Secrets and the shame attached to them often worsen over time, producing increasing emotional pain and damage. People can fear losing status or achievements if they reveal hidden feelings. Unexpressed emotions such as grief, fear, shame, anger, and self-loathing can fester when no safe outlet exists. Many people were never taught that expressing these feelings is acceptable, prompting denial and outward façades of being fine while feeling intense loneliness. Hidden depression may coexist with high performance, causing inner entrapment and pressure to perform. Resilience requires working through painful emotions rather than maintaining rigid control or camouflage, and modeling openness gives others permission to struggle.
But it's not always the secrets themselves that get us into trouble. It's our feelings about those secrets that can darken and deepen over time. Those feelings can be grief, fear, shame, anger, self-loathing, or worse. Yet unfortunately, many of us have never been taught it's OK to express those feelings. And so, we deny their existence. On the outside, all is "fine," while inside, we can feel immense loneliness and despair.
For many of you who've clung to the need to seem completely in control of your life, that's a tall order. It may even feel impossible. And yet, what if it is possible? What if there's a way out of rigid perfectionism that doesn't require sacrificing a sense of achievement or your drive? What if you could model this new way of being for your kids and give them permission to make mistakes or reveal their struggles?
If you struggle with a hidden depression, one that you may be hiding "perfectly," you feel pummeled by the constant, insistent pressure to perform at your peak. You feel trapped inwardly, while outwardly you look as if you don't have a care in the world. And maybe that façade is becoming too hard to maintain. You don't know how to express the pain you feel. You've never known or been taught how to express those feelings.
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