering, your pain- because, man, then we would all have to feel a bit more real and a bit more fragile and a bit more human. No wants to feel vulnerable to ageing. To illness. To the tides of time, fate, death. And maybe we remind them of human fragility and the unpredictability of it all.

So do not tell me I am strong for hiding my pain. My story. My life. I have the choice in how much I reveal and how much I conceal. That is true. Because our health is a private thing. I do not have to validate my life to anyone and I do not answer to anyone. I mask when and where I choose. But nor do I have to minimize my pain for anyone. Be silent for anyone. Mask for anyone.

And sometimes the pain bleeds through a facade. That is the way chronic pain is. I am not smiling through intense pain because of some ideal of strength. I am not smiling through a migraine because someone thinks that makes me strong. So many years of that and all it did was harm my own chronic pain treatment. Harmed my ability to communicate my chronic pain needs for treatment and management. Even harmed my ability to communicate when I was having serious coping problems and depression. Because, that would have been a weakness.

Second issue I have here

Please do not tell me to equate faking happiness with being strong. That just really comes off the wrong way to me. We all mask with a facade of well-being that may show more happiness than we feel. Or stoic at the least. Or joking around- my personal favorite. Laughing. Whatnot. But never would I equate that masking as ‘being strong’. I would say it’s serving a function. Its helping me socialize. Its helping me work so I am presenting a certain image. And not getting asked 100 questions. Its a social buffer. A nice lie. A necessary evil. And not something we have to utilize. Something we can.

And I may feel happy while in moderate pain. On a good day. I do have emotions. I am a human being. I am Full of them. I don’t go around faking emotions all the time. I actually have an exceptional pain tolerance for moderate pain. As most of us do. And a fine facade of mask the rest of my symptoms I prefer not to talk about constantly because the minutia of chronic illness gets in the way of socializing sometimes. Like I said, we can use a facade as a social buffer. If not faking happiness then Masking symptoms. I mask symptoms and pain to function in the world in various ways but still may be in a fine mood- with people hearing me crack jokes and hearing my distinctive laugh miles away. And our facade in that way has nothing to do with being weak or strong or anything. It is just functional.

And we can discard it anytime we want to. Or not. Revealing and concealing. Social niceties are just that. We don’t have to make people comfortable all the time. It isn’t our job. If I can’t walk well or the pain is getting to me and that makes people have some feels, that isn’t on me. And it isn’t a weakness.

I don’t see strength the same way

Please don’t tell me to fake being happy Because I am in pain because that reflects Strength. Strength is showing vulnerability and authenticity. It is being real with your emotions and understanding how pain is affecting your body, your emotions and your reactions. I let my emotions come. I recognize them. I acknowledge them. I let them flow through me. Sometimes they are not pleasant. Sometimes they are. Pain isn’t sunshine and rainbows. I deal with the reactions and emotions the best I can. And that is all we can do.

I want to feel and express my emotions. Whatever they may be. That makes me feel like I am coping better than I ever have before.

Just me?

Is that just me? Am I being weird about this? Or is it that I am tired of Faking being Strong for so long that bothers me so much? Or that faking happiness does not make us strong- those do not belong together? Just me? I don’t want to pretend to be happy and I don’t want to pretend to be happy so that I can be perceived as a strong person.