The Relentless Camouflage of Performing Your Life

Camouflage. You wear it to hide, to be able to do something in secret, to escape detection but get some job done. Right?

Today, Dr. Margaret is going to focus on the camouflage of performing life instead of living it as it comes. It may provide protection, but also immense loneliness and emptiness.

It’s an interesting thing to wonder about in a psychological context.

 

Camouflage is everywhere…

I’ve done a fair amount of performing in my life. But that performing was on stages, as a character in a play or musical. And of course, I also struggle with performance anxiety, which can make any attempt at performing in front of anyone more that difficult.

But stop and think about who and why people wear camouflage in daily life. Hunters want to fade into the woods. Soldiers need to stay protected and hidden from the enemy. Thieves wear dark clothes so as to blend into the night.

And then, there’s the whole animal world to consider. Over millions of years, animals had a greater chance of survival if their outer skin helped them escape detection. Or blend into whatever their surface they were on. Stick insects look like real sticks of wood. Deer disappear into the landscape. Fish turn different colors, given how shallowly or deeply they’re swimming.

I could go on and on.

The camouflage of performance…

But what’s the camouflage of performance?

It’s when – for protection from pain or fear, discrimination or abuse – you don’t let others see that fear or hurt. You push it far away from who you seem to be publicly. And you begin performing your life. You begin to play the role you think will work best for you, and will keep you protected. And you can become highly invested in keeping others out of your inner world. The only thing you allow them to see… is a practiced, even keel, in control version of yourself.

That performance can demand constant attention, relentless efforts at keeping your performance at its highest level.  You can become exhausted but still need to look strong. In a moment when you might feel the creeping desire to ask someone for help, you push yourself relentlessly to be independent. In charge. You can fear anyone peaking under that lid of camouflage, so you religiously check that it’s locked in tight.

Here’s an analogy that may add some light.

I’m a messy person. And my closet reflects that. One of my nephews lived with us for a while, and he joked: “Aunt Margaret, you always look nice when you come downstairs. But how you pull that off is a mystery, given your closet’s so messy.”

I’m not proud of this fact. So of course, when “people are over,” I don’t invite them to peak into my closet. I prefer them thinking that if I look “put together” on the outside, then the inside of my closet would look pretty good. The more I might be invested in that persona of neatness, then the more urgent I’d feel about keeping that door solidly closed.

It’s a silly example. But hopefully, helpful.

Challenging the need to perform…

I always like to talk about what you can do about something.

This one’s not easy. To allow someone in, to ask for help, to admit struggle – when you believe or have believed that your superior and very controlled performance insures your safety or even your worth, you can see that that’s a difficult challenge.

This can be become – in effect – its own prison. I’ve called it perfectly hidden depression.

It’s work. But it’s very important work. Because you are more than what you accomplish. Your life shouldn’t be all about checking boxes – all the time. “Did that. Got that.”

And maybe…. just maybe… after you’ve begun this work, you can pause before donning your camouflage. And decide instead to share. To connect. To live this moment in whatever state of being you’re in.

When you’re performing, it can get so bad that suicidal thoughts can rise to the surface. And yet no one would know. Like Stuart says in this video, he was an expert at performing.

Until luckily and with a lot of work, he found a way out of that prison.

And so can you.

By the way… 

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