“Keep pushing down the pain!”, says the brain to the heart. “I am fine and carefree, that is the lie that we need people to believe.”
The smile gleams and the eyes shine. “It is working”, says the face. “The mask is firmly in place! Eye!, Quick, blink back that stray tear. Don’t worry brain, no one shall ever see the truth hidden in me.”
For years, they worked as a team, each one knew its place. The disguise was so good, they all were fooled. No one knew what the disguise so cleverly hid. But as the years went by the stress inside continued to build and grew harder to conceal. Heart started causing brain some concern.
“Hey brain, I am feeling the strain of this game. I am not sure how much further down this pain can be pushed. The weight of this pain is getting too heavy for me! Are you sure that we can’t let anyone see?”
“Are you crazy?”, asked the brain, “You know the rules of this game! You can’t let them see the real you. What will they think of the buried secrets that you hold deep inside? Remember you closed yourself up and threw away the key. That is the way things needed to be. It will be fine, you will see. Keep pushing, NO! You can’t let them see.”
“Eyes, what are you doing? You are looking a little too worn. Is that tears that I see? Are you letting them leak out of you? Plug that leak! Where is your sparkle? Where is your shine? C’mon guys, you have to step up the game! Now is the time!”
“Ohhh…. Oh…this pain is too much, I need air!”, says the heart. ” I am being squeezed, I feel like I can’t breathe!”
“Face, what has happened to your color?” asked the brain, ” What is that strange pallor? You are looking too pale, where is your gleam?”
“Hey Eyes, what’s wrong, are you there? Stop that vacant stare, you are scaring me! What is happening? “, cries the brain? “This isn’t the way things are supposed to be!”
“Blood pressure falling fast! We are losing him!”
“Hey guys, do you hear me? Wake up! What happened to the charade we were all playing? I thought things were going fine, at least that was the way they appeared to be! You not only fooled everyone else, you even fooled me!”
“I see it now, I was wrong, go ahead and let people see. No more games. I will reveal the real me, secrets and all. Did you hear me? You can wake up now, please! This silence is deafening! Wake up everyone! OH NO! What have I done?”
“Oh Man! I, I…..things are getting….fuz…fuzzy. This wasn’t the way…..just keep push…ppp..pushing down the pain…. that way it wouldn’t harm me… that’s what I had belie…”
“Time of death. 12:35am.”
They covered him with a sheet, no one could see.
WOW, this is powerful! And yes, the body does indeed know when it is being used as a garbage dump for unwanted emotions, even though they may take years to build up to toxic levels.
I just linked to this post for Nurturing Thursday 🙂
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Thank you Meg! I.appreciate you sharing.the link.
I just feel this happens too often and felt moved to write about it.
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I agree. Powerful indeed! We all need to learn to be more authentic instead of stoic or perfect. And, we need to learn how to support one another in the vulnerable areas of our lives, too.
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Thank you dear friend for your comment. Yes, definitely things that this world needs to learn!
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An amazing illustration of being real with people!
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Thank you very much!
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Smiles
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This is so true for many people who want to always put up an appearance. I don’t support telling everyone about your challenges. Yet, bottling everything up is suicidal.
Lesson: share your concerns with those who truly care.
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You are very right, we don’t need to tell the world our deepest secrets, but yes we need to have people that we fully trust and who deeply care about us to be able to share with.
Thanks for your thoughts!
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I remember entertaining a similar internal conversation – bless God with a different ending. Magnificent writing, Joy.
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Thank you so much!!
So very glad that your conversation had a different ending!! (((Hugs)))
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