Why “Fake It ’Til You Make It” is the Worst Advice You’ve Received
“I mean, when it gets hard, you just have to tell yourself you’re over it.”
My friend sat across from me in the dimly lit basement of my school’s dining hall, explaining her journey to recovering from an abusive relationship. I took another bite of my stale chicken salad in attempts to quell the uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“What do you mean?” I responded, hoping I didn’t know what she meant.
“The more I pretend I’m okay the sooner it’ll start to be true.”
“‘Fake it ’til you make it’, is it really that simple? Pretend you’re okay and you will be someday,” I thought to myself. It seemed simple. It was something I was already in the routine of doing around family, talking to friends, and sitting in classes. I woke up, painted on eyeliner and a smile, pulled on my big-girl-pants, and faced the day with, seemingly, not a care in the world. I laughed at the jokes and knew the right words to say. I played the part well. To my friends and family, I was the bubbly girl who wouldn’t let anything get her down and, clutzy me, spent 75% of my time falling and running into things leaving bruises and scrapes all over my body. Just a normal girl.
But when I was alone, a lot of things changed. I wiped away the eye makeup to reveal dark circles under my eyes from sleepless nights. I crawled into bed wanting nothing more than to be alone with myself and my thoughts. And when the nights got the hardest, self harm was my only vice. “You deserve this,” I told myself. “You are nothing but a fake and a liar. When will you measure up to being all that you pretend you are?”
Scraped Knees and Emotional Wounds
We emotionally and mentally heal in a similar way to how we physically heal. When we scrape our skin, we have to tend to the wound to ensure it didn’t cut too deeply, doesn’t get infected, and, in time, heals properly. This same idea goes for emotional healing.
But if you fall down and gash your knee open, do you tell yourself, “pretend it’s not broken skin and it will heal. If you pretend it’s okay, it will be”? Do you go into the backyard and kneel on the ground, your open wound in the dirt, and say “if I say that it’s clean here, it won’t get infected”? If it won’t heal, do you tell yourself “you’re being dramatic, people will hate you if they know you’re wounded” and avoid getting help?
This is exactly how we treat our emotional and mental health. It’s how I walked through life for five years. We look at weakness and perceive it as failure. Our ego tells us there’s nothing heroic about getting help. Strength is found in being headstrong and not admitting we cannot go through life alone. Doing it ourselves. Receiving the prize and then telling the crowd what a difficult fight it was. Admitting our weaknesses after we feel they’ve been conquered, but during the fight we let no one in. Why do we feel like being alone in the struggle makes us stronger? Why do we feel that depending on community weakens our character?
Layers of Makeup
I had spent my entire life with knots in my stomach, isolating myself, trying to become something I was not. Instead of healing, I abandoned myself and my emotional wounds in an attempt to become put together and independant. That was what I thought made someone “perfect”. But it wasn’t until I heard the term “fake it ’til you make it” that I started to notice how I had conformed to the idea of what I thought everyone wanted me to be. And the more I confined myself to being the carefree girl I wished I were, the harder I would fall on the nights I came home and set aside the façade. But I didn’t understand why. I was fine when I was with people. But alone time was brutal.
It was in those moments that I realized what was going on. In time spent alone, I had no one to fool. I was forced to look inward. I had to recognize the hurting girl inside of me and admit that I wasn’t perfect. And I finally realized what all the charades had done to me. I was so focused on pretending that I never allowed myself to heal.
I was blind to what I had been doing until the day that I heard my own logic come out of the mouth of someone whom I love. I realized how my denial had turned into my reality. The more I pretended I was okay, the more I believed it. But the more I believed it, the more I refused help. All the while, the wounds weren’t healing. They were just covered up by layers of make up, both literally and metaphorically. I still hated myself, I still called myself names, I still hurt myself when I screwed up. I wasn’t healed, I was just really good at pretending I was.
Laying in bed that night, I closed my eyes and realized I would never be able to heal until I was honest with myself. I didn’t understand how to then, but I understand it now. You cannot be what you believe other people expect of you. You will fail every. single. time. But what you can be is yourself. And what you can be is honest. And what you can do is seek help when you’re hurting. And at the end of the day, what you will be is free.
