Mask Off: The Identities We Build to Survive

MASK OFF — IDENTITY — SOBERMINDS FIELD NOTES

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I remember the first time I realized I didn’t have to be the tough guy anymore.

It happened at my son’s baseball game.

We were sitting in the bleachers eating something, and my son Mark got up to go throw the trash away. Somewhere between there and coming back, somebody ran up and sucker-punched him.

They started fighting.

I saw it from the bleachers, jumped down, ran over and got between them. I grabbed my son and started carrying him through the crowd to get him the fuck out of there.

Then somebody punched me directly in the face.

Out of nowhere.

Some big dude just fucking sucker-punched me while I was carrying my son.

Everything in me knew exactly what to do next.

Put Mark down. Turn around. Fuck this guy up.

I remember thinking, did this motherfucker really just punch me in the face? And he didn’t even knock me out? Has this dude lost his fucking mind?

My adrenaline was pumping.

For most of my life, there wouldn’t have even been a decision to make.

You don’t disrespect me. You don’t talk to me wrong. You don’t eyeball me wrong. And you definitely don’t punch me in the fucking face and expect me to walk away.

That was who I was.

Then I looked down.

My daughter Aubrey was standing there.

And I’ll never forget her face.

She didn’t have to say anything. It was just: please, Dad. Please don’t.

I had probably seen that look on her face more times than I want to admit.

This time, for whatever reason, I actually saw it.

So I kept carrying my son. I walked away.

And for a couple of seconds, I’m not going to bullshit you — I felt weak.

This dude just punched me in the fucking face and I’m walking away?

But that feeling disappeared pretty quickly.

By the time we were in the car, I was fucking proud of myself.

I remember thinking: I didn’t even hit that guy.

For somebody else, that might sound ridiculous. For me, it was huge.

Because for the first time, I understood something. I could still be capable of fighting. I could still protect my family. I could still know exactly what I was capable of. And I could choose not to do it.

I didn’t know it then, but I think that was one of the first real cracks in the mask.

Looking back, that was the first time I started to take the mask off, even if I didn’t have the words for it yet.

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I Learned Early What Toughness Could Do

Before all of that, I was just a kid.

When I try to picture myself really young, before everything started getting layered on top, I remember a pretty cheerful kid who liked to skateboard.

I also remember getting fucked with a lot. First grade. Second grade. Around the bus stop. At school. Getting thrown down hallways.

Somewhere around nine years old, I started figuring something out: people fuck with you less when they think you’re dangerous.

And it turned out I was pretty good at fighting. I liked it.

People around me reinforced it too. You get told to defend yourself. Stand up for yourself. Don’t let somebody fuck with you.

I took that shit seriously.

Eventually I didn’t just defend myself. Being the tough guy became part of my identity.

Don’t disrespect me. Don’t challenge me. Don’t make me look weak. If something happens, I’m stepping in. If somebody needs protecting, I’m handling it. If there’s a problem, I’m the motherfucker who’s going to deal with it.

For a long time, I thought that was just who I was.

Being the tough guy gave me an identity without me realizing that underneath it was an angry, scared kid.

That’s difficult to admit. But it’s true.

And I don’t regret becoming that kid.

If I could sit down with that nine-year-old version of myself today, I wouldn’t tell him: don’t become him.

I’d tell him: I understand why you became him. You needed him. But eventually you’re going to have to let him go. You’re not going to understand that right now. But one day you will.

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The Mask Wasn’t Fake

Here’s what I’ve learned about masks.

We usually talk about them like they’re fake versions of ourselves. I don’t think that’s always true.

Sometimes the most convincing masks are built from things that are completely real.

I really was tough. I really was successful. I really was funny. I really could make money. I really was good at my job. I really was independent. I really could handle shit.

Those weren’t lies.

The problem was that I took true things about myself and used them to conceal other true things about myself.

That’s what made them masks.

Taking the mask off meant admitting that, not pretending the true parts made the lie okay.

The tough guy said: you can’t hurt me. The successful guy said: look at everything I have, obviously I’m doing fine. The funny guy said: everybody’s laughing, don’t look any deeper. The independent guy said: I don’t need anybody.

And eventually I had been doing all of them for so long that I didn’t really know what was underneath anymore.

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The Successful Mask

Success became another mask off moment waiting to happen — I just didn’t know it yet.

I always had to look successful.

Even when I was young, I felt like I had to look a certain way. Before I could even drive, I was stealing clothes.

As I got older and started making real money, that need didn’t disappear. I just got better ways to feed it.

I was materialistic as fuck. Every car had to be customized. I wanted the shoes. The clothes. The house. My kids had new shoes. They played travel sports.

I wanted my family taken care of. I wanted people to look at my life and see somebody doing well.

And the complicated part is that I actually was successful in a lot of ways. I worked hard. I was good at what I did. I got promoted. Making money came fairly easily to me.

So I had plenty of evidence I could point to. Look at my job. Look at my car. Look at my house. Look at how my kids live. Look at what I’m making. I’m doing fucking amazing.

Except inside, I wasn’t.

I was a really pretty garbage can.

The outside looked good. Inside, I was fucking dying. Hurting. Confused. Not knowing what the hell to do with myself.

But if the outside looked successful enough, I didn’t have to deal with that.

At least that’s what I thought.

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“I Don’t Need Anybody”

That mask off truth was the loneliest thing I’d ever admitted to myself.

Success created another mask.

If you’re the successful one, you’re not supposed to need help. You’re the person everybody else calls.

That was me.

And I became very good at convincing myself I didn’t need anybody.

If you did something I considered wrong, I could cut you off. Done. Relationship ends? Fuck it. I’m good.

Except I wasn’t always good. Sometimes I was fucking horrible. I just wasn’t going to let you know that.

Because needing somebody felt dangerous to me. If I needed you, you had power over me.

So I built walls.

And one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn about myself is what happened when I desperately needed somebody. Sometimes I couldn’t say: I need you.

Sometimes ‘I need you’ came out sounding like ‘Fuck you.’

Where the fuck were you? Why weren’t you there? Why don’t you ever fucking show up for me?

I could turn hurt into an argument almost instantly. I could turn needing help into conflict.

At the time, I genuinely thought I was angry. It took sobriety and a lot of looking at myself to realize that sometimes anger was simply the emotion I knew how to use.

Underneath it could be hurt. Fear. Loneliness. Needing somebody. But those things felt like weakness. Anger didn’t.

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Funny Mark

Even being funny was a mask off I hadn’t earned the courage to try yet.

Then there was Funny Mark.

That one started before alcohol. When I was younger, I liked being the goofy kid. I liked making people laugh. It gave me a place in the room.

Somewhere along the way, though, I started feeling like I couldn’t access that person without drinking.

Alcohol changed everything socially for me. Without it, I could feel awkward. I didn’t understand why everybody was laughing. I didn’t know how to join in.

Give me alcohol? Now I’m louder. Funnier. More confident. More entertaining.

Eventually there was almost an expectation when I walked into a room. Oh shit, Mark’s here. And I felt like I had to deliver that version of myself. So I did.

In the earlier years of my drinking, alcohol helped me put the mask on. Then eventually something changed.

Alcohol stopped making me funny. It started making me angry. The life-of-the-party shit started turning into chaos. What I thought was entertaining wasn’t always entertaining anymore. Sometimes it was embarrassing.

And eventually the thing I had been using to help me perform became something I couldn’t control.

Alcohol was my Band-Aid until it wasn’t.

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Sobriety Didn’t Feel Like Freedom

Getting sober didn’t automatically mean mask off. It just meant I’d lost my favorite way of avoiding it.

I wish I could tell you that once I started trying to get sober, everything immediately became clear. It didn’t.

My first real attempts at sobriety were fucking horrible. I didn’t know how to socialize. I didn’t know how to be around people. I was quiet. Awkward. Uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be there.

I remember walking into AA rooms and seeing people who seemed so fucking happy. Somebody would have a week sober and it sounded like his entire life had changed. I’d have a week and think: what the fuck is wrong with me?

My life didn’t magically get better. Nothing felt fixed. I couldn’t stand myself sometimes.

Luckily, I had some strong people around me who kept dragging me into rooms when I didn’t want to go. Sometimes I’d go to three or four meetings in a day.

I’d get a week. Then drink. Maybe a month. Then drink. Another week. Then start again.

That went on for roughly a year. I was trying. But I still hadn’t completely surrendered.

And sobriety was forcing me into a problem alcohol had helped me avoid for years. I didn’t know who I was.

Take away the alcohol. Take away the party. Take away the audience. Take away the success. Take away Tough Mark. Who the fuck was left?

I didn’t know.

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When I Finally Gave In

That was the real mask off moment, the one none of the others quite were.

Eventually, drinking brought me to a night in my apartment with my girlfriend. We were both drinking. Things got completely out of control. We got into a fight. She left. Police became involved.

And something about that relationship had already started showing me things about myself I didn’t want to see. She had her own problems with alcohol. Watching what alcohol did to her sometimes felt like looking into a mirror. I could see behaviors in another person that looked an awful lot like mine.

And I remember realizing: I don’t want this anymore.

Neither of us wanted to lose the other. We both knew something had to change, and each of us had our own journey to deal with.

For me, that was the end of pretending I could keep drinking and somehow rearrange everything else around it.

Because I had tried that shit. Change cities. Change relationships. Change what I’m drinking. Only drink beer. Change circumstances. Change this. Change that. Keep changing everything outside of myself.

It didn’t fucking matter.

Maybe I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

I needed help. I went to rehab.

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Peru

Somewhere in that trip, mask off stopped being an idea and started being a practice.

After rehab, I went to Peru. During that trip, I participated in my first ayahuasca ceremony.

I’m not telling you to do that. I’m not presenting plant medicine as a treatment for addiction, and I’m not telling you that one ceremony magically fixed my life. I’m telling you what happened to me.

That experience gave me a perspective on myself I had never had before. For what felt like the first time, I could see myself through other people’s eyes. My kids. My wife. My family. People who loved me.

And what I saw hurt. I saw ways I had failed as a husband. As a father. As a brother. As a son.

For most of my life, I had an explanation for everything. Somebody else did something. Somebody disrespected me. Somebody wasn’t there. Somebody betrayed me. Somebody caused the problem.

During that experience, I had to confront a possibility I hadn’t seriously considered enough:

Maybe everybody else wasn’t the problem.

That didn’t feel good. But it changed my perspective.

I also found myself thinking about that younger version of me. That scared, angry kid who had learned to become tough. And instead of telling him to fight harder, I could finally tell him something different: you’re going to be okay. You can let some of this anger go. You don’t need this anymore.

I didn’t reverse my childhood that night. I didn’t erase my anger. I didn’t walk out as some completely healed human being.

I just started seeing things differently. And sometimes a perspective change is where everything else begins.

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Taking the Mask Off Doesn’t Mean Destroying It

Taking the mask off doesn’t happen once. It happens over and over, for the rest of your life.

This is the part I understand differently today.

I don’t hate Tough Mark. He served a purpose. There are qualities that came from that version of me that I still value.

I’m loyal. I’ll protect people I love. I’ll stand up when I actually need to. And if there ever comes a situation where I genuinely have to protect somebody, I know I’m capable of doing that.

The difference is:

I don’t have to wear that motherfucker every day.

That’s a huge relief. Because you don’t realize how exhausting a mask is while you’re wearing it. Always watching. Always proving. Always ready. Always wondering whether somebody is disrespecting you. Always making sure nobody thinks you’re weak.

That shit is stressful.

Today, somebody can act like an asshole and I can feel that old version of myself wake up. Sometimes my brain still goes there. This motherfucker. Sometimes when I’m hurt, anger still shows up first. Sometimes when I’m stressed, Tough Mark still looks pretty tempting.

But now I can catch it. I can think: that’s fucking stupid. I’m not that guy anymore. Let this person do whatever they’re going to do. I’m going to mind my business. And I carry on.

That doesn’t mean the mask disappeared. It means I know I’m reaching for it. There is a difference.

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I Still Wear Masks Sometimes

Mask off isn’t a permanent state. Some days it’s a choice I have to make over again.

I don’t want to end this pretending I’ve figured everything out. I haven’t.

Taking your mask off once doesn’t mean it stays off.

I don’t care much anymore about convincing people I’m financially successful. Material things don’t mean what they used to mean to me.

But there’s another version of the success mask that can still show up. Sometimes I want people to think I’m doing better mentally than I actually am. Not because I’m trying to impress them. I don’t want them to worry about me.

That’s still a mask.

The difference today is that I have a small group of people I’m willing to be honest with. People I can actually tell:

I’m not doing good. I need you.

That might sound like a small thing. For somebody who spent most of his life believing needing another person gave them power over him, it isn’t small at all.

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Who Are You Without It?

I spent most of my life trying to make sure nobody saw weakness in me. I wanted people to know not to fuck with me. I wanted them to see somebody responsible. Successful. Funny. Capable. Everything’s great. No problems here.

Meanwhile, inside, I was hurting in ways I didn’t understand.

Alcohol became a Band-Aid. Drugs became a Band-Aid. Until they weren’t.

And I didn’t recognize what alcohol had become for a very long time because I was too busy changing everything else. Different city. Different relationship. Different drink. Different circumstances. Same person underneath it.

Eventually I had to shut the fuck up long enough to consider that maybe I didn’t know everything. I had to ask for help. I had to surrender.

Not surrender my life. Surrender the idea that I could keep controlling everything while the thing controlling me tightened the handcuffs.

For me, at the end, that thing was alcohol. For you, it might be something completely different.

And I’m not going to pretend I know what’s underneath your mask. You might not know yet either.

Maybe your mask is success. Maybe it’s anger. Maybe you’re everybody’s funny friend. Maybe you’re the person everybody depends on. Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t need anybody.

Maybe everybody around you thinks you’re doing fucking amazing while you’re sitting alone wondering why your own life feels nothing like the version everybody else sees.

I can’t tell you what’s underneath that. But I can tell you where things finally started changing for me.

I became willing to look. I became willing to ask for help. And eventually I became willing to tell myself the truth.

That’s when the mask off idea stopped being a metaphor and started being something I actually practiced.

Because taking the mask off isn’t about becoming somebody else. It isn’t even about hating the person you had to become. Sometimes that person got you here. You just have to recognize when he doesn’t serve you anymore.

And maybe the first question isn’t: how do I become a different person?

Maybe it’s: who am I when I have nothing left to prove?

Start there.

Mask off. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

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BUILT FROM STRUGGLE. — SOBERMINDS®
sobermindslifestyle.com

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