Each time I gathered enough courage to put a few raw pieces of my trauma into words, hoping to find support in a friend, my face would freeze into a ridiculous fake smile. How did that happen when I was crying and falling apart just moments earlier? Once I was face to face with another person, something inside me took over and shut down all expression of emotion.
It didn’t matter that my insides were shaking. I’d hide my hands under my shaking legs, yet it was impossible for my face to stop grinning. Why am I so damn weird?! And the more I became aware of this stupid plastered-on grin while simultaneously grasping for both bravery and words, the more my shame swallowed me. It was like my body was telling me to stop trying to reach out for help.
How Do I Not Have Control of My Own Damn Face?!?
Not the kind of fake smile you don when a nosy neighbor asks what’s going on and you insist life is wonderful. That kind is a choice. I’m talking about the tight awkward grin that somehow gets glued to your face without your consent in order to mask what you feel. And it’s your own body that paints it on.
I have no control in when this fake smile appears and I have no power to make it disappear until I stop sharing my distressing stories.
It wasn’t just the stupid fake smile. The pitch of my voice got high and squeaky and I would laugh awkwardly when there was nothing funny. Each attempt at sharing took all my courage, yet when my face and voice portrayed the opposite of what was inside, I felt defeated and betrayed by my own body. I was convinced others were laughing at how weird I was.
I did not understand that my body did not feel safe enough to cry in front of another person or even look or sound upset. My nervous system was detecting threat and it did not matter if the threat was real or imagined. My body knows how to shift into guarding me before my thoughts can catch up.
It didn’t just happen with voicing trauma either. My body betrayed me in similar ways each time I stood up for myself, challenged someone, expressed anger, or confided in a friend about frustrations with my marriage or kids.
Over time I learned to be quiet most of the time with all people. It was better, and safer that way since I could not trust my body to portray how I felt.
Ashamed in Front of My Therapist
Years ago a therapist pointed out my fake smile and frequent laugh after I voiced a disturbing story in session. I was fumbling for words, my throat was tight and my hands were shaking. Her “accusation” during my story brought new awareness to the mismatch of emotion on my face and I felt confused and embarrassed! She insisted I practice making my face more serious rather than smiling.
It was my first realization that my body knew how to show up differently than my internal felt sense. The therapist began to point out each frozen smile…each forced laugh. When the session ended I cried all the way to my car, ashamed of my awkward body. It felt like confirmation that everyone was judging my weird ways. I never went back to her.
I’m sure that therapist meant well but what she did not understand was that my body did not feel safe in the room with her. She expected me to simply change my behavior, to stop the awkward smiling and laughing, without healing what caused the “strategy” in the first place. Repeatedly pointing out the dissonance and asking me to modify it, without first providing me the the safety in a trusted therapeutic relationship, caused further harm to my nervous system.
A Part of Me Urgently Needed Approval
Eventually I found a better therapist that helped me understand the dissonance between my mind and body for what it was – my unconscious urge to please and seek approval. A part of my brain demanded my face smile and laugh so that people don’t view me as negative, complaining, or having a victim mentality. This part of me consistently panicked about trusting and sharing my story and wanted me to appear as pleasing as possible.
This part of me felt desperate and threatened, thus it froze a smile onto my face and pushed out fake laughs to correct for the risk I was taking – the risk of sharing my internal pain. This part of me had the best of intentions – to prevent further hurt and abuse.
Defense mechanisms…subconscious strategies of the brain…they are meant to keep us safe. They happen out of awareness and at a far greater speed than any sort of logic we can grab onto.
It has taken years of therapy to understand the multitude of strategies that my brain created to keep functioning through abuse. Even once life was better, safer, these strategies continued to lie just below the surface, out of awareness yet in control of the ways I behaved and the choices I made.
It Only Makes Sense
Years ago when I lived in the abuse, if I was found crying or appeared sad, my abuse worsened. I was threatened or attacked if a tear escaped my eye.
Why wouldn’t my body learn to paint a different picture on my face to mask internal pain!? It only made sense. My body simply didn’t know yet that this strategy is no longer needed.
My plastered-on smiles while I talked about my trauma or anything else emotional, came from a place of intense desperation. My fake smiles begged, “Please love me! Accept me! Approve of me!”
To my body, it felt like the heavy content of what I was sharing would ruin my relationships – there would be this big awkward heavy reality between us. Thus, taking the risk of confiding even a small detail felt excessive. I might overshare. I let out words that should have stayed inside. And the shame grows.
Although humiliated at this stupid smile on my face when I badly yearn to fall apart and cry in front of my therapist, my friend, or my husband, I can find self-compassion now. I understand that my body is just trying to keep me safe. My body didn’t know yet that I can handle trusting others with my story.
Looking composed and happy, even if it is fake, was my body’s unconscious move towards finding safety. Putting trauma stories into words was dangerous and triggering to my body and the smile and laugh were attempts to turn it around.
Now My Face Shows the Safety in My Body
After years of healing through therapy, mindfulness, somatic practices, and in trusting relationships, my body has learned to trust my mind and to trust other people.
This week I was sad and struggling with something painful in my life. I knew I needed to turn to my friend for help. More and more I can regulate my own emotions and feel grounded again, but this week I could not.
I sat down next to my friend who gently asked me what was hurting. It felt safe. It felt good to trust someone. I put my pain into words and I cried. She couldn’t make it all go away, but she could give me a safe space to let my pain exist between us. It did not feel awkward or humiliating. I didn’t berate myself once I left for oversharing like I had done for years previously. Instead, I simply felt sad with her next to me and my tearful face showed this.
I felt a burden lifted because my inside matched my outside.
I remember early in our friendship, early in my therapy journey, telling my friend with great frustration, “I just wish I could talk and feel at the same time! I don’t know how to make that happen!”
Later that same night, I realized I was doing exactly what I once wished. There was no fake smile on my face as I shared my painful stories. I reflected on how I was able to cry when it hurt. It happened naturally. My inside matched my outside. No mismatch. This is a victory.
When the story, the words, the body’s expression of emotion… such as crying, yelling, or a fit of rage…when this all lines up with the internal felt experience…this is exactly where healing happens! No mismatch between the external and internal. It takes safety and trust to get to this moment. Our bodies were designed for this to happen naturally, but it may not be accessible while the nervous system remains traumatized. Trauma can take this ability away and it takes healing and safety to restore it.
Thanks for this powerful sharing, it is soothing reading you through your journey of recovery