22/03/2025
ā”ļøThe Masks We Wear
Sitting with a face mask drying on my skin, I canāt help but think about all the other masks Iāve worn, the ones you canāt just wash off. Which has been my work the last 18 months or so.
I didnāt expect anger to be such a big part of my journey, but the deeper I go, the more it rises.
Anger at the performance of womanhood, at how much of my life has been shaped by expectations I didnāt even realise I was trying to meet.
I was the good girl. The one who tried to make me easy to be around. Except I didnāt feel easy to be around. I tried to work extra hard at school, constantly proving my worth, trying to earn approval. I was shy and quiet but felt overly needy and full of angst.
In hindsight being neurodiverse made this even more confusing. As a child, I struggled to regulate myself, I felt everything intensely, reacted too much, needed too much. I was called over-dramatic, too sensitive, too needy.
So, I tried to shrink myself, to keep the peace, to wear the good girl mask, even when it didnāt fit and hurt.
ā”ļøThe mask of compulsory heteros*xuality, making me doubt my own desires.
ā”ļø The mask of heteronormativity, telling me that love, relationships, and family should look a certain way.
ā”ļø The mask of motherhood, where I was meant to be selfless and nurturingābut I wanted to break the cycles of how my children saw motherhood. While feeling the pressure to be more motherly and nurturing, I was also navigating my own struggles.
ā”ļø The mask of gender ideals, shaping how I moved, spoke, and performed being āfemaleā
Each one pulled me further away from myself. Each one made it harder to trust my own voice. Each one left me asking: Who the f**k am I?
Peeling them away isnāt easy. Sometimes, it feels like losing everything I thought made me me. But what Iām learning through my studies, through my work, through just living, is that underneath all of it is someone I want to know deeply.
I donāt have it all figured out. Iām still unlearning, still navigating, still getting it wrong sometimes. But I know this: Iād rather be real than perfect.
And that means letting the masks fall.