When things get bad, you go quiet. You cancel plans with a cheerful message. You let calls go and answer by text, a day later, with something light. Weeks later, when it is over, you tell people about it in the past tense. They say why didn't you tell me, and you don't have a good answer. Sometimes I just say I'm okay because it's simpler.
The disappearing looks the same each time. What it is guarding may not be.
01
What you do when it gets bad
The quiet is what other people see. On your side there is a routine.
You decide it is not bad enough to mention. People have gone through worse. You keep going to work and looking the part. You save the hard evenings for when nobody is around.
If someone gets close to asking, you have a line ready, and it works. Afterward you may feel relieved, and a little more alone.
People call it being private, or being strong. Both can be true. Neither explains why the times you might most want company are the times you make sure there is none.
It can cost the people around you something as well. A friend who only hears about it afterward may feel shut out, and may wonder what else they don't know. Over time some circles get smaller. I've pulled back from so many people that there's hardly anybody left.
02
What the hiding may be protecting
A layer down is what would have happened if you had let someone see. Three rules can send a person out of sight.
"Strong is the only version of me they know."
Letting them see would mean being seen struggling by people who think you are fine. Under Strong the hiding may be about keeping your standing. For years I told everybody I came out of it fine.
Read about Strong →"Asking creates a debt I don't want to carry."
Letting them see would hand them something to carry, and leave you owing them for it. Under Burden the hiding may be about not being too much for anyone. Talking about it doesn't change anything, so I keep it in.
Read about Burden →"If everyone is okay, then I'm okay."
Letting them see would worry them, and their worry may be harder to be around than your own trouble. Under Peace the hiding may be for their sake.
Read about Peace →Other rules can do this too, and none of the three may fit.
03
What is under the rule
Each of the three has a fear under it, and each would make a hard month something to get through alone.
Under Strong, the fear may be that if they see you struggle, you lose the only standing you have. What would answer it is being seen at less than full capacity and still being held.
Under Burden, the fear may be that your needs make you too much, and too much gets left. What would answer it is receiving without owing.
Under Peace, the fear may be that someone's disappointment means you did something wrong. What would answer it is being able to disappoint someone and still be alright.
One thing before the questions. If what you are hiding is how bad it has gotten, licensed mental-health care is the right door.If tonight is an emergency, call or text 988 (US). This library is not that door.
04
Two questions, in order
First. Protecting them, or protecting yourself?
Think of the last hard stretch you kept quiet, and the person you most avoided telling. If you kept it from them so they would not be upset, that is the Peace answer. If it was for your own sake, the second question is the one to ask.
Second. If someone helped you and literally nobody would ever know, would you accept?
Someone you know helps you through it, and nobody else ever hears of it. Yes is the Strong answer, because the threat was being seen. Still no is the Burden answer, because the debt exists privately.
If neither question settles it, there is not enough to tell yet, and that is a result.
Not all of this is a rule. Some people need to be alone to think, and come back when they are ready. What to look at is cost, and whether going quiet has meant getting through hard stretches without help that was there.
What you are doing here is subtraction: keeping only what explains this moment and the others like it, at work, at home, and on the good days.
05
One thing to try this week
The next time you go quiet, send one message while it is still happening. I've gone quiet because things are hard. I'm not ready to talk yet. I wanted you to know.
You are not asking for anything and you are not explaining. You are only moving the telling from afterward to now.
Then notice what the person does, and what it was like to have someone know. Write that down.
What it is like to be on the other side of this, as the one everyone else relies on, is on I'm the Strong One Everyone Leans On.