Masks we wear
A year ago, masks would have been a completely different post. Living with “high-functioning” mental illness, my face serves as a mask to cover what I am actually feeling and thinking inside. Although that mask slips sometimes, it usually gets me through the day when I am struggling inside.
Since the pandemic started, masks (a face covering usually made of cloth or some fabric that covers the nose and mouth of the wearer to stop respiratory droplets from escaping or entering the person’s mouth and nose, I wanted to make sure I defined it for possible future readers who did not experience the 2020 pandemic) are a totally different concern now; first we didn’t need a mask 😷, then we needed them but what kind of mask was questionable (the KN95 masks were the most desirable at first), then any kind of cloth face covering was acceptable, then only certain masks were acceptable, then there were executive orders to wear a mask in public, then business policies that required masks, then there were people who said masks weren’t affective and people’s freedoms were being trampled on due to mask mandates, then some people turned to violence over someone wearing or not wearing a mask, the mask debate still lingers as I am writing this passage.
For me, living with PTSD, masks were really hard to wear and deal with seeing others wear them at first. The feeling of a mask over my mouth mimics the feeling of a hand held over my mouth to keep me quiet during my abuse, which caused me to experience lots of flashbacks. Seeing people with masks on also triggered flashbacks for me as it made it hard to read people’s emotions and intentions when wearing a mask and it made me feel vulnerable because what if their intentions are to hurt me. I also struggled with having Remy wear a mask as I felt like I was gagging my toddler which I felt like it would slow his speech development and it also reminded me of someone putting their hand over my mouth as a child. But I was able to work through it and help teach Remy in a positive way to wear a mask. I can now wear a mask with little to no emotional impact.
Now I went through a few different masks (thanks Mom for always keeping me supplied) before I settled on one I wear most days. It is a mask I made on the Snapfish website, wear I took a photo of my mouth and nose and put it on a mask (actually on two masks as I thought the first one was lost in the mail and Snapfish sent me a replacement. I accidentally made the photo too big but that lends a certain extra charm to it. I always get comments when I wear that mask (100x more comments that when I wear any other mask I have), mostly people who like the mask but there have been quite a few people who were startled when they first saw it, and many people remember me because of that mask. I feel like that mask brightens most people’s days, which is sorely needed during this whole pandemic. If I can make one person smile with that mask, then it makes it worth wearing.
