The Pressure to Have It All Together Is Making Everyone Quietly Fall Apart
There is an unspoken requirement in most adult environments that you present yourself as functional. Handling things. On top of it. Maybe acknowledging stress in a general manageable way that signals you are human without suggesting you are actually struggling with anything serious.
That requirement does not go away when you are genuinely not okay. It just means you perform okay while being not okay, which is one of the more exhausting things a person can sustain over time.
I have sat in rooms full of people who were all performing fine simultaneously. Where the collective energy of the room was stable and capable and together. And then spoken privately to several people from that same room and found out that almost everyone in it was carrying something real and heavy that the room had not been a safe place to put down.
We are all quietly keeping each other's performance going by maintaining our own. The collective agreement to appear functional creates an environment where actual struggle becomes invisible, which makes each struggling person feel like they are the only one, which adds isolation to whatever they were already dealing with.
I am not suggesting we stop having professional norms or that every environment should become a space for complete emotional openness. There is a time and place for things and that matters. But i think the gap between what we perform and what we actually carry has gotten wider than is sustainable for most people, and the cost of maintaining that gap is something we do not talk about enough.
What would change if you told one person the real answer to how you are doing. Not as a dramatic revelation. Just honestly, with someone you trusted, letting the performance down for a moment and seeing what happened.
Usually what happens is the other person says something that starts with i thought i was the only one.
You are not the only one. Almost nobody is as together as the room suggests.
https://vote.hive.uno/@thebbhproject
https://vote.hive.uno/@hivecuba
Support the witness and vote for TheBbhProject carried out by 