I am just wondering is it right to put on a fake smile just to make it seem like someone is doing okay but cant really tell anyone how they feel since they feel like no one understands them ?

The majority of people do this. Meeting someone who legitimately understands you is rare, and publicly displaying your negative emotions can easily make people uncomfortable, so you're expected to act positive around most people even when you feel like shit.

If you need to be excessively emotional, that's what the people closest to you / therapists are for.

In my opinion, I don't think that kind of thing is right to begin with. I don't mean to be blunt but that kind of life will only lead to a dark place were you don't feel like living any more.

At one point in my life I was depressed, and i put on a fake smile not make everyone worry about me. But every time i put that smile on it I felt like I wanted to disappear. At the same time I wanted someone to call me-out on my fake smile; someone to show me that they genuinely cared about me and that it was ok to let it all out. But that didn't happen for a long time, and as time went on I eventually thought of killing myself.

And I almost did until I found one of my dearest friends. She just saw straight through my fake smile and asked me what was wrong. I wasn't willing to tell her what was wrong at first because I thought she'd only hurt me more. But she was persistent and I eventually broke. I told her every thing that was eating at me and she just listed. She just sat there and listed for whats seemed like hours. Then after I was done, she just told me it was alright and that I'll get better, and I did get better with time. I started to open up more to people and I put on a genuine smile.

Life will always try to get you down but as long as you have good friends and family to support you, you'll strong enough to stand up to anything.

Im the same. So I always thought that it is better to be alone that's why I distance myself from other people and didn't want to talk to them. So that is the current me right now, the one who didn't care about others, all I do was shutting in myself in my room and I only watch anime and read manga in there.

I do that alot. But I don't want people to notice because I don't want to lose the mask. I'm afraid of someone seeing my sadness.

Find someone who you can genuinely express your feelings, someone to talk things with during a few drinks, someone who is in a similar situation to you, someone who is frank enough to tell you your faults.

Nothing wrong with putting up fake smiles to avoid hurting others, but make sure that you don't do it too often that you end up lying to yourself. I do this a lot in front of many people, but when alone with a friend, I tend to open up my problems and worries to him/her. Just have some trustworthy friends to share the good times and the bad times with.

Faking smiles/happiness too often will hurt no one else, but yourself. Eventually, you'll be lying not only to others but yourself as well.

Hello fellow dollars member.Yes it's ok as long as you try to fix your sadness.If you can't fix your sadness than stop putting that mask and let people you trust try to fix it.

It's definitely okay to act happy, even when you don't feel that way. However, it's also always okay to let friends and family know if there's something troubling you (or someone else). Part of caring for someone is trying one's best to understand them and supporting/helping/being there for them even if they don't understand.

"Fake it till you make it," they say.

Forcing a smile actually reduces stress. Here are some articles if anyone's interested:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smile-it-could-make-you-happier/

http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/smiling-happy1.htm

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/study-forcing-a-smile-genuinely-decreases-stress/260513/

(accidentally left these out of the last post)