Is pretending to be fine actually protecting people or just protecting ourselves?

2 comments

2 Comments

My sister called me out on this two years ago when I kept hiding our mom's health issues from her. I thought I was being strong and protecting her from worry, but really I was just scared of seeing her break down. She found out anyway through a random Facebook post from a family friend and it hurt WAY more than the truth would have. Now I see that pretending to be fine is mostly about making ourselves feel useful or in control, not about anyone else. When we finally started being honest with each other, our relationship got so much lighter. It was like I was carrying this heavy backpack that no one even asked me to wear.

luna_wright1mo ago

The backpack thing really hit me, because I did the exact same thing with my dad's hospital stays. I kept telling my brother it was just a routine checkup, even when I was sitting in the waiting room for six hours. He found out from a cousin who posted a get well soon comment on my dad's page, and he called me crying, not because of the illness but because I made him feel like an outsider in his own family. It took me a long time to admit that I wasn't being noble, I was just terrified of him falling apart and me having to handle that too. Now we send each other the ugly, messy updates first, and honestly it's way less stressful than curating the perfect version of bad news.