Keeping up appearances

The trouble with struggling is that people expect suffering to look a certain way.

They expect the unwashed hair, the missed appointments, the tears, the breakdowns. They expect distress to announce itself loudly enough that no one could miss it.

But many people become fluent in appearing fine.

They shower. They brush their teeth. They answer emails. They smile at the right moments. They ask how everyone else is doing. They learn how to perform wellness because the world rewards it and because survival often depends on it.

The cruel irony is that the better someone becomes at hiding their pain, the less likely they are to be believed when they finally speak about it.

"I've been struggling."

"But you seem okay."

As though seeming okay and being okay are the same thing.

Some of the most exhausted people I have ever known looked perfectly put together. Some of the loneliest people still showed up for everyone else. Some of the people most in need of help had become so skilled at carrying their burden quietly that their requests for support sounded to others like exaggerations. They were met with sarcastic responses, ‘lol same’ or some other joke.

People will say they want you to ask for help. But often, what they really mean is that they want the suffering to be visible enough to justify the help they are comfortable giving.

They say mental health matters as long as it’s within their expectations.

As soon as helping changes from a supportive text to having to wash someone’s hair for them, to having to tidy their room or call for emergency care – the help disappears.

And while of course, nobody should have to be a saviour. Nobody should have to fix someone else’s problems. But that is not what is being asked. Society cannot admit there is a mental health crisis and simultaneously shun those people experiencing a crisis.

Poor mental health, mental illness, are not cute. They’re not a trend or easily fixed. But we can all make things easier for someone. The first thing we have to do is believe them when they say

“Things have been bad”

“I’ve not been feeling so good”

“Everything’s just been really shit”

Because very few people will be up to articulating exactly what has happened and exactly what they need.

“I relapsed two months ago and every day since has felt like an impossible struggle to just stay alive” is so hard to say, when “eh, things aren’t great but it’s okay” is so much easier, so much more digestible to those listening.

We learn to cover up our pain because we know how much it hurts when your ask for help isn’t acknowledged. Asking again feels like pleading, like begging. And nobody should beg to be believed.

The problem is not that people don't ask for help. The problem is that help is often reserved for those who can visibly prove they need it.

There is an unspoken threshold many people are expected to cross before they are taken seriously. As long as they are working, studying, parenting, socialising, replying to messages, or simply getting out of bed each morning, their distress is treated as manageable.

The ability to function becomes evidence against their suffering. Every completed task is interpreted as proof that things cannot be that bad.

But functioning is not the same as flourishing. Survival is not the same as wellbeing. Some people carry unimaginable weight while continuing to meet every expectation placed upon them. Not because they are fine, but because they do not believe the world will stop demanding things from them if they admit they are not. Because past experiences have lead them to believe this is the only way.

If someone stops mentioning their struggle it does not mean it has gone away. Out of sight out of mind is a huge problem here.

Changing this begins with a simple shift: believing people the first time they tell us something is wrong. It means resisting the urge to measure distress against our own expectations of what suffering should look like.

It means checking in on the friend who always seems to have everything under control, listening without immediately searching for proof, and understanding that someone's ability to function does not tell us how much they are carrying.

For professionals, it means recognising that presentation is not the same thing as wellbeing.

For all of us, it means creating spaces where people do not have to reach breaking point before they are met with care.

Sometimes the bravest thing a person does is say "I need help." If we truly want people to reach out, then we have to become better at hearing them. Not when they are visibly falling apart. Not when their suffering has become undeniable.

When they first trust us enough to tell the truth.

-Lucy