Private Face vs. Public Face: When Pretending To Be Okay Breaks the Body

Living the Split: Two Versions of Me

In the midst of betrayal, I lived with two versions of myself for over a year. There was the version the world saw – put together, functional, engaging, and blending in. And there was a version I kept hidden at all costs – someone who could barely get through the day and was quietly falling apart. I was a shell of a person, and very few people knew it. Even those who were aware of what I’d endured didn’t fully understand it because it was too much to share.

Survival Mode as Performance

In the wake of deep betrayal, I became a brilliant performer. I smiled. I made eye contact. I got dressed nicely. I showed up for work, social events, and volunteer commitments. I essentially hid in plain sight for a very long time.  I could’ve won an Oscar for the role I played – not because I was dramatic, but because the mask I wore had to be airtight.

But it was all an act. Underneath, I felt completely hollow and inauthentic, like I was a bad actor in a life I didn’t fit into anymore. I didn’t know where I fit in, so I faked it.

At the time, I didn’t realize how much I was performing. It just felt like survival. I was doing what I thought I had to do – keep it together, avoid judgment, and protect myself (and even those who betrayed me) from scrutiny and criticism. I was trying to avoid giving anyone ammunition that could be used to harm me more. I didn’t trust anyone, including many who were close to me – because it was people I deeply trusted who had already harmed me.

I also doubted anyone would believe me over the charismatic voices of the charming and well-liked people who betrayed me, then rewrote the narrative to suit themselves and maintain an image. (I had lost to them before – I would let them have their win if they wanted it that badly.)

The Mask of Okay-ness

I didn’t want to seem bitter or unstable, and I felt I would if I spoke up. I was well-practiced at being agreeable, so I stayed quiet and shrank. I buried the truth so deeply that even I stopped looking at it. I thought I was protecting others from the mess of me – as if pain were contagious and might disappear if I just kept it hidden.

But my body knew better. MUCH better.

When the Body Keeps the Score

As a physical therapist, I’ve spent years learning and observing in my patients how trauma lives in the body. But this was the first time I truly lived it at such a personal, cellular level. It wasn’t just emotional. It wasn’t just psychological. My body was the battleground where unspoken pain turned into very real symptoms.

What trauma looked like in my body:

·       I lost 20 pounds that I didn’t need to lose.

·       Old injuries flared up in a strange, revolving fashion – low back, knees, shoulders, neck, low back, hips.

·       A bizarre, severe and undiagnosed pain took hold in my lips and stayed for months.

·       My ability to focus disappeared.

·       Learning anything new felt impossible, and required many more repetitions than before to take hold in my memory.

In photos from that awful time, I was smiling but my eyes looked vacant. I now wonder how no one noticed.

Performing Normal: The Hardest Job I’ve Ever Had

At home, I found relief not just in rest, but in no longer needing to pretend. I could lie on the couch or stare at the wall without anyone noticing or expecting me to perform.

But outside, I moved through the world like a smiling zombie. I rallied the moment I stepped out the door. I said I was “fine.” I adjusted who I was, what I shared, and how I healed – sometimes even around people I trusted – because I knew they couldn’t always hold space for me as-is.

Wearing the mask of okay-ness was the hardest full-time job I’ve ever held. And almost no one knew.

The Invisible Cost of Betrayal Trauma

That’s the invisible cost of betrayal trauma: the split between how you appear and what’s happening beneath the surface. You keep the peace. You protect others’ reputations and cushion their comfort out of fear of retaliation – while your own system disintegrates.

 How Betrayal Really Works

Here is the thing I believe many people do not understand: deep betrayal isn’t a one-time event. It doesn’t hit all at once and then pass.

Betrayal occurs over a long period – with intention and knowledge that someone is being harmed. And recovery from betrayal doesn’t follow the same arc or timeline as other painful life events.

Betrayal trauma unfolds slowly – sometimes over months or years – through repeated actions, intent of harm, calculated deception, and the dismantling of your reality by people you deeply trusted. The ground isn’t pulled out from under you all at once. It’s taken away in pieces under a veil of secrecy.

And by the time you realize how much is gone, you’re already in survival mode.

Living in High Alert

That’s what makes betrayal so disorienting. You walk through the world unsure who is safe and who isn’t – unsure of whose smile is genuine and whose silence is complicit. You scan for threats even in everyday moments, keeping your nervous system on high alert. You pretend with everyone – because you truly don’t know who’s for you and who’s quietly against you.

It’s not just the pain of being hurt – it’s the utter collapse of a reality you thought was solid.

The Nervous System’s Breaking Point

We do this because we’ve been taught to. Especially if you were raised to be accommodating, to preserve harmony and not rock the boat. We’re told to be the “bigger person,” and we forget we’re a person at all – a human one, with a nervous system that wasn’t built to carry invisible weight and throw around cortisol forever.

Because when your body must absorb what your voice can’t express, it will eventually speak in its own language:

·       Pain

·       Fatigue

·       Dysfunction

·       Shut-down

What looks like “random” health issues is often the body sounding the alarm after months – or years – of self-erasure.

Rebuilding Begins with Truth

None of this means you're weak. It means you’ve been in survival mode for too long.

What I’ve come to understand – through both my clinical lens and my lived one – is that our bodies are not betraying us. They’re responding to betrayal. They’re adapting to emotional stress, isolation, hypervigilance, and suppression. They’re protecting us – until it becomes too much.

Healing didn’t begin for me when the symptoms went away. I’m still working on that.

Healing began when I stopped pretending I was fine and let myself be seen – by myself first, then by safe others. It began when I started prioritizing and honoring the parts of me that were still aching versus stuffing it down and protecting the people who hurt me.

I didn’t start with big changes. I did what I could and started small. I wrote a lot. I learned to better sense who was safe and who wasn’t. I focused on regulating my nervous system, and I continue to.

And in that, I started moving just a little more freely and reconnecting to myself - and I want to help you do that. Please see my resources section for some easy breathing tools to start, as well as more in-depth guided resources.

Even now, when old patterns return, I come back to this:

My body isn’t my enemy.
It’s the most honest witness in the room.
And when it speaks, I want to listen.

You’re not alone in your journey through recovering from betrayal - I’ve been there, and I’ve got you.