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Since there is always a mask behind a mask, one can derive some comfort from it and feel safe from the hole of the real. Indeed, by diffracting drives, the mask, as symptom or as fantasy, keeps us separate from the “objet petit a," thus allowing desire to operate for us. However, the mask may sometimes lack consistency, or may even be too compact: hence the subject is defenseless in front of the horror of the void. Based on two clinical cases, this article tries to illustrate how the failure of the function of the ego leaves some subjects frozen with anxiety, excluded from the train of desire, and how questioning the mask that patients present can guide clinical practice.