Why we feel the need

1

Somehow smiling comes so easy when all I really want to do is scream or cry, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stretched that awkward grin across my face until my whole jaw hurts. The thing is though, I think that we fake it, not for our sakes, but for those around us. At least, that’s why I do it. Or maybe deep down I want to believe that if I smile enough and pretend like everything’s okay then it will be…wishful thinking huh. So what’s the reason I do this? Smile every day, grin and bear it so to speak. I guess I figure why should everyone else have to suffer from the things I’ve gone through, from the things that have torn me apart since childhood and every day thereafter. I always tell myself that it’d be wrong to say a word or act the way I really feel, putting that kind of weight on someone’s shoulders, it just seems wrong. I suppose over time I’ve made myself out to be some sort of a martyr. That’s just ridiculous though, maybe it has more to do with fear than anything. 2

I’ve spent my entire life faking my way through things, you sort of have to when childhood itself is ripped from your fingertips. Then again I suppose I never really knew what childhood was. See, when your Father manipulates you, threatens you, uses you up until there’s nothing left…well that’s precisely what happens, there isn’t really anything left of you. Nothing normal or whole, nothing that feels right or safe. 3

Honestly I never knew what it was like to have a Father that loved his daughter the proper way. I never knew what it was like to have real friends. The kind that wont drop you when you need them the most, the kind that wont harass you or attack you for something your Father did, or anything of the sort. And I never knew what it was like to grow up without being sick or afraid or haunted. Even now I can’t look at people, men especially, without thinking awful things. Without remembering awful things. I can’t look at a father and child without thinking about what disgusting things he must be doing to them when they’re alone, because honestly that’s all I’ve ever known. It sickens me that I automatically assume those sort of things but my mind has been forever tainted, just like my body. 4

So day in and day out I have to plaster on a smile, I have to laugh at jokes, I have to float through each day. Because that’s what “normal” people do. And if anyone ever noticed that something was wrong… well they never said anything about it. And you know, that’s for the best, I mean it’s why we fake it…right? 5