Consequences of spending years inside a closet

Hi Michael,

I can't speak for everyone here but I've definitely felt many of the things you describe.

I've also been in therapy for awhile, with no magical results. I can say that it's great to have a safe space to vent feelings that can't be expressed publicly. And to feel that there is someone in your corner. Throughout the process, I've definitely gained some insight into myself.

But you are right, taking action ultimately requires your own initiative and courage. Therapy may help you clarify which direction to go.

Can you share some more basic facts about the circumstances of your life? Might make it easier to offer advice.

I'd recommend this approach with your therapist as well. Obviously your temptation will be to vent your feelings, but it's really important to explain some of your personal history and how things got to where they are.

 

I would not underestimate the insidious effects of shame, denial, and the closet. It takes quite a bit of willpower and emotional energy to keep our secrets safe from the world. Energy that could be otherwise used to achieve other goals or come out.

We feel shame about our true sexuality or gender because of negative scripts we learned in childhood. Because of this shame, we feel unworthy and unlovable. We may have low self-esteem. Because of the low self-esteem, we may be less likely to do what is necessary to gain happiness, that is to come out and share our secret with the world and put ourselves on a path towards authenticity. We may even experience low moods because we know that we are not taking action and doing what needs to be done, which further strengthens the closet's hold on us.

To break the cycle one has to force oneself to do what is necessary and take a bunch of scary baby steps followed by a leap of faith. This may require a momentary out-of-body experience where you ignore your mind's telling you all the reasons not to move ahead. Once on the other side you will enjoy a feeling of liberation and freedom as the weight of your secret is lifted from you.

If you want your therapy session to be less painful, you can start with the bold statement that you want to come out and live authentically and ask for the therapist's help in doing so. This makes the therapy more targeted and action-oriented and less about sharing feelings in an exploratory fashion.

 

First, I think we ALL have experienced a lot of what you listed.

If you want therapy to work, here's what you do:

1 - Take your list and write down what you want to change. For example on your first item you may write down "I want to stop feeling like an outcast."

2 - Write down a timeline as to when you want to see progress. Maybe the simpler ones are accomplished faster, the harder ones take longer.

3 - Give the list of goals and timeline to the therapist. Discuss them and maybe change them based on what the therapist suggests.

4 - Every dew months review the list and timeline to make sure you re on track.

Do these things and I think you'll be OK.

 

Therapists are there to help guide you to a better place. But yes, the heavy lifting is all going to be you. So let me take a peek at each of your points, and just toss out some thoughts.

-The feeling that you are an outcast, and every time you get something good from life after making some effort (relationship, promotion at work, even paperwork) is almost a miracle, because you don't really deserve it.

I wouldn't say this feeling is totally unfamiliar to me, but it took a somewhat different version with me. I sometimes felt like a "fraud". That I may have done well at something, but the NEXT thing I did I would fail at, and it would reveal that I really wasn't as good as they thought I was.

-Quite low self esteem... Obviously. This can lead you to dangerous places.

Probably the root of everything else.

-Feeling in the middle of a football match... And in the middle of the crowd of the wrong team... So to avoid being beaten up you do make yourself as smaller and tiny as you can, and don't make a single sound. You become a living statue, or a ghost, and at times being forced to act like this makes you wonder if life itself is even worth it. It's like the mermaid's tale : In order to lead the life she wanted, she had to give up her voice. (Well, I'm neither a mermaid, nor I want to be forced to shut up for the rest of my life...)

I know and understand this feeling, but thankfully, I came out before it really became an issue. What really happens is less like being at a football match, where you'll be hated and perhaps even in danger if they find out you're really rooting for the other team. It's more like you're at a football match when you'd rather be at another sport entirely, or at the movies, or sitting at home reading. Everybody thinks you're a fan of Team A because you keep showing up to Team A home games, wearing Team A colors, and pretending to cheer for Team A. When you admit that you really aren't interested, some people might find it strange that you're not a fan, but most people are actually pretty accepting of the fact that you'd rather just do other things. Similarly, when I came out of the closet, nobody hated me for actually liking guys. They just knew I didn't have any interest in chasing women or leering at them, and I didn't have to pretend to do or like that anymore.

-When you finally reach out, deep shame about your problem, and every step feels incredibly hard and frustrating : You are using all your power, and you see you are doing just baby steps.

Totally understandable, but even baby steps get you closer to your goal. The key thing is to keep heading in the right direction, and not turn back.

-Very frustrated when you sense anything that remotely looks like going backwards, or having any kind of doubts. Shaming yourself. Very angry with yourself.

You've built a house on a false foundation. That usually means you'll have to do some tearing down before you get your house on solid ground. That's not backwards - keep that in mind.

-... And shaming yourself in front of your parents, even as a grown up, because they tried their best and you don't think you did your job well. Again feelings of being a failure.

If your parents wanted a really tall child, would you feel you failed them by not (literally) measuring up? You are what you are. If your parents did a good job raising you, then they raised an awesome gay son. You're a "failure" at heterosexuality the same way you're a "failure" at being seven feet tall - you simply weren't built that way.

-Guilt still because you can't understand why your efforts were for nothing. Angry with yourself too because you understand you wasted your best years. All of this becomes a pure contradiction, and you still move between a rock and a hard place, unable to decide what is the truth and what is just a byproduct of self hatred.

If being straight was will-to-power, there probably wouldn't be any gay people. (Or very few, anyway.) It simply doesn't work that way. Did you "waste" those years? Perhaps. But I like to use this analogy. You wake up outside the gates of Disneyland. You have an all-day pass in your hand, and it's three in the afternoon. You can bemoan the fact that you missed the morning and half the day already, or you can get your ass in gear, go into the gates, and start having a good time. I know which one I'd recommend doing.

-Many sleepless nights trying to imagine the future. Fear, doubts, agony...

The past is stone - it's set and unchangeable. The future is vapor - it hasn't been created yet. Only the present is clay - that's what you need to focus on. And the more work you do in the present, the better your future will be.

-Not feeling like reaching out for the community in real life because you don't really belong there anyways... You don't really think you could belong nowhere... You also refuse to try to fit in, and you are afraid your experience won't be theirs, and even if they share your problem they'll have a whole culture, and you probably won't feel comfortable being among people who feel as miserable as you.

People tend to get a bit of a skewed thought about "fitting in". They seem to think of it like a jigsaw puzzle. Like there's this one perfect spot where you belong, and you'll look for it, find it, snuggle down into it, happily ever after, the end. But it doesn't work that way. It's more like going to the beach, and lying down near the water. And as the waves come by, they bring more sand next to you, and start burying your legs. You simply start surrounding yourself with some like-minded people. And they don't all have to be the same. Some might just be casual friends you can chat about simple things about. Some might be ones you only discuss music or books or even being gay about. But as you surround yourself with these people, it's like being buried by the sand - it's you "fitting in" around all these other people and all these other things.

-Not being able to be 100% fair and honest with anyone, unless they know about you, and when they do the first feeling you've got is deep shame and to run away from them as fast as you can... 'Cause they got you... Even if they are incredibly supportive, and say all the right things.

One of the best things about coming out is that the knowledge isn't worth anything anymore. Nobody uses the fact "Lex brought a sandwich to work for lunch" against me, because everybody knows it, and there's nowhere it can be used against me. Once everybody knew I was gay, that fact had no power. Who were they going to tell?

-The wish to cut all ties with the past and start a whole new life. Stop talking to many toxic people, and realizing that you are becoming so isolated, and you feel so lonely, you are playing with the fire of putting yourself at risk and accepting any kind of person that comes your way... Still you don't want to fake it anymore, and you have developed something close to the 'zero tolerance' with everyone, even new people in your life. You just want to avoid any conflict, and everything to be perfect from now on.

A friend once told me "You can't ask for a problem-free existence. You can only ask that your problems will change." And that's just how life operates. Getting rich means you swap out "having money" problems for your previous "not having money" problems. Coming out will not solve all of your problems - you should expect there to be issues. But it will eliminate the "being in the closet" problems. Which quite often makes the "gay and out" problems far less problematic.

-Quite self confident when it came to relationships as you were on the closet, but terribly insecure and shy (the teenager version of insecure and shy) as you go out to the world presenting the real self

You're used to being judged (and presumably getting some degree of approval) in your closeted guise. So it's natural to want to revert to that, since you KNOW what response you'll get to that. The "out" you is a new you, and you're not quite sure what sort of response you'll get. But chances are that you'll be pleasantly surprised by the it.

-Horror by simply thinking in doing anything that you did so easily during the past. Panic if you even think about doing such things again.

Again, it's a new you. The new you might be different from the old you in surprising ways, and the new you might be precisely the same as the old you in surprising ways.

-Shame about all the stupid games, all the fakeness and all the lies, in short the whole act you did during your years inside a closet. You try to laugh about all the details, and you do succeed most of the time, but to think about your old self is quite disturbing and if you are feeling low, to think about those times seems even to invalidate yourself.

You took the wrong turn in a maze, and ended up at a dead end. It happens. You can sit at that dead end, and curse the fact that you did so. Or you can start backtracking, so you can get through that maze and get to the other side.

If there's an overreaching tone to your post, it seems to be "well, I guess I'm stuck being gay, so I better just get used to it". Speaking for myself, I am not a failed heterosexual, any more than I am a failed woman, or a failed doctor, or a failed anything-else-that-I-am-not. I am a homosexual man. And a damn good one. And there's no reason why you can't be one, too.

Lex

 

I related to so many of your statements but especially this one. :icon_bigg The reality is that in order to gain the life that she wanted she had to give up everything - it was more than just her voice but also her family, friends, life in the ocean etc. She was basically giving up everything to gamble on something that was not even certain. The man she loved did not necessarily have to reciprocate her feelings so what she did was a major gamble for love. This feels the same way.

 

This is fantastic!

 

I to have experienced the same thing when I went to therapy - per the quote above. I do not know why I didn't like the time and money spent. Maybe my dissatisfaction with therapy was caused by my pain. I was/am hurting so much I could not see through my pain. Maybe my impatience caused me to not think therapy was working.

I will advise that if you are dealing with sexual repression and shame then by all means GET A THERAPIST WHO SPECIALIZES IN SAID MATTERS. A general therapist is like the relationship between a John and "service" person - a prostitute. The service person will tell you what you want to hear. ~"oh you are the best performing man (or women) I've ever had, come back now."

---------- Post added 31st Jan 2016 at 10:53 AM ----------

Ah yes "scripts". You can learn about scripts via two books.
a) Robot Check

b) Robot Check

---------- Post added 31st Jan 2016 at 10:55 AM ----------

I agree with the above material 100%

---------- Post added 31st Jan 2016 at 10:57 AM ----------

Wow I never thought of it that way, per the analogy above, but ya. Spot on.

---------- Post added 31st Jan 2016 at 11:01 AM ----------

I second the "fantastic".

---------- Post added 31st Jan 2016 at 11:02 AM ----------

Will digest Lexington's material next time.

---------- Post added 31st Jan 2016 at 11:04 AM ----------

Michael

Why dont you have a wall on your profile? I was going to notify you I commented to your post.

 

Hi Lex, I have to say you have a beautiful way with words and analogies.