Superheroes are supposed to be these incredibly strong, resilient, tough as steel beings that can handle anything, right? They're superhuman after all with superhuman strength. Do you ever wonder though if superheroes were real, would they cry? Do you ever wonder what they would cry about? Would they tell anyone that they were sad?
Question: Do you tell anyone when you're sad? It's been my experience that often when we're sad we tell no one. We just sit in the best of company and laugh like we are totally fine but in reality we are being torn apart on the inside. Of course we all have our reasons not to tell someone that we are hurting. We don't want to seem like a bother to anyone. We don't want to seem weak. We don't want to have to deal with the fact that we are sad. We think if we just push our pain and suffering and sadness to the back of our minds and try to forget about it then we are fine. If we just plaster on a smile and try to be the funny one in the room then we are fine. Laughter and smiles are how we hide and ultimately how we survive.
For those of us that think we are superheroes we have this idea that we have to be strong all the time. We think we have to be strong for ourselves and everyone else around us all day every single day. We have learned all too well how to fake it. We fake it pretty well too. So well in fact that no one around us has ever suspected that on the inside our heart is breaking and our head is screaming at us that we are alone and we will always be alone.
Sure, we can fake it for a long time. We can teach ourselves how to fake it so well that even we convince ourselves sometimes that we are fine. We have gotten that good at it. But we simply cannot be superheroes forever. At some point we have to break and when we do it is so intense and so raw an experience that we scare ourselves when we come to. We don't even recognize this person, or this mass of hair and skin that is looking us in the eye in the mirror. This is not the same reflection we have been used to seeing. This is something, or someone, all together different and it scares us.
It scares us because we have gotten so good at hiding this person looking back as us that we forgot they even existed. But they do exist and it is in that moment, as we are searching for some semblance of sanity to reach out and grab hold to, that we have to deal with this person. We have to face this person we wanted to forget existed. Where do we begin though? Where do we even begin dealing with this person that we have buried so long under a smile, a laugh, a tough kid attitude? That is the question of the year I think. Where to even begin or how to deal?
But we have to deal with this being in the mirror. It is perhaps the most scary thing in the world to do . It is scary because this being we have to deal with now is not the being we thought we were all this time. It's like meeting a stranger. What do we talk about with them? What do we do? We can't hide behind this superhero facade anymore and so now we are forced to feel every single emotion that this being has been feeling. We are forced to feel them all in their purest form and that is the most scary and strange feeling to have all at once.
We have never really told anyone when we have been sad before. We have never really told anyone when we have been hurt. The people closest to us have seen us cry over a heartbreak once or twice and they sympathize with us. But the whole time we are crying in front of them our superhero self is saying "stop being whiny and grow up". So we do. We laugh off our pain and go on as if nothing has happened. Our friends think we are fine because we aren't upset anymore. They never really know that we go home and cry ourselves to sleep because that's not the person they know.
Here's the thing: we can't be superheroes forever. At some point we have to 1) admit when we are sad and 2) tell someone we are sad. It is healthy. It is necessary and it is okay.
