I believe, a smile can hide a thousand insecurities

This I believe

I believe a smile can hide a thousand insecurities.

I am sixteen fixing to be seventeen and I have grown very familiar with putting on a smile so it hides everything you feel so nobody knows something is wrong.

To hide my simple problems, to hide my biggest fear or even to hold back every tear, I smile. Around my sophomore year in high school my “smile” became my mask and my depression got worse. I was becoming my worst enemy more than ever before. I was pushing everybody I cared for further away for I did not want them to be close to me.

The days grew longer and my mornings became more dreadful, each time I opened my eyes I saw everything on my body that I hated, it only made my depression worse. Nobody knew anything but I didn’t want them to. I had been fighting this battle for about three years and just because this year had been the worst didn’t mean I was going to open myself up. My body and mind was a war zone, constantly telling me what a failure I was telling me I would never be good enough no matter how hard I tried. My depression wasn’t just a mental thing it was physical, it hurt to move, to talk, and to even write. It was exhausting to do it all. Some days just felt like my body was a puddle, a puddle of nothing. My brain felt like exploding and I was corroding. My eyes were so heavy all the time ,they wanted nothing more than to be shut just like I wanted nothing more than to feel alive.

During school though I was just another teenager who had friends and laughed, joked who was so secure about whom I was. Nobody saw the color of life slowly drain out of my eyes .They saw the smile, that’s all they needed to see.

It was all so bad I just stopped going to school. I stayed in bed as much as I could; life was draining out of me. I didn’t even want to wake up and face anybody or anything; it took so much out of me. Took so much to say simple words to people, took so much to hide what my hidden disease was doing to me. I had my own battle and putting on that face of happy I was also fighting everybody else’s battle. I had scars to hide and frown to turn upside down. It was like I was two people I was the person who I saw and who wanted to hide away but then I was the person who was always happy and was always making sure everybody was happy before myself. When I did go to school however a smile was my best friend, “I’m fine” was my favorite word if anybody asked how I was feeling. I was an actor for a day and a good one at that..

Because of all of this and so much more I always try to make somebody’s day even if I can’t make my own. I look deeper into people, other than just the surface.