Do you think that everyone have a "mask" that they use to show a different "self" to different people and that hides their true self, a truth they don't even show to their closest friends/family?

it's called roles. we play the sibling role, parent role, friend and SO role, our job role. there is no true self, just adjusting to meet the role's needs.

Masking is how I get through the Christmas season as it's a time of year I really struggle mentally.

That said, I think their use of it is more tied to the Japanese concept of "your three faces". One you show the world, one you show your closest friends and one you only show yourself.

https://www.pranshuwrites.com/2025/01/The-Three-Faces-Japanese-Psychology.html?m=1

What’ll really blow you’re mind is when you realize we aren’t even honest with ourselves either.

Your mask you show to others is no more fake than the mask you show to yourself.

I think I'd go further and say that there isn't really any such thing as a person's "true self." People present different aspects of themselves in different circumstances. It's like asking which orientation you should hold an object against a light to see the "true shape" of its shadow.

As someone with ADHD, absolutely. I've heard that many people with nerodivergent brains use this coping skill.

No. I think people are extremely diverse in how they experience and engage with their individual subjectivity. I think a lot of people are like that at least some of the time, but it's more complicated and probably a nonconscious behavior for most people when they are doing it. Describing it as a "mask" I think is potentially misleading because I don't think that's necessarily how people experience this phenomena subjectively.

I wouldn't call it a "mask", because it implies deception. Depending on who you are around, you show (and hide) different treats of your personality: In an employment setting you do not act the same way you would act when you hang with your boys (or girls, respectively) - you show different aspects of your personality while you are with your significant other, rather than with your parents. Also, your online behavior would be different from your offline behavior when navigating public situations.

Different people around you and/or different social settings make you filter things regarding your personal beliefs and/or personal traits.

The person you don't show others is no more your "true self" than the one you do. It's still you, existing in that moment, responding to your environment, whether it's your deepest emotions or your best mask.

People have different facets. The way I interact with my partner for ten years is different to my close friends I've had for 20, different to my co-workers, different to my family. But my family and friends and co-workers see how I act with my partner.

I mimic people to some extent treating them similarly how they treat me. There are limits though, I'm bounded on that scale by my personal values which mature as I do. So I'm still never going to act outside the bounds of my morality and values, but I'll still treat my partner with unconditional love, and my friends with the best times and silly jokes.

These I don't consider masks, but not everyone sees me the same. They're just facets.

They covered this when I took Sociology 101 about 40 years ago.

Everyone has 3 personalities.

The person they are around strangers.

The person they are with friends and family.

The person they are when completely alone.

I think everyone has about 3 "versions" of themselves.

One version for work. One for family. One for friends and partners.

The work version is the least honest because so much is unacceptable to say at work and people self-censor a lot. Say the wrong things and you will get meetings, write ups and maybe fired. Everybody gives their boss to much information at least one time and learns why you don't do that.

The friends and partners version is normally the most honest version and can be completely genuine for some. Good friends can be trusted to keep secrets and don't judge.

Family is normally in the middle but this depends. If the family was incredibly old fashioned, conservative or religious then maybe a person would need to self-censor even more than they do at work?

Haven’t watched but going by your description alone : absolutely and I think it’s necessary.

Your closest person could be ok with most topics except for a few that maybe you talk to a therapist about as this person would incredibly sensitive with said topics to the point they’d have a meltdown or have very limited experience and start giving terrible and/or biased advice on. And maybe you care about all the other aspects about this person enough that you just save it for the therapist. EG: family trauma, mental illness, etc. and the therapist relationship, while different and not as deep, it can functionally overlap these missing parts and give you what you need to share it.

Or maybe that person does understand but can’t find the right language and say it in the way you need or want to hear it. Or you could have issues trying to share your perspective. Again: what a trained therapist can help you with.

And that is fair. I think we need to understand and respect the limitations of the people we love and respect our own boundaries about such topics. There’s only so far you can stretch a person or the relationship with them. It’s healthy to recognize this.

It’s also important to realize that no one other person on earth is going to be your entire witness of your life. Especially when they are already witnessing their own life. Equally: You are your full witness. This is your journey. You’re just sharing part of your ride with other people.

only person i hide absolutely nothing from is my gf, i definitely present differently around different people, especially family

Persona (psychology) - Wikipedia https://share.google/aeMgXcVW6RqPHrwg7

As for everyone keeping a secret from everyone? Maybe. You don't have to share everything with everyone, it's ok to keep stuff to yourself if you want to. Most secrets are probably pretty banal though.

Huh. Did not expect a SPYxFAMILY reference here! わくわく!

Linkin Park said it 25 years ago, "everyone has a face that they hold inside," I think that was in Papercut, the opening track to their debut album, Hybrid Theory. Good song about that.

I don't really believe everyone has a true self they hide. I do believe we don't share certain things with certain people, sometimes for good reason.

What I do believe is that we are a different person to every person who knows us. That is to say, if your parents are still together, you have these two people who have known you since you were an infant, but they have different views of you. Or if you have a decent sized friend group, each of these friends sees you slightly differently. I think this is more useful to us. Knowing who we are to each person we meet; rather than focusing on the persona we share with others, understanding how another sees us and acting accordingly can be used to great influence and effect. Find the people who underestimate you and show them what you can do. Find the people who don't like you and show them kindness. Things like that.

No. We change how we present but that doesn't make those presentations "false" or what we don't share more "true".

Some social scientists say there’s yet another self even beyond these masks: your true self. They say you can never really know your true self.

The Johari window describes the 4 “views” of who we are. Oftentimes, the masks we choose to display do not come across to others how we’d expect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_window

Yes.

Love, -A formerly closeted queer person.

I have a collection of masks. I assume others are like that too.

For the sake of the survey, I know I do.

Like most things, I believe it's on a spectrum, with some people being very much who they seem, and some people being completely disingenuous. We all do things that we know others would frown upon (to one degree or another), so it's always tempting to hide those things, sometimes to the extent that we hide the whole part of ourselves that would do then.

You would love Erving Goffman

Yes. We all have an avatar

I do have filters on what I say in different contexts, but do not consider it a mask as I will always say the same things outside of the filtered contexts. So while I don't bring up a lot of things at work, it is simply because it isn't relevant to work and isn't something I want to talk about at work. There isn't a presentation of something else.

Like I don't bring up hobbies for the same reason I don't bring up my sex life, it just isn't relevant. I don't consider anything like that to be a mask.

The closest would be that I phrase things at work in a more positive and less critical manner, but it is pretty subtle and if that is considered masking then the word loses a lot of meaning for people who behave completely differently from who they are due to social pressures.

Real life is indeed like that yes

My ADHD says yes.

To a certain degree, and it sounds exhausting. It also varies with culture (Brits are more masked than Polish people, for instance). Now, I have discernment so I don't always just blurt out whatever's on my mind (especially around people like my MIL and my older relatives), but I don't see it as a mask, it's more on the level of holding in some farts, lol. I haven't changed my mind about anything and if something arises that would test my values I'll still just be me and act accordingly, I'm just not mentioning what comes to my mind when I see my wife bra-less, for example.

Regardless, there's us, the perception we have of us and the perception others have of us. We should at least make sure the first two are as close as possible. Also, personally, I'm too proud not to be myself, and since I know I lead a mostly harmless and somewhat selfless life, I have no moral qualms going at it raw and maskless!

no clue but i definitely do

Internal Family Systems teaches that we have multiple internal personas that have different roles in protecting the true self at the center. It has been useful for self discovery, though I don't know if I believe it's completely correct

I did learn that I have multiple sets of behaviors that l adopt based on need. It's like code switching, except it changes everything - speech cadence, word choice, body language, thought patterns, you name it. It's not multiple personalities or anything, just changing relative proportions of various traits for a given situation, like job switching in an RPG. It was initially really jarring for my partner. They are one of the few people I'm genuinely myself around, but if I'm in a very stressful situation or interacting with co-workers about work, they see me acting very differently. It's disconcerting but it makes me more flexible in social situations.

Edit: I also recently learned I'm what is known amongst the commoners as "autistic as fuck", so that may be a factor. Still learning!

You cannot be 100% truthful all the time. There's no way to communicate all of the thoughts running through your brain fast enough. So you have to choose what to say.

That choice depends on who you're talking to, for obvious practical reasons. So, even if you try to be honest, you're still inevitably keeping secrets from people. Always. Every day.

So the answer to your question is yes. Of course it is. There's no other possible answer. But is that what you wanted to hear? Maybe you actually want to ask a more specific question. I'm not sure.

It is to a certain degree. You don't bring your love for milk shakes to your "business attire only" office job. You may love Hentai, but you're not telling the person next to you during an opera visit. These are aspects of you that don't match the occasion, so you skip that. Most people do this naturally, they don't spend much thought on it.

Then there's "masking" as used by neurodivergent people. That's an entirely different matter. More info an that is over at neurodivergentinsights.