Coming out to others – an essential first step . . .
National Coming Out Day (NCOD) began in 1988 and is celebrated
annually on October 11th. For years, LGBTQ+ advocates asserted that the most
powerful tool to change biased hearts and minds is for sexual minorities to
come out of the closet. As a result, LGBTQ+ equality has blossomed in just 30+
years, and the lives of sexual minorities have greatly improved.
Yet, according to the Trevor Project, LGB youth today are still almost five times as likely to have
attempted suicide compared to heterosexual youth, and 40% of transgender adults
report having made a suicide attempt in their lifetime. Sexual minority adults
experience higher rates of depression and anxiety than the general population, and are two to three times more
likely to struggle with addiction.
Research clearly shows that the stresses of social stigma (homophobia/transphobia) create the wounding that drives these
troubling statistics.
So, while claiming our place in the world is essential in the coming out process, it’s only a first step.
Gay men coming out on the inside
On the road towards greater equality, the LGBTQ+ community
has focused on pride, and rightly so. We have so much to be proud of as the
courageous survivors and gifted spirits we are. But over the years, as riots became
marches, and marches turned into festivals, our focus on pride has created a potential
bypass – a “pink cloud” in the coming out process. Ironically, the relief so
many of us feel from coming out of isolation can prevent us from fully
acknowledging and healing the pain we accumulated in hiding – our closet
wounds.
Fully sharing our truth with others as gay men requires that
we do the hard work of reclaiming our own inner truth. In this sense, coming
out isn’t just something we do on the outside with family, friends, and
co-workers, but a process of coming out to ourselves on the inside, too.
Gay anger
No matter how much we may have tried to protect ourselves,
homophobia wounded us. Some of us may have been more visible and, thus, overtly
targeted. But in today’s world, homophobic wounding is inescapable.
Anger is a natural response to having been violated. We may
feel anger at those who tormented and abused us, and anger towards others who
stood by and did nothing. We may feel anger at our parents or caregivers for
their rejection and betrayal at home, or anger towards schoolmates or teachers
for the bullying we experienced at school. If we more easily “passed” as
straight, we may feel anger at being forced to hide, or at our inability to
stand up for others like us who were victimized. We may feel anger about specific
abusive situations we survived, or the accumulated digs and slights we endured.
Anger can be powerful. It tells us personally when a
boundary has been crossed, or collectively when our rights have been violated.
Gay anger counters the stereotypical narrative of gay male weakness, and gay rage has,
in part, fueled a powerful social movement towards greater equality and respect.
On the other hand, unhealed anger can be dangerous; hurting people hurt people –
both themselves and others. As gay men, our unacknowledged hurt and anger can have
devastating effects on our individual lives, relationships, and communities.
Gay shame
Often accompanying anger - sometimes hidden just behind it -
is shame. As gay men, our shame is carried by a small boy still locked away in
a closet, isolated and often engulfed with terror . . .
“What if someone sees through
me? What if someone exposes the truth of who I am . . . and what I really want
and need? What if someone discovers just how scared, alone, and unlovable I actually
feel?”
Gay shame comes from knowing that if our full truth came out, we could be
ridiculed, shunned, abused, or worse. To survive, we pushed away and drowned
out our basic human needs for closeness and intimacy. We discovered an
assortment of masks to protect ourselves in childhood . . . achievement,
people-pleasing, over-responsibility, manipulation, dishonesty, control, or perfectionism.
We learned if we could be who others wanted us to be, we could avoid shaming
and abuse.
Moving into our adult lives, many of us bolstered our
childhood survival mechanisms with addictions and compulsions . . . alcohol,
drugs, workaholism, sex, porn, codependence, working out, materialism, etc. Eventually,
we may have forgotten we ever put on masks, believing our armored false self to
be truth. In coming out, we met others with the same wounds, wearing the same
masks, and caught in the same transactional performances. We may have mistaken dysfunction
for love or belonging, and in doing so, fortified our emotional prison.
An insidious barrier to healing shame for gay men is that
“admitting” shame can feed into homophobia –proof that because we feel shame,
we are inherently shameful. To be clear, gay shame has nothing to do with our
worth as gay men. It’s based on the inevitable internalization of ever-present lies
– that we were intrinsically wrong, defective, and disgusting. Gay shame is a
toxin that infected us starting very early in life, and that still affects many
of us as adults today.
Gay reclamation of our younger selves
Human babies come into this world small, needy, helpless,
and dependent. Soon after birth, we sensed that rejection by our caregivers meant
death. As young gay boys, our acceptance probably depended on gender role
conformity – how we “walked and talked.” Around puberty, we realized we could additionally
be targeted for our sexual expressions and attractions towards other guys.
Closet wounding comes from disowning parts of us throughout
our childhood. We instinctively learned to reject aspects of ourselves that made
others uncomfortable – often the most tender, precious parts of us. So, we may
have pushed away our three-year-old self, who coveted a fluffy pink scarf. We
may have disowned our six-year-old self, who sought comfort in a baby doll. We
may have rejected our nine-year-old self for being curious about his mother’s makeup.
And we eventually exiled our 13-year-old self, who secretly had crushes on
other boys at school.
In time, we no longer needed to be shamed by others to keep
the closet door shut. As an added layer of protection, we developed an internal
mechanism for shaming ourselves – our inner critic. This part of us can be brutal and relentless, driving our protective
performances and keeping our stored pain hidden away. Until we stop running, distracting,
and numbing – we may not even recognize our inner critic exists. It’s by quieting
ourselves, turning inward, and deeply listening that we begin to hear and feel our
critic’s harshness.
When we learn to set boundaries with our inner critic, we
create breathing room and an internal sense of safety. Through the embrace of
self-compassion, self-forgiveness, and unconditional self-love, the terrified
little boy in us emerges. It is then that we feel the sadness and grief for all
that was lost. Anger may erupt, and tears wash down our face. Slowly, we reclaim
and unburden the precious parts of us forced into exile, and transform our
protective survival traits to their original healthy states.
Unfortunately, healing closet wounds isn’t fast or easy. But
doing the inner work of fully coming out to ourselves can bring a sense of
freedom, connection, and peace we may have never believed was possible.
A world without closets
A good friend of mine works in a local public school. He sometimes
shares with me how things can be different for gay boys today. Recently, he told
me how two young men, both on the football team, were outside his classroom,
playfully laughing and chatting between periods, looking confident, relaxed,
and happy. As the next class approached, they hugged and gave one another a
kiss. Walking away, one yelled down the hallway to the other, “I love you!” His
boyfriend yelled back, “I love you more!“
I genuinely hope we are moving towards a world where people don’t grow up in closets. But, until that day comes, we can empower ourselves, support each other, and seek professional help when needed to heal our closet wounds. In doing so, we can live in greater truth, and love more fully as gay men.
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Lou Bardach works as a therapeutic wellness coach. He additionally interns at Cypress Wellness Center, working toward LCSW licensure as a master’s in social work student at the University of Central Florida. He is also studying the Internal Family Systems psychotherapeutic model through the IFS Institute’s Online Circle program. Lou believes health and well-being are cultivated through self-care -- by learning to become one’s own compassionate caregiver. As a gay man experienced in working with LGBTQ+ adolescents and adults, Lou is particularly interested in helping others heal from the effects of homophobia, transphobia, and other types of social oppression (ProjectNoLabels.org). Contact him/them at Lou@cypresswellnesscenter.com
This article was originally published at https://www.cypresswellnesscenter.com/blog-1.
