I’ve got to admit, I’ve been in a few of these spots myself. You know life is grinding you down, yet you stand up against the incoming storm, and you pretend those dark clouds aren’t heading directly for you (or are even right above you).
The troubling aspect of this is just how good people can be at hiding what’s weighing them down. They’re carrying this heavy, difficult bag on their back, yet they throw a sheet over it and pretend it’s nothing.
When you can look at the following behaviors of someone who does this, you get an idea of just how much they’re willing to hide from you in the name of “Everything’s fine.”
7 behaviors of people who are struggling but won’t admit it:
1. They default to “I’m fine” (often before anyone even has a chance to ask).
In many circumstances, responding “I’m fine” rather than offloading your woes would be considered a “socially appropriate” response.
Yet at its core, it’s masking. It’s covering over a truth with something lighter to share, even when it hurts you to do so.
And while we’re at it, what is socially appropriate about pretending your life has no problems? We all have problems!
If I catch the right person in my life who asks how I am, there’s no way on this green earth that I’m going to say I’m fine if I’m not. They’re about to get bundled with a list longer than Santa’s nice list about why my day has been horrific.
And even if people don’t ask, tell them you’re not fine if you’re not. Don’t hide all the ways you’re not okay behind a smile and social niceties.
Life is hard for all of us. I say let’s share it with each other, so we know we’re human and not some kind of AI robot with no heart or organic feelings.
2. They use humor as the ultimate defense mechanism.
You know, you’d be surprised how many people enter therapy rooms using humor as a defense. Therapists pay close attention to how a client uses humor because it offers valuable insights into their inner world.
The reason they’re looking out for humor in sessions is because a joke can hide so much sadness, grief, or pain. People who use humor like this aren’t necessarily denying their pain, they’re trying to conceal it rather than acknowledge how difficult life is for them.
If you’re doing this in everyday life with regular people, you’re still doing the same thing, only those people aren’t trained to see the pain behind the laughing, so they’re less likely to spot it.
I can’t help but think of the late, great Robin Williams as I write this, who is a shining example of hiding his own pain through such unforgettable humor.
3. They check on everyone else, but never on themselves.
What an indirect way to tell yourself that you don’t matter, right?
You make your day about running to the supermarket to make sure you have food for the kids’ lunches that week. You pop round to see your elderly neighbor who recently broke her wrist. You get up early to iron what everyone wants to wear that day.
At what point do you stop and look in the mirror? At what point do you check in with how you’re feeling and what you need?
Dodging your feelings doesn’t make the hard stuff any less hard; it just leaves it sitting there, waiting for you. And the longer you leave it, the louder it’s going to get.
I’ve played emotional dodgeball like this myself a few times in my own life, and trust me, if you ignore what’s screaming at you, eventually it will consume you.
4. They downplay everything that goes wrong.
You fall over on the ice and scrape your knee. Your washing machine breaks mid-cycle. Your car won’t start. You lose your job. You get sick.
“It’s okay. There’s always someone worse off than me!” “At least I’m still alive!”
Sure, other people have problems, and in the grand scheme of things, you can’t compare your knee scrape to homelessness, but that doesn’t mean your problems aren’t valid. Suffering isn’t a competition with only one winner.
If things are hard for you, they’re hard. Say it. Sing it. Even just admit it to yourself. You’re allowed to have a bad day, or week, or month.
5. They apologize whenever they ask for something they need.
Oh my goodness. I am thinking of a certain person in my own life who constantly apologizes, and I have to call her out on it every single time. It’s not that I’m on her case; it’s that I want her to see that she doesn’t need to say she’s sorry because I offered her a cup of tea and she said yes.
“Why are you sorry for wanting the cup of tea that I asked you if you wanted?”
I see her eyes widen each time I pull her up on it, but I do it to show her that her apologies are unnecessary. And I will keep doing it, because I know her well and I know the kind of life she’s had.
Watching her parents fight and scream at each other, followed by marrying a man so toxic he could be a floor cleaner, seeing her shrink in his presence … yeah. That’ll do it.
When you learn early that your needs and problems are inconvenient, you go into adulthood hiding and apologizing for them.
But your needs are your needs, and everyone has problems. You don’t need to say sorry for them, and if you do, I’m going to be the first one to call you out on it.
Apologize when you’ve done something wrong, not as a technique to smooth out conflict before it’s even happened.
6. The future is a topic that gets swept aside.
How does this one sit with you? Are you somebody who prefers to avoid any future plans because you can’t possibly imagine ever getting there?
It’s like someone saying to you, “Hey! There’s a tropical paradise just over there if you keep walking ahead!” But all you see is a mountain that you have to climb, oh, and it’s just started to rain hard, oh, and you don’t have any shoes on.
You know that the tropical paradise sounds nice, but how can you even fathom getting there when you’re in this current mess?
You don’t want to envisage happiness because you think getting there is impossible right now, so you sweep all thoughts of what’s to come aside.
Furthermore, you aren’t likely to assume anything ahead is going to be positive if you’re stuck in that cycle of everything being such a challenge.
And so, you don’t, and you disengage from any topic that might suggest otherwise.
7. They seem fine until someone looks them in the eye and asks if they’re okay.
I wanted to save this one until last, because I know how much you’ll probably be able to relate to this.
We push, we do, we try, we stand tall, we hold back the tears.
Life has grabbed us by the big toe, and we are not okay. We haven’t been for a while, but we’ve kept it all together. Until, that is, we cross paths with someone who notices the despair in our eyes.
“Is everything okay?”
That’s it. They may as well be walking around holding a sign saying, “Nuclear Tear Button Pro.”
When everything spills out like this, it’s usually because you just cannot hold it in any longer. It’s built up and up like a classical concerto, and suddenly, you’ve reached the point of crescendo.
You cry, and those tears hide weeks, months, maybe even years of you keeping all you’re going through to yourself. And it’s only when they reach that surface that you realize quite how difficult it’s been to both hold them in and hide them.
We’ve all been there. I certainly know I have more than once.
Final thoughts…
If you’re struggling right now, it’s easy for me to sign off and then get up and make myself a coffee. For you, the reader, this might be the beginning of understanding something deeper about yourself.
If life is hard for you, there are a plethora of ways you can hide how you’re feeling, and these behaviors are right up there at the top.
If any of these made you stop to think, then I hope us meeting like this today can be your starting point to sort through your issues.
At some point, life is hard for us all. Nobody is getting out of this existence without experiencing pain on some level.
You don’t have to hide it, though.
