My Funny Face

I was told in Group on Monday night that I seem a lot less angry than I did that first week. In fact, I was told that I was bright and funny.

I personally like to think I’m funny. I mean, I was a stand-up comic for a bit — obviously not very successful at it as I was never in any big clubs or on Leno or Letterman, but funny enough. The irony (or is the proper word, coincidence) is that it’s all an act; at least I think it is.

You see one of the things we talked about this week in Group is about the many faces people have. For example, my mother has a business face that got her to be VP of a home health company in a culture that didn’t think nurses should be in administration, but she also has this June-Cleaver-50’s-Face which she puts on when she changes out of her business clothes; that’s the face she wears for my very 50’s-minded-separation-of-women’s-work-from-men’s-work-dinner-on-the-table-at-6′O’Clock-sharp father. Many people have one face for their family and one for their work and one for their friends.

So, I’ve been thinking about my faces. In a way, I’m like my mother with that independent face for work (though obviously I struggled with that after losing my job) and another face for home. Since those are mostly the places I’m at these days, I really haven’t had much time to explore my other faces, but I have them.

I really think, my real face is more like Darlene on Roseanne, all dressed in black and sarcastic somewhere on the edge of life just observing, and this funny face is something I’ve developed to entertain the troops. I remember coming home sometimes after hanging out with the old gang down South and I would feel mentally exhausted from having to entertain. In fact, I feel like a lot of what I did when I was living with PW was entertain — when we weren’t fighting that is, and even then, that was just another form of entertainment for the living drama vortex.

But admittedly, I also kind of like the attention being funny brings me most of the time. It certainly feels better than being left in the corner to sulk and moan and observe. It’s also easier to be funny than to be real though I’m not really sure what my real face is. My mother used to tell me that if I acted all depressed all the time then I wouldn’t have friends because no one likes a sourpuss. I guess that stuck with me.

And, yet, last week, my funny face got me in trouble. I’d made some smart ass remarks, mostly self-depreciating and I ended up having to have one of those “we need to talk” talks that are all about what’s wrong with me. The irony of course is that I was using the humor to try to mask the “real” me who really does have some of those flaws. It’s better that I make fun of them than have someone else point them out in all seriousness.

I kind of would like to find my real face. I’m not sure I can spend the time looking for it while I’m trying to discard the angry face, I also have — though admittedly, I do feel better about the whole situation now that I’ve accepted that it’s silly to be angry about losing a job I hated and that my friends have all been dispersed by Hurricane Katrina, so the separation anxiety face would have had to come sooner or later.

I guess I’ll just have to keep mulling it all over.

tags: depression, anxiety, therapy

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