I Hid It So Well That No One Knew I Was Falling Apart

বিজ্ঞাপন

What it costs to look okay when you’re not…

I became good at looking normal. Not happy. Not thriving. Just fine enough to avoid questions.

Every morning, I practiced it, how wide my smile should be, how long eye contact could last before it felt like too much. I learned how to answer “How are you?” without saying anything real. I learned how to turn conversations back onto other people before they lingered on me.

I was convincing. Convincing enough that even I started believing it.

But the performance didn’t stop when I was alone. It followed me into bed, into silence, into the hours when the world finally shut up, and there was nowhere left to hide. Some nights, I lay there staring at the ceiling, counting my breaths because my chest feels too heavy to trust on its own. Some mornings, I argued with myself like a hostage negotiator. Five more minutes. Just sit up. Just put my feet on the floor.

I didn’t want to disappear. I just wanted the noise to stop.

No one noticed. And that part hurts less than it should, because I trained them not to. When you spend years being the strong one, people stop checking. They lean. They assume. They take your steadiness as fact. And at some point, correcting that feels worse than staying silent.

I didn’t start hiding because I was brave. I started because it felt practical. My mother looked exhausted. My friends had their own crises. My pain didn’t feel urgent enough to compete. So I swallowed it. Then I swallowed it again. Then it became habit.

Hiding doesn’t erase pain. It just makes it quieter. It teaches it where to sit so it won’t be noticed.

There was a night, I’ve never written this down, when I sat on the bathroom floor with my back against the tub, phone in my hand, screen unlocked. I typed a message. Deleted it. Typed it again. My thumb hovered over “send” for a long time. Then I locked the phone and cried instead. Not beautifully. Not poetically. I cried with my mouth open and my face twisted, like something breaking that didn’t know how to stop.

I told myself that was strength. I still don’t know if I believe that or just hate admitting I was scared.

The truth is, I don’t like this: I wanted someone to notice without me having to ask. I wanted to be saved without explaining why I was drowning. I wanted care without confession. That’s unfair. I know it’s unfair. And I resent that it’s unfair, because needing help shouldn’t require a performance either.

There’s a specific loneliness in being surrounded by people who think you’re okay. It’s loud. It’s crowded. It’s like laughing at the right moments while feeling completely absent. It’s realizing that the version of you everyone knows is a character you built to survive.

The moment things shifted wasn’t dramatic. A friend, someone I had never let get too close, looked at me one day and said, “You don’t have to be okay all the time, you know.” That was it. No speech. No rescue. Just a crack in the wall.

I didn’t suddenly become honest. I became hesitant. I said “I’m tired” instead of “I’m fine.” I stayed when I wanted to disappear. I let someone see my face after I’d been crying. It felt wrong. It felt embarrassing. It felt like failing at something I had worked very hard to be good at.

Here’s the messy part: Some days, I still want to hide. Some days, I miss the mask. Some days, being honest feels heavier than lying ever did.

I’m learning, slowly, that strength isn’t endurance. It’s judgment. Knowing when to carry the weight and when to put it down. Knowing when silence protects you and when it’s just another way of hurting yourself.

I hid it so well that no one realized I was struggling. I’m not proud of that anymore.

I’m trying to show up without armor. Not loudly. Not perfectly. Just honestly. Some days I manage it. Some days I don’t. But I’m done pretending that surviving alone is the same thing as being okay.

I don’t want to disappear quietly anymore. I want to be here, even when it’s uncomfortable to be seen.

Source: Medium/Kay

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