The Masks We Wear

Sometimes I ponder about the masks that my clients wear when they are in my office. Sometimes, the real person behind the mask is so incredibly different that I am rather shocked when I "find out" the other side of a person that I counsel. I joked once with my hair stylist that she probably gets more truth and I do out of people. She didn't agree, but I am pretty sure that people feel they have to put on their "good" face when they come in my office. It is kind of sad sometimes because I so desperately want to help people but am missing a core part of their personality that they don't want to admit. So I find it hard to fully understand them since I don't see all the parts of the puzzle. Now, some of this is my responsibility as a therapist to flush out these other aspects so that the person can confront them and deal with them. But people get masks on so tight sometimes that they refuse to allow that a part of their personality is integral to understanding the whole picture. It is quite frustrating sometimes.

I also consider the masks that I wear and why I wear them and with whom I wear them. My husband and my mom are probably the only ones that really get the deeper sides of my personality, the sides that I don't show very often. I know that I don't even fully understand all the different facets of my personality. But it's part of the learning process as we go through life and begin to understand ourselves better and better. I think I run into problems when someone else acts like they know me and make judgments on that information. I know that they don't have a clue and some part of me really resists being stuffed into a little box. On the other hand though, I know that I probably unconsciously do the very same thing. Assumptions are very easy to make and very hard to get rid of even when we know the truth. So I am challenging myself to look beyond and see the real person underneath the mask, both for other people and for myself. Hopefully people will return the favor and keep an open mind about me and about their peers.