The Mask Behind every mask is a face, and behind that a story - marty rubin

We wear the Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask! - PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

Personality Masking is a trait in which a person changes or “masks” their natural personality to conform to external sources and social pressures, abuse, and/or harassment. Some examples of masking are a single overly dominant emotion, or perhaps three of the four varying emotions within the same individual. Masking can be strongly influenced by environmental factors such as over bearing parents, rejection, and emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. A person may not even be aware that he or she is wearing a mask.

Developmental studies have shown that we learn this ability as early as preschool and it improves with age. Recent studies have shown that masking has evolved and is now defined as concealing one’s emotion by portraying another emotion, for example; It is used mostly to conceal a negative emotion (like sadness, frustration, or anger) with a positive emotion.

Personality Masking is caused by varying factors including relationships with a conversational partner, differences in status, location, and social setting are all possible factors to why any individual would express, suppress, or mask an emotion. Masking is a disguise used to behave certain ways that would help hide emotions or represses emotions that are not socially approved. Because a everyone wants to receive acceptance from the public, masking helps disguise characteristics like anger, jealousy or rage - emotions that would not be considered socially acceptable.

Masking negative emotions is different for each gender. Women tend to have an easier time hiding their negative emotions than men, especially towards something they dislike. One of the disputed reasons as to why women are better able to mask negative emotions is due to society's pressure for girls to 'act' nice.
Like icebergs, people normally expose only a small part of themselves,and generally just the part they wish to show - Nikki
We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin - Andre Berthiaume

There are many faces; Confusion and Madness, sadness, loss and grief, anger, disdain, menacing & sinister, happiness, innocence, love & romance, panic and calm. It is what we show to the outside world, the Mask we show that hides our true emotions.

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