The Strange thing about writing fiction

Maybe we’re all a little unhealthy

I’ve always been fascinated by people.

Not in a creepy, watching-people-from-a-distance kind of way, but in a what makes us do the things we do? kind of way.

Over the years, through work, relationships, friendships, motherhood, studying and simply living life, I’ve become increasingly fascinated by the difference between what we see on the outside and what is actually happening underneath.

And I’ve come to realise something.

Most of us wear a mask.

Some masks are obvious.

Others are incredibly convincing.

There is the person who seems to have everything together. I call these people “the perfects”

Their house is beautiful. Their children are well behaved. Their career is going well. They always look put together. Relationships look fun, happy and they’re organised, successful and capable.

Then there’s the person who is always happy.

The person who never seems to have a bad day.

The person everyone goes to when they need help because “they’ve always got it together.”

Historically I used to look we at these people and assume they’re so healthy, they must know the secret to life – I wonder what it is?

But what if looking healthy and being healthy aren’t always the same thing?

Because sometimes perfection is a coping mechanism. Sometimes keeping yourself incredibly busy means you don’t have to sit still long enough to feel what is going on inside. Sometimes being needed by everyone else means you don’t have to acknowledge how lonely you actually are.

Sometimes controlling everything around you is an attempt to feel safe when you don’t feel safe inside yourself. Sometimes being the person who always has it together means nobody ever gets close enough to see that you’re struggling.

And sometimes the mask becomes so convincing that we forget we’re even wearing it.

And then there are the people who DON’T wear the mask.

The people who cry.

The people who say, “I’m not okay.”

The person who is grieving and doesn’t try to make their grief comfortable for everyone else.

The person whose life looks a little messy.

The person who admits they’ve made mistakes.

The person who is struggling and isn’t particularly good at hiding it.

I know for myself I used to feel very uncomfortable around people like this, I would get frustrated and irritated and think to myself – oh, common. Get it together. Then I took a long hard look at myself and the world and people around me and started asking questions.

I noticed everyone had a tolerance level for being able to sit in discomfort. With others and with themselves.

Something I noticed being an Australian we embraced the English way of being “one must put on a brave face in public”

One must not be emotional

Messy.

Difficult.

Too much.

Too sensitive

Unhealthy.

The last few years I’ve noticed a distinct change in behaviour. It’s like the exhaustion of the mask can no longer be upheld and people are just being themselves….. angry, frustrated, messy, not playing the social rules – it seems teens are catching on a lot quicker with the internet being in their faces daily.

Honesty and openness is being highlighted through many different channels and sometimes that honesty and openness isn’t always what we want to see.

There is something strangely courageous about not pretending.

About allowing yourself to be seen when you’re hurting.

About saying, “This is where I am right now,” instead of desperately trying to convince everyone that you’re somewhere else.

And maybe that’s why these people can make the “perfect” people so uncomfortable. A call to imperfection might just lead you to the true perfection- the true self!?

Brene Brown wrote about the gift of imperfection and how shame often drives that behaviour.

I truly believe our relationships act as mirrors to our own behaviour and the hidden parts of us we don’t often want to admit are hiding in there.

Admitting our imperfections can often mean we need to grieve the loss of who we thought we were. That’s an emotional ouch that many of us aren’t often prepared to sit in the discomfort of.

Often when we see someone sitting in their sadness, if their sadness makes you uncomfortable it is likely touching the sadness you’ve buried.

What about when someone tries to express themselves and their vulnerability? Sometimes we need to be careful who we allow those vulnerabilities to feel safe enough to come out, because not everyone deserves your vulnerability. Especially if it touches on something within the person receiving or ‘holding space’

Their messiness challenges the carefully constructed version of yourself you’ve presented to the world.

And perhaps it’s easier to judge them than to look at ourselves.

It’s much easier to point out someone else’s mess than to acknowledge our own.

I think this is one of the reasons I love writing fiction.

As a nurse we were taught about self reflection as a part of training to help with our learning and development – in fact it was when I trained called “critical self reflection” in hindsight “critical” probably not the best term. But self reflection at least in my opinion has been both helpful and harmful at times… because I can lead toward self criticism as a self flagellation.. alas I am but a mere human continually learning about the gifts of imperfection.

Fiction writing for me at least allows me to create characters based on my own understanding and I get to form them in a way I want them to be…. You get to play, mould and create something that isn’t always perfect. Because they’re fictional.

When creating a character profile for each of the characters I have for my books – at least this is how it went for me

I had to ask questions….

Why does this person/character behave like that?

What are they afraid of?

What are they trying to protect?

What happened to them?

What do they desperately want people to believe about them?

And what are they hiding?

A character might appear confident, but underneath they could be terrified of rejection.

Someone might appear incredibly independent, but underneath they may be desperately afraid of needing or wanting someone.

Someone might seem cold when they’re actually protecting a very tender part of themselves – their heart maybe?

Someone might appear to have everything together while quietly falling apart.

And another person might look like the messiest person in the room while actually being the one doing the most honest work on themselves.

That’s the strange thing about people.

We rarely know the whole story from what we see.

I’ve also started to realise that our unhealthy behaviours don’t necessarily make us bad people.

Sometimes they’re things we learned because, at some point, they helped us.

Maybe withdrawing protected us from rejection.

Maybe perfection protected us from criticism.

Maybe people-pleasing protected us from conflict.

Maybe control protected us from uncertainty.

Maybe keeping everyone else happy meant we didn’t have to deal with our own unhappiness.

Maybe helping everyone is easier because we didn’t have anyone to help or guide us?

The problem is that something that once protected us can eventually become the very thing that prevents us from living differently. Freely – living in the gifts of the spirit – peace, joy, love, patience, gentleness, self control.

And I think that’s where things get really interesting.

Because what happens when the mask becomes more exhausting than the thing underneath it?

What happens when you finally become brave enough to take it off?

What happens when someone sees you without it…

and doesn’t leave?

Maybe that’s what I love most about writing.

I get to create imperfect people.

People who make mistakes.

People who hurt.

People who love badly.

People who protect themselves in ways that aren’t always healthy.

People who want connection but are terrified of it.

People who desperately want to be seen but are equally terrified of what might happen if someone actually sees them.

And I get to explore what happens when they are forced to look underneath their own masks.

I’ve realised that I don’t really want to write perfect characters.

Perfect people aren’t particularly interesting to me.

I want the complicated ones.

The ones who are carrying things.

The ones who don’t always get it right.

The ones who are trying to figure themselves out.

The ones who might look completely different depending on which side of the mask you’re standing on.

And perhaps that’s why as I had been developing the unhealthy series the idea of The Perfects series came to me. Alas I must finish the first book of this series first – that series got sent to my ideas parking lot.

But that’s a story for another day.

For now, I’m still thinking about the masks we all wear.

The ones we consciously put on.

The ones we don’t even realise we’re wearing anymore.

And the people who make us uncomfortable simply because they have stopped pretending.

Maybe they aren’t the unhealthy ones.

Maybe they’re just the ones brave enough to let us see what’s underneath.

And maybe…

we’re all a little unhealthy.

Which, perhaps, is just another way of saying:

we’re all human.