The Cost of Keeping Up Appearances: Mental Illness and an Enneagram 3

I’m an enneagram three. If you don’t know what that means, let me explain in the best way an amateur enneagram enthusiast can.

It means I care way too much about what you think of me and I will chameleon-fold myself into what I think it is you want me to be and what I think will bring me the most success and happiness, or at least perceived success and happiness, because the worst possible version of my life is the one in which I don't live up to my potential and infer failure after failure.

It also means I'm always one good personality conflict away from a mental breakdown.

I had my first at 25.

Most of what I'll try to explain about the enneagram comes directly from enneagram expert, Ian Morgan Cron; his book, The Road Back to You; and his podcast, “Typology.”

The enneagram is a personality test like Myers-Briggs. Only instead of getting a combination of letters that reflect your behavioral tendencies, you are categorized into one of nine different types.

1. The Reformer (also known as the Perfectionist)

2. The Helper

3. The Achiever (also known as the Performer)

4. The Individualist

5. The Investigator

6. The Loyalist

7. The Enthusiast

8. The Challenger

9. The Peacemaker

Myers-Briggs tends to reflect who you are right now and lock you into that personality without a lot of guidance as to what that means to your daily life. The enneagram is a growth diagnostic. While you won’t change your core number throughout your life, it does guide you to figure out how the strengths and weaknesses of your personality type can lead to healthy growth or unhealthy misery.

And if you’re skeptical that there’s no way everyone in the entire world can be narrowed down into just nine personality types, you need to read up on wings. Wings are the numbers to the left and right of your core number.

For example as a three, my wings are 2 and 4. I tend to lean more into my wing four (3w4 as it’s often written). This means that I take on a lot of the attributes of The Individualist, but my core motivation is still rooted in being The Achiever. It also means that I can also relate a lot to The Helper.

The enneagram also groups numbers into a Harmony Triangle. The two numbers that make up your triangle along with your core number indicates what strengths you lean into when you’re in a healthy place and what weaknesses you might manifest when you’re in an unhealthy state of mind.

This graphic shows arrows connected to each of the nine types. I know, it looks like a weirdly drawn pentagram, but I promise there’s no witchcraft here! You’ll see one arrow pointing away from you. In times of stress, you will tend to take on this number’s negative qualities. The number that’s pointing towards you is the number that’s positive attributes you take on in times of security.

For an enneagram three like me, my Harmony Triangle is made up of 9’s and 6’s. In times of stress, I might resort to the laziness or slothfulness of a nine, The Peacemaker. I tend to check out more and have a hard time being motivated to get anything done. When I’m feeling secure, I’m in touch with my six side, The Loyalist. I’m more aware of my feelings, how others feel and the needs of the group more than just my own needs.

Maybe you’re still skeptical. (In which case you’re probably a five, but I won’t ever type someone else.) That’s totally fine! I’ve only scratched the surface of the enneagram and there’s plenty of other tools and resources out there for you to do your own research.

This article isn’t to explain everything about the enneagram. If you’re curious to learn more about the enneagram click here. If you want to take a free basic test, click here.

Each personality type has a “deadly sin.” While yes, there are only seven deadly sins that are most commonly thought of, three’s sin isn’t one of the normal ones. Three’s deadly sin is deceit. Not necessarily deceit of others but self-deceit.

Three’s are also part of the feeling or heart triad. This is different from your Harmony Triangle. The triad explains the different places in the body where your emotions are stored. Said differently by Ian Morgan Cron in The Road Back to You, “Your triad is another way of describing how you habitually take in, process, and respond to life.”

• The Anger or Gut Triad: 8, 9, and 1
  

• The Feeling or Heart Triad: 2, 3, and 4
  

• The Fear or Head Triad: 5, 6, and 7.

As a card carrying member of the Three, I do not like feelings, neither my own or others. (AKA, I’m not the best person to offer you a shoulder to cry on.) I’m citing Cron’s book again, but it explains the difference between these three types really well.

“These numbers are driven by feelings. Twos focus outwardly on the feelings of others; Threes have trouble recognizing their own or other people’s feelings; and Fours concentrate their attention inwardly on their own feelings. They each take in and relate to life from their heart and are more image-conscious than other numbers.”

Finally, each type is driven by certain needs or motivations. As a three, I’m driven by three basic needs: 1) The need to be successful. 2) The need to appear successful. 3) The need to avoid failure at all costs.

Here’s where I need you to put on your imagination caps. Picture everything I just told you about being a three. Dump it all into a pot of boiling water. The need to succeed, the lack of intuneness with feelings, self-deceit, making sure everyone thinks you’re at the top of your game, the competitive drive to be the best. And now add a little depression and anxiety into the mix and you’ve got a disaster waiting to spill its contents all over the place!

That pot of stew spilling all over the place, causing a huge mess? That was me between 2016 and 2019. I had a mental break-down/mid-life crisis at 25 years old.

Keeping up appearances is vital for everyone in the Feeling Triad, but what exactly each number needs to appear to be is different. Two’s, the Helper, need to appear helpful. Four’s, the Individualist, need to appear authentic. And Three’s, the Achiever, need to appear successful.

As a three, this keeping up appearances can manifest itself in different ways. For me, there are several examples I can pinpoint from my childhood and from college that give me no doubt in my mind that I am a three to a tee!

The first story that comes to mind is back when I was about 5 or 6. My family lived in Illinois. I was part of a large children’s Sunday School class. I remember always being encouraged to talk about Jesus to everyone we met. Challenge accepted. The only problem though was I was a really shy kid and didn't like talking to people I didn't know.

However, I knew even at 6 years old, that if I said I’d told someone about Jesus, no one would question me. And so every Sunday, I boldly raised my hand when the class was asked if anyone had told someone about Jesus. And every Sunday I got to stand up on the chair and have my praises sung about me by my Sunday School teacher. That desire to be in the spotlight? A total three move. And honestly, I got so good at making up stories about leading people to Christ that I actually believed they were true.

I know, I was little shit.

Here's another example:

Growing up, I was homeschooled. That means the answer keys to all my tests and assignments were sitting on my mom’s desk in the school room. During my middle and high school years, my need to appear smart far outweighed my desire to actually be smart.

I think you see where I’m going with this…. I was becoming a big shit.

I knew exactly how to find the answers quickly, get a few wrong to hide my deception and put the text book back exactly the way I found it.

Mom, if you’re reading this… I’m so sorry!!!

In college, awards and good grades were the things I sought the most. Despite cheating my way through high school, I was actually smart. Not so much naturally smart, but smart enough to know that I needed to be extra diligent in note-taking, class participation and studying to keep up the appearance that I was smart. I couldn’t cheat my way through college, but I could memorize the heck out of my notes and pass with an A-B average. My goal from day one was graduate Cum Laude with a 3.5 GPA and that’s exactly what I did.

In grad school, I won a couple of awards. And at the time, I genuinely believed my own press about winning them. One of the prizes was an Adobe Achievement award for a group project I was a part of. And by being a part of it, I mean I sort of helped with the content, sort of helped with the production, and gave part of the class presentation. However, I was not the camera operator of the commercial. That was actually my boyfriend…. aka Sam who still wanted to marry me after I used him for my own selfish gain! And I didn’t touch any of the editing because that’s something one of the other team members wanted to do. But that did not stop me from boldly attending the award ceremony and accepting a trophy with my name on it for the great videography and editing of this class commercial!

Sam still holds this over my head.

The final example of this kind of spotlight deception happened my last semester of grad school, when I practically begged my professor for 2.6 more points on one of my assignments so that I would graduate with a 3.8 GPA and receive a gold medallion at graduation. Actually earning the grade wasn’t nearly as important as taking home that piece of hardware.

So what did I do? I told my professor, whose name was Norman, that Sam and I had agreed that Norman Farnsworth had a nice ring to it and that it would be the name of our first born son should he agree to changing my grade. I’m not kidding. I really did offer!

My professor literally laughed out loud, waved his finger at me and told me I was hilarious as he proceeded to shut the door in my face. But you know what? I graduated with a 3.81. And no one knew what it cost me until now.

Dear future son, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry!

What happened to me after college happens to a lot of people, not just type Threes. Graduation was like getting the rug pulled out from under me. Only the rug was really a magic carpet and I was flying the whole time thinking I was in control of my journey and my destination. When the carpet took off without me on it, I took a slow motion fall back to earth.

In the real world, there are no grades to chart your progress. There is no rubric to tell you what x, y, and z you must do to be successful. There are no teachers whose job it is to help you succeed. You’re on your own in uncharted waters. You’re swimming in the direction you think you should be going, but there are no landmarks, no road signs. Some days you feel like you’re making a headway. Others you feel like you’ve simply returned to the exact same spot you were at a month ago.

The more I swam, the more tired I became. I kicked and paddled every which way I knew how, but month after month went by and I was becoming cold, shriveled and pruney in the endless ocean of work.

I no longer saw myself as an excellent swimmer. I no longer saw purpose in every stroke. I began to doubt my own abilities. I began to doubt what any teacher or parent or mentor had ever seen in me. I started to doubt my worthiness to my husband, my job… and eventually even my life.

Remember how Threes’ deadly sin is deceit? Deceit is a pendulum. Swing it too far to the right and you start to think you’re God’s gift to mankind. Swing it too far to the left and you start to think you’re a waste of space on this earth.

In college, I had a natural tendency to the right. Humble confidence that to me is evidence in the fact that I really did have to try hard in every class to get the grades I did. I really did have to put in the time and energy to get the opportunities I did. I earned a lot of my accolades and accomplishments.

However, in the working world, the momentum shifted and I began to swing left. Every glamorous social media post of one of my classmates confirmed that I wasn’t living up to my potential. Every lonely afternoon in an empty apartment in a friendless city told me that this was all I’d ever been good enough for.

Throw in the fact that I worked in television, I was surrounded by people in the spotlight and yet I remained in the shadows.

I want to sidebar for a second and hopefully bust some myths about the people you see reporting on your local news station. There is nothing special about them/us. Watching someone of TV has this weird tendency to make that person seem important, successful, popular and “glamorous.” But the work is grueling. The hours are long. The pay is pitiful. And honestly, that spotlight that people see us in is actually really uncomfortable for most people.

It sucks being recognized, albeit it doesn’t happen often, when I’m at Kroger with a cart full of wine and frozen food or I’m at the pharmacy picking up antidepressants. There are just some things you wish you could keep to yourself!

When I was a producer, I didn’t want to be in the spotlight with the anchors and the reporters because I thought it would be glamorous to be on TV. I enjoy the performance aspect of it (you can take the girl out of the theater, but you can’t take the theater out of the girl), and every fiber of my being is a storyteller. I saw the people on TV getting to be storytellers whether they were documenting a house fire, a teachers’ rally, a presidential election or a child’s miraculous fight with cancer. I saw them on the front lines of history and in the heart of people’s homes. I craved to be in the room where it happens. #IYKYK

After a year of watching from the control room, I got my foot in the studio with a little segment on the morning show called Cool People Doing Cool Things. I got to share positive, uplifting and funny stories with viewers. I loved it. The thrill was addicting. I wanted more but feared what it would cost me to get it.

I was a really good producer. And there was no guarantee I’d be an equally good reporter. And when you mess up as a producer, no one knows your name or sees your face. It’s safer to fail as a producer when the only people who know your mistakes are your coworkers. Make an error as a reporter and the world is aware of it.

Not to mention, I’d talked about wanting to be a reporter for the last 5+ years. Imagine the humiliation, if I finally got the chance and I blew it. If I sucked, not only would the world know it but every teacher or mentor who’d ever poured time and attention into me would know it too. Their disappointment that I didn’t amount to more was a thought that became too much to bear.

Down.

Down.

Down.

I spiraled deeper and deeper into the abyss. Every day as a reporter, I felt my confidence waning. I felt like a fake, a fraud, an impostor. But the stakes were so high. This was my dream. This had been the goal. If I failed, I felt like my entire life up until that point had been for nothing.

The pressure was enormous.

A day in the field was not just another day, another dollar. It was life or death. The more I strove for perfection, for excellence, the more painful the job became because it was impossible to live up to my own expectations. My three basic pillars of need to be successful, to appear successful and to avoid failure at all costs were crumbling all around me. I was trying desperately to keep them up.

Depression, anxiety and mental breakdowns can happen to any enneagram type. In a Three though, it often takes people by surprise. Threes are really good a putting on whatever mask they need to wear in every situation. We’re the most adaptive of the enneagram types because we’ll see a need and be willing to fill it. We’ll step into whatever role elevates our status. We’ll smile and laugh because we think no one would like us otherwise. We’ll post only the most amazing photos of our lives, a calculated move to highlight what we think people want to see.

Eventually, the strength it took to keep the pillars up became too much. In the spring/summer of 2018, after two years of standing beneath the weight of my own expectations, I collapsed.

That’s when something surprising happened.

I saw my husband begin to lift the rubble off me. I saw friends start to clear the debris. When the dust settled, people began to tell me that they didn’t like me because of the pillars I’d erected around myself. They didn’t care about how good my story was, how pretty I looked, or how perfect a friend I tried to be.

One by one my friends across social media, across the newsroom and across the world began picking me up, dusting me off, cleaning up the rubble and rebuilding new pillars of worth.

Through therapy, medication, and a lot of self-reflection I began to see where the cracks in the original pillars had been. I saw how impossible it was going to be to keep those pillars up. I realized they were doomed from the beginning because I’d built them out of weak, cheap materials like good grades, people’s opinions, trophies and Instagram likes.

From the summer or 2018 to the summer of 2019, I grew stronger by leaps and bounds. I took my time, carefully crafting my new pillars on the foundation of the old.

See that’s the beauty of the enneagram. While it shows you who you are, it doesn’t shame your “negative” qualities. Instead it shows you how those qualities can actually be used for good. My three basic needs aren't necessarily going to change. I’ll always want to be successful and avoid failure. But now I’m learning how to create those pillars in a healthy, strong way that won’t crumble when the wind blows.

So I’m working on including hard work to my pillar of success. I’m working on adding authenticity to my pillar of appearances. And I’m working on redefining failure so that when mistakes happen, failure becomes a lesson.

It’s a slower process than my last attempt at building the life I wanted. I’m more critical about what I put into my life and more intentional about what I leave out.

I’m lucky. I know of a lot of enneagram Threes that spend 20+ years building their first set of pillars and the result after their fall was even more painful than my own.

I like to think I’m building pillars that will last, but I’m not perfect. There will be mistakes. At times I’m sure I’m going to need to knock parts of my pillars down because of wrong choices I’ve made. I can only hope that each time, there’s a little more of the foundation left. The good parts that remain strong. And that no matter when the building starts to shake, I always have people in my life willing to help me dust off the mistakes and start putting the pieces back together.