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Depression
9 Common Birthplaces of Perfectly Hidden Depression
3. You were emotionally disdained and had to prove yourself no matter the cost.
Posted October 5, 2019 Reviewed by Gary Drevitch
What could be the possible birthplace of perfectly hidden depression (PHD)? How does a great-looking life have, at its core, such emptiness?
I’ve learned the answers to these questions from talking with volunteers who came forward to tell me their personal stories. And I’ve learned from my own PHD patients who were eager for others to get the help they’d received.
Each told me, with a quiet but determined voice, "Please, share my story. Because I don’t want anyone else to live the life I’ve lived—weighed down by constant shame and the intense fear of being found out—filled with terror that everything you’ve expertly crafted could blow up in your face. It’s a very dark place.”
So, let’s talk about nine common pathways to creating the defensive strategy of staying emotionally invisible and invincible through creating the perfect-looking life. You may find yourself here.
1. You absorbed the shame from physical or sexual abuse. The damage from being the target of sexual manipulation or violence can silence you, particularly if you were told to shut up and keep the dark secret of your family. Your life was out of your control. You weren't safe as a child (or perhaps you’re not safe now as an adult). So, staying in control has become vital to your way of life, and you’ve stayed silent—because you absorbed shame that didn't belong to you. You carry pain and guilt that you cannot imagine working through. But as you rear your own children safely, you can become at times overwhelmed with pain that you may not understand.
2. You had to keep yourself safe from a parent’s violence or neglect due to substance abuse. You learned to be hypervigilant, keeping your feelings completely to yourself, because it was far from safe to communicate them to the ones who were supposed to nurture and protect you. You may have devoted yourself to school or athletic activities, a job—anything to keep you away from home. You might have done whatever you could to become invisible to your parents to protect yourself from their toxicity, never making waves to attract their attention. Now as an adult you remain cautious, looking as if you're doing "fine" but always waiting for others to disappoint.
3. You were emotionally disdained and have to prove your worth no matter the cost. You were told you weren't going to amount to anything, or that you were too sensitive—a whiner. Those words can be etched in your mind for a long time; you’re left obsessed with proving the bullies, or parent, teacher, or coach, wrong. You were teased and ostracized. So you avoid admitting vulnerability like the plague. And you’re determined to be on top.
4. You never had a childhood and took a pseudo-adult role in your family. It was your job to take care of others in your family. Perhaps one or both of your parents suffered mental or physical illness or didn’t act as a mature adult. You took care of brothers and sisters. Maybe you were the eldest child, or maybe you were simply the one most innately responsible. You made sure that others were fed, did their homework, and were asleep at a decent hour. You made sure a parent took their medication, or you picked them up from the bar at night. You became someone who made sure that necessary tasks were accomplished, and you were good at it. You began hiding how lonely and in need of comfort you were. You had to be okay—so you were okay.
5. You were the "star" of your family. You were highly praised for your successes. They were expected from you, the least you could do. Faltering or making mistakes wasn't about learning; they were seen as failure. You were labeled the smart one, the athletic one, the accomplished one: "He can do anything he sets his mind to," or, "You don’t give us any problems. I love you for that.” The pressure was immense. And you came to believe that the world expects perfection as well, with each accomplishment needing to top the last one. You keep the thumb in your back, pushing and prodding yourself constantly. Vulnerability, struggle, not hitting the mark—all of that is unacceptable.
6. You were male. You were taught that it's unmanly to admit any kind of vulnerability. Your male role models lived that way, or maybe you grew up in a highly gender-stereotyped environment, in which being masculine had stoicism at its core. To act otherwise was mocked or ridiculed as being weak.
7. No one in the family was allowed to express painful emotion of any kind. Things happened, even painful things like death, divorce, or disappointment, but no one talked about the pain of those losses. You were hushed for crying, punished for showing anger, sent to your room if you looked upset: "Don't come down until you get yourself together." "Don't air your dirty laundry in public." You were never comforted or supported for feeling hurt, or lost, or confused. So, you became silent. You decided you weren't the "emotional kind." You stopped asking for comfort, because there was none available. After all, what better way to cope than to believe that what's absent isn't needed?
8. You felt (or feel) responsible for a parent's happiness or fulfillment. Your parent said things like, "I don't know what I'd do without you." "There's no one who understands me like you do." You feel as if it's your job to prop up that parent, so you have to be ever-constant, ever-caring.
This undue responsibility is called enmeshment. No child has the power to bring fulfillment or contentment to a parent. How can you ever leave if it's your job to make a parent happy? So, you may have stayed locked into that role, sharing parts of yourself that will be pleasing to that parent, but hiding others. Your life can become a tangle of hidden secrets. If you do move to another city or take a job that keeps you busy, you walk around feeling as if you're disloyal or abandoning that parent—simply because you grew up. Thus, you try harder to be the perfect son or daughter, because your parent cannot give you permission to grow away from them.
9. Your family culture didn’t (or doesn’t) support emotional openness or uniqueness. There's a vast amount of difference between countries and cultures in how emotions are understood and expressed. So, it follows that your cultural or religious ethnicity—the beliefs and rules and expectations you were taught—shaped your comfort or permission to express whatever confusion or pain you felt. You mimicked how the adults around you behaved: That is what children do in order to feel attached, loved, and part of the family.
Or perhaps you grew up in a family culture that couldn’t support your gender identity, your religious preference, or your sexuality—or just you in general. You felt shame for knowing you were different from the stereotype of what was expected. Your answer was to mask your reality. It was too dangerous not to. These cultural differences need to be respected and understood. However, the more you try to fit in with a culture that does encourage emotional openness, or support individual differences, it may easily cause conflict and problems.
If you find yourself here, perhaps donning the perfect-looking life was your answer—and perfectly hidden depression could easily have been born.
If you'd like to know where you might be on the spectrum of perfectly hidden depression, click here for a questionnaire.
Facebook image: YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV/Shutterstock
