jonetta rose barras: We Wear the Mask

A few years ago, I joined forces with a team of people I had dubbed artists/healers to present a daylong program in DC for women who had grown up without the presence and active involvement of their biological fathers in their lives. Many of them had been grappling since childhood with the emotional trauma related to that absence; the pain seemed to have fueled poor choices with adverse consequences, frequently preventing them from realizing personal and professional dreams.

One exercise conducted by artist/healer Brittany Adams engaged the women in making a mask, decorating its inside and outside. The women were given pictures and words cut from magazines, along with magic markers and crayons. The inside of the mask, they were told, was to be what they thought and felt about themselves. The outside was to be the image they projected to their family, friends and others in the world.

While some of the women had been residents in a domestic-violence shelter, at first blush they all projected strength, confidence and generally happy demeanors. When I saw the results of their work, however, I was shocked and troubled.

The majority had written the word “broken” inside their masks. A few had the words “used,” “hurt” and “heartbroken.” Several had drawn teardrops from one eye to the bottom of the masks. One woman had the word “dark” written in black marker. In contrast, the outside featured words like “beautiful” and “tough” written across the forehead of the masks, or along the cheek and chin. One person had images of butterflies; another had found a picture of a boxer wearing gloves, and had placed it near the right eye.

I listened as the women explained their masks and took us inside themselves, sharing a partial glimpse of their world and the stories of their lives — stories filled with deep trauma, poor self-image, hopelessness. As they spoke, I wondered how many people really knew them. How many of their friends had ever heard the anxiety behind their laughter, seen the depression inside their eyes or felt their ache camouflaged with that reassuring phrase, “Everything is all right”?

Those memories from October 2015 and the faces of those women who filled the community room at the Frank Reeves Municipal Center came to mind this month as I reflected on the suicides of fashion designer Kate Spade and chef and CNN show host Anthony Bourdain. Were those celebrities engaged, consciously or unconsciously, in a deception to protect their hearts and their souls from further disappointment or emotional damage?

Let me confess: I have never owned a Kate Spade handbag. I have watched an episode or two of Bourdain‘s popular “Parts Unknown,” as he chowed down on strange foods while helping to underscore the reality that we are all more alike than not. I pondered whether his travels may have been his own private search for a place of peace and understanding. And being a highly coveted purse designer seemed an interesting metaphor for Spade. I was deeply touched by both suicides, which likely had been in process longer than most of their friends and families realized.

So many of us are mask-wearers. I was one for many years in my life. When my book “Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl? The Impact of Fatherlessness on Black Women” was released in 2000, few people knew the depth of the sorrow I had carried around since I was a child. I did not want them to hear my internal weeping. I did not want them to see the crack in my soul. I did not want them to know that but for my friend, Aminifu Harvey, I, too, might have taken my own life before my 45th birthday.

Yes, even with a national hotline, even with a community mental-health network, there are people who lose all hope and see death as the only definitive way to relieve them of a deep, seemingly inconsolable sadness and pain. The suicide rate in America is on the rise, particularly among young girls of color.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that the suicide rate in America increased 30 percent between 1999 and 2016. During that same period the suicide rate in the District went up 16.1 percent. The majority of the people living in 27 states who actually committed suicide did not have known mental health conditions; they apparently were expert mask-wearers.

We cannot leave this issue solely to mental health specialists — psychiatrists, therapists and counselors. Sometimes, people in trouble are too afraid to ask for help. But if they have come to talk — if even for a second, they pulled off their mask — we have a responsibility to listen and to see not just with our eyes, but also with our hearts. These seemingly simple actions could save someone’s life. I know, in hindsight, it did mine.

jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist; she can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.