Façade

I often feel like people are fake, but not in an intentionally misleading way. It's more that it's become so unacceptable to express doubt, questions, or actual problems we might have. Maybe it's just American culture in general--someone asks "How are you?" and the automatic response, whether true or not, is "I'm fine!"


I think it's because in Utah, and especially at BYU, prosperity and happiness are equated with righteousness. If you're sad or struggling, you just need to pray harder, or you're doing something wrong that's keeping you from being happy. And yes, I have heard that explicitly preached in my ward: "If you're feeling down, you need to look at your life and see what you're doing that's not in harmony with the commandments. Once you repent, you'll be happy ALL the time!"

Although I know there must be other people who have some of the same problems as me, it's extraordinarily difficult to find them. I've had a hard time connecting to my fellow students in the ward because I just feel alienated. I'm not perfect, and I don't pretend to be. It's what I strive for, but in reality I'm very far from that.

My Book of Mormon professor gave us a pretty stern lecture on honesty, and I've made a goal to be more conscious of when and why I try to deceive others. The biggest lies I consistently tell are about my emotional state. "I'm okay." "I'm great!" "I'm pretty good." False, a huge percentage of the time. This past week has been pretty rough, but it's so hard for me to express.

What do I do when someone asks how my week's been? "Oh, you know. Monday night I was struck by a sudden sense of self-loathing, so I didn't feel like I deserved to eat on Tuesday or Wednesday. Thursday was my birthday, which helped somewhat, but the fact remains that I've only gotten around 10 hours of sleep total this week, so I'm not doing too well right now. How's your week going?"

...
Yeah, that'll help me make friends.

The conundrum: if say I'm great, everything's great, and focus positive things that have happened while I do so, it still feels like I'm being deceptive. But being totally honest isn't socially acceptable. Is there some middle ground that I'm missing?

I'd love feedback on this.

(Also, conflicted over privatizing this blog. I don't really want creepers reading some stuff here that's super personal, but I also like having new people access it. Solutions?)