Put on your game face

Laura was a naturally a very smiley person, the way her features were made her look bubbly and happy most of the time.  In our first session Laura completed a short questionnaire where she had to scale her mood based on how she had been feeling the last fortnight (known in the business as a PHQ-9), she rated extremely low on at least six of the questions.

The huge in-congruence between how she looked on the outside and how she felt on the inside continued session to session. From the outside she looked like she was coping well and in a happy positive mood. It wasn’t until our third session that I spoke about the mismatch between the low self-reported scores and the fact that she presented so upbeat smiley and positive.

Laura spoke about over the years developing this exterior or GameFace. It started after a time when she had cut her arms,  friends said to her “your life it’s not so bad that you have to self harm”.  After her one and only suicide attempt, this too was met with shock and disbelief from friends and family. This incidents taught Laura that it was dangerous to show how she was really feeling as it would not be believed.  Laura described the control she now has in being able to hide how she’s really feeling. She had become a master GameFace wearer.

If everybody went through life with such control in hiding their true emotions what would life be like? Nothing would be really as you see it would be an act. There would be no raw feelings visible it will be difficult to make genuine connection.

Or has society gone too far the other way in showing all emotion letting it all hang out? Generations today don’t have the same stiff upper lip mentality or reserve. It is seen as a human right to be able to sound off with little regard for how our opinions or words are met or impact they have on those around them.

My work with Laura was to help her close the in-congruence gap and to be able to share with the world a little more of how she was really feeling. To help validate her emotions and show her that whatever she was feeling it was okay.

Reflective questions

When do you most where your game face?

What emotions do you most often hide from friends and family?

How safe is it for you to talk about how you are?

What can you do to reduce the gap between how you feel and how you present to the world?