THE MEMORY OF YOU...US...MY 8TH GRADE YEAR

Putting Up A Facade

“Hate contains truth, beauty is a facade” A facade, is known as the outside of a building. What we see on the outside, not the inside. Sometimes known to be a front that we put up to make a less pleasant reality look more cheerful and positive. Facade is also used to describe people. Not just buildings. It is used in the same way it’s used to describe a building. A facade, when describing a person, is the fronts we put up to conceal our true emotions, thoughts, or feelings.  Sometimes we put up a happy facade to hide the fact that we are actually sad or feeling hopeless. Sometimes, we may make it seem like we’re tough and strong when inside, we are falling apart.

I’ve learned that putting up a facade, or a front, can affect you positively and negatively. It can help you positively by giving you time to figure things out. If you are stressed or anxious but you don’t know why, then giving off a happy feeling can affect you in two possible ways. One, it can give you some time to think about why you are feeling the way you’re feeling. Or two, as I like to call it, “fake it till you make it”. If you just keep telling yourself that you’re confident and that you believe in yourself, then sometimes, you actually do begin to feel that way.

It can also affect you negatively. By acting like you’re okay, you sometimes begin to believe it more than you should. Sometimes, if you believe it too much, it can leave you feeling numb. Without all our feelings and emotions, the world would be black and white. Everything and everyone would be the same. We would all live without getting to experience love and loss, laughter and tears. Those are the things that make life interesting.

We all feel things differently. Some may bottle up feelings and not acknowledge them, while others may feel them entirely. Then you also have those who try to bottle their feelings up but have some that just bubble over the edge. That’s me. I prefer to bottle things up until it bubbles over and eventually just explodes.

I’ve learned that while it may benefit you at first, in the end, it just causes all of your emotions and feelings to explode. In the beginning, it “helps” you by numbing you to those emotions and feelings that you’ve been bottling up. After feeling all of those things and getting so far that you numb yourself to everything, it’s a relieving feeling. After a while, it can cause issues in your daily life.

Things like this start small. It can start with a small issue such as an argument or getting a bad grade and feeling like you’ve disappointed your parents. It starts small and eventually you find yourself overwhelmed by life. Have you ever felt this way? If the answer to that is yes, then I hope I can help you by sharing how I get through this. If your answer is no, then you might be someone who either feels their emotions to the full capacity, or you may be someone who shuts them out completely. Either way, these methods can be used for each type of person.