I am a big guy. Some people are surprised at how big I am in person. Owing to my size, I may have enjoyed an extra helping of external abuse due to being a big piñata. I would have had an easier time with depression if I hadn’t been a big, loud man wearing the whole mask and costume of fake confidence. When people saw me, they saw someone built to withstand any storm, and therefore any abuse.

Imagine two piñatas hanging from tree branches. Each contains exactly three pounds of candy. One is huge. One is small. Of course, looking at them, what you see is the size, not the thickness of the piñata skin or what is inside. The larger one tempts you even more. On the ground is the stick that people will use to smash them. With the small piñata, no one hits it too hard; you don’t want the candy flying everywhere. You use a smaller stick, strike carefully, and try not to break everything at once.

But the big piñata practically invites people to swing with everything they’ve got. They assume its size means it can take more force. So they pick up the biggest bat and swing without restraint. Blow after blow, until finally both piñatas explode, and only then does everyone discover they each held the same three pounds inside.

I was the big piñata. People assumed I could absorb any hit, so they didn’t bother with sticks. They brought bats and sledgehammers. They swung harder. They thought the shell was thicker, that the inside was stronger. But the truth was this: The paper-mâché walls were the same as anyone else’s. Big or small, the harder hits hurt more.