The Fine Art of Masking Your Mental Health: Is It Confidence or Delusion?

I love a song about a high roller on the ropes.

Not a song about a literal gambler, but one about “The Gambler,” a common blues and country music trope à la Kenny Rogers’ most famous ditty—someone who metaphorically gambles not just with cards or dice, but with their own very fate.

On the 1978 song “The Gambler,” the titular storyteller is at death’s door, advising an upstart on how to “hold ‘em,” “fold ‘em,” “walk away,” and “run.” A more modern take on this trope appears on Raphael Saadiq's 2019 album “Jimmy Lee." The track “Something Keeps Calling” is akin to both “The Gambler” and the old Blues classic “Goin’ Down Slow” in that it’s about a man whose luck is about to run out.

He sings:

My wife says I'll never have money again
And she might be right, I lost tonight
My heart says I can get it all again
And I hope I'm right, but not tonight

On “The Gambler” and “Goin’ Down Slow” (my favorite cover of this is Bobby “Blue” Bland’s disco-funk-tinged version from 1974), the former big spender knows he’s on his last legs and about to die. But on “Jimmy Lee,” the main character isn’t quite ready to be resigned to his fate. Despite the walls closing in and everything looking hopelessly bleak, he still hopes he can get back all he’s lost, and as someone who’s returned from rock bottom a few times, I get it.

Part of having an unwavering belief in yourself, even when it borders on delusional, is that you have it in the highest moments and the lowest. You have to believe you’ll have your own back and that you’ll get yourself out of whatever jam you’ve gotten yourself into, because … unfortunately … you’ve had to do this before.

Wednesday, I published a story for The Global Disability News Network on having to bounce back at 49 after a gamble I took on myself didn't pan out. It was rooted in my discovery that I'd had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and that for years, it was long untreated. For me, the illness manifested as impulsivity, and that impulsivity led to excessive spending. While I'd been able to hide it for most of my life, growing older and going through perimenopause revealed I'd reached a critical point.

I could no longer live this way.

Still, for years after I realized something was wrong, I lived as if my mental health issues were in my past. Not because I wanted to, but because it was what my career demanded.

The results were disastrous.

The team I led and the newsroom I ran—I couldn’t let them know I was struggling because I was a Black woman in a high-profile position. And I knew if I failed, it wouldn’t stay a personal misfortune—it would taint other Black women because racism dictates we aren’t judged as individuals, but as a collective.

While I lived “out loud” as a bipolar woman, I couldn’t be bipolar. Even though I was neurodivergent and disabled, it was a disability I could hide. And my industry demanded that. Years ago, when I realized I was struggling at work, I told my boss I was depressed and experiencing executive dysfunction.

He said he understood, but this couldn’t happen again. 

I knew what that meant—I could be unwell, but I couldn’t act unwell. I needed to wear a mask. 

Which was a lot for me, as I was already wearing two. 

Call it twoness. Call it double (or in this case, triple) consciousness. I had it three times over as a neurodivergent Black woman with a hidden disability. I was acutely aware that I had a responsibility to perform even when I didn't feel up to the task, and wear a mask of "wellness."

But wearing that mask had a consequence.

I had to live a lie.

I already wore a mask to deal with the world at large. The mask of Danielle Belton: the brand, the executive, the newsroom leader, and mental health advocate. That mask is pragmatic, thoughtful, even-tempered, and has made my mental illness seem like something that happened to me in the past and not something I live with daily. 

Because I knew if I wanted to be successful, “unwell Danielle” could not be seen.

So I put on a third mask. 

The mask of wellness.

And it almost destroyed me.

Coming to terms with all my masks and slowly taking them off has been hard. But as a girl who has never been able to code-switch—I talk like I write, and I speak to everyone the same, regardless of age, ethnicity, or gender—it feels better, freeing even, to let it all hang out.

Today, I'm gearing up to restart my life for the third time.

The first happened after my divorce at 24. It was followed by seven of the hardest years of my life, when I went broke, was hospitalized multiple times, and had to move home to live with my parents. The second came in my mid-30s, after the death of a friend and my mother's diagnosis of dementia. I found myself no longer living, just existing, as I thought life was cruel and horribly unfair. I pulled myself out of it after my mother eventually died in 2018. This time, it's a slow creep that started in 2016 and climaxed last year, after I took another gamble and walked away from my role at HuffPost. I fell into a hole of executive dysfunction and depression as I tried to figure out my life.

Restarting THE BLACK SNOB, launching a podcast, freelance writing again, and starting a consulting business has been scary, but at the same time, I know I have the talents, skills, and connections to pull off a third comeback.

I'm as ambitious and hopeful as I've always been.

Because it's the only way I know to be.

Read my story "On Destroying the Mask of Wellness While Being Black and Neurodivergent."