Anxiety has been part of me for years, but only recently have I understood the role pretense played in its birth and growth. What people think about me has long been more important than I’d care to admit, and my behavior has often been directed by my need to be admired.
Through his Family Systems Theory, Dr. Murray Bowen coined the term Differentiation of Self to describe our struggle to find balance between conformity and independent thought. The extent to which my behavior was dictated by what others think about me resulted in a poorly differentiated “self.” People with lower differentiation levels are influenced by what others think, while those of higher differentiation are less likely to be influenced by others’ expectations. Large portions of my life have been spent drowning in the lower end.
Masking our true selves causes mental strain, and there is only so much our psyche can withstand before it snaps. Anxiety is often the result of that snap, and it can cause our own decimation. My mask creates a persona of high intelligence, and protects me from being discovered as less bright than I’d like to be. In behavioral terms, this manifested through frequent unwillingness to say “I’m wrong” or “I don’t know”, and often posturing myself as Cliff Clavin. Some might be too young to know who that is, so please ask an old person in your life.
The consequence of my mask is imposter syndrome. In other words, I’m aware my intelligence is average, but anyone else discovering that about me is terrifying. This is not to suggest I have zero intelligence, it just means I don’t know everything, and I am afraid others will judge me on my limitations. The space between who I am, and who I want people to see creates fear of being found-out, but as I learn personal acceptance, I realize others accept me as well.
Some of my clients suffer from perfectionism, and are haunted by an inner critic who tells them that regardless of their best efforts, they aren’t good enough, and are agonized by an endless pursuit of the unattainable. Perfectionist teens with whom I work wonder where the A+ is when they receive an A, and we work together to discover the origins of this haranguing need. One client who comes to mind is a 13 year-old who has panic attacks before class presentations because she feels judged by her audience if she so much as stammers. Part of what helps her is my confession that I sometimes question my effectiveness as a therapist, and that somehow liberates her to be human.
Another example is people who identify as LGBTQ who fear revealing themselves to family or friends for fear of rejection. Instead, they live two lives, and learn to self-loathe.
When we close the gap between who we are, and who we want people to see, we squeeze anxiety out because it needs room to breathe, and narrowing the space in which it breeds suffocates it to death. Closing the gap doesn’t mean recklessly broadcasting our vulnerabilities to the entire world. It only means we remove the masks we wear in order to gain approval, and give the people closes to us a chance to accept us as we are. Not only is this an awesome step toward differentiation of self, it allows other people to remove their masks, and accept themselves as they are.
It takes a certain amount of trust in our relationships to take the risk, because intimate relationships are where we are most exposed to emotional wounds. One of the reasons sharing imperfections with my clients was an easy first step is that while those relationships are intimate, they do not impact how I am valued by those closest to me. On the other hand, divulging my fears about not being as smart as I’d like to be creates fear family, friends, and colleagues will no longer admire me. By trusting them more, I remove my mask, kill the imposter, and revel in the liberation of “I don’t know.”
Through honest assessment of self, you can acknowledge who you are in contrast to who you want people to see. If you fear people will discover a “flaw” you’ve kept hidden from them, that is anxiety costing you intimacy and joy. It takes an effort to merge our realistic selves with our idealized versions, but as you close the gap, you will feel the relief of anxiety being squeezed out of you.
