CW: depression, suicidal thoughts

Whenever I try to tell people even little snippets of info about my life, my past, or my emotions (I mean like, even the smallest kernel ever, like “Oh it’s been kind of a rough week” or something), even my closest friends react weirdly and ignore me or distance themselves. It upsets them if I seem anything less than super fun and happy 24/7. So I’ve gotten into a kind of vicious cycle of just constantly engaging in a social performance where no one knows who I really am- think class clown/ life of the party person who’s extremely depressed traumatized and somewhat suicidal.

This whole thing has left me feeling incredibly isolated, because no one knows who I actually am. At the same time, no one wants to know who I really am either- they seem to discard me or get disinterested if i show them anything but that charismatic actor side of me. I feel pressured to be happy and fun to be around and entertaining 24/7. Professionally I’m an actor, but I am completely unable to be authentic in my personal life either. It’s killing me.

I’m so funny that even if I try to say something serious or ask for help people laugh and think it’s a joke. It’s terrifying.

I’ve been in a severe depressive episode the past few weeks and my mind keeps telling me that no one wants to see me and none of my friends really care about me anyways. It’s true that everyone only knows me on a more superficial level, no one wants to see me sad, etc. I keep thinking to myself that everyone will think I’m crazy and turn on me if they ever find out the truth about me and all my trauma, and it makes me not even want to leave my house or speak to anyone ever again.

I don’t really know what to do. None of my friends are trauma informed and I don’t want them all to leave me. But at the same time they aren’t even really my friends, they don’t actually know anything about me. I learned early on that people only like me when I’m not “fun to be around”. What happens when the performance stops working?

I’m very afraid of everyone in my life finding out the truth about me (that I’m severely mentally ill and have been through tons of abuse and trauma). No one in my life is trauma informed and I imagine they would react quite badly. I keep telling myself that everyone is going to think I’m crazy if they find out. But I’m really tired of performing and I have no idea how long I can keep this up. I’ve been thinking of suicide, in a passive way though. It kind of is starting to feel like my only way out. I’ve kept this performance up my entire life, and I just can’t handle the isolation it brings with it.