Oscar-Winning Performers

During this weekend when Sunday night the Academy Awards will be handed out, we must all or most all be recognized as Oscar-winning performers. That's what we more often than not feel we have to be in the movies of our lives.

I mean, emotionally-speaking. Because from the start, unless our parents are care-free regarding this sort of thing, they tell us we must never cry or otherwise break up in public. Or not get angry. Or otherwise display the fact that we may be hurting inside.

So we put on our Oscar-winning performances. If we work, we do so because it would not be "professional" to burst into tears or get angry. If we're with our friends, we do this so they won''t feel uncomfortable. And in public we do this so people won't stare at us. And even if we're at home, our acting skills may have been so ingrained that we don't give our Oscar-winning performances a rest. The show must go on.

But even though our performances are Oscar-winning, we don't get little gold statuettes. Instead the emotions simmer inside until we get things such as ulcers, heart disease, and cancer. And if we're already biologically predisposed to do so, because we're keeping our pain inside become depressed and/or bipolar--which makes it harder to keep putting on our performances.

I recall a blog from about a week ago where the writer said she wondered how the people around her could be so happy--like the moms she saw who'd be picking up their kids from school everyday. What I read made me wonder if they were really this happy--or if they were putting on Oscar-winning performances.

I've been putting on Oscar-winniing performances for much of my life (I'm 50.) I've been depressed since my late 20's, and had been keeping it well-hidden thinking I could hang in there. But lately my acting talent has begun to fail. In my last year in my job I'd started getting emotional--for example, crying or getting angry or becoming agitated--in certain situations. I'd thought in spite of this I'd been doing O.K.--but my last report before I was let go was a bad one. Which means I won't be getting an Oscar this year.......