During my years of hiding, I was a devout people pleaser. In fact, I strived to please people over my own wants, needs and desires. From what I can gather, many of us in the closet did/do the same. Though everyone’s story is unique, this blog entry will be some of my story and how I gave up myself to remain hidden.
My story begins fairly unique as an adopted kid. I have always known that I was adopted at birth and before I was in Kindergarten, I knew that my biological parents were teenagers who made a “mistake,” which until recently I had assumed was me. Adopted kids all handle their worlds differently, but for me, I started life with an incapacitating fear of rejection and abandonment. Back in the late 60s and early 70s, no one thought that kind of information would cause some serious damage in a child who could not yet cognitively process it. Derogatory language and certain events that happened early in my life set me up to take self-protection and hiding my sexuality to extremes that others may not have experienced (though, I suspect, that many of us go to extremes to hide regardless of our background).
Before I was in Kindergarten, my dad called me a faggot. I did not know what the word meant, but it was obvious that it was bad. My sister had dressed me up in her clothes and I evidently did not protest loud enough. In fact, as I look back on that event, we were just having fun, so the derogatory language did not really fit the situation. However, as a child who was in a very vulnerable cognitive and emotional stage of development, that experience was devastating for life. It remains one of my first very vivid memories. That and television news about the war in Vietnam.
Not long after that, I woke one morning to find my mother had left us. My adoptive father was an alcoholic with probably some mental illness in the mix. His abuse of her that evening had gotten physical, so out of fear she left. For an adoptive kid who had a fear of abandonment, my worst dream came true in Kindergarten. Mom eventually returned home, but later I learned that he had threatened to kill us all during their confrontation. Again, I was probably way too young for adults to be telling me this kind information, so I spent a good portion of my life wondering how a mother could abandon her children when someone was threatening to kill them. I do have a great deal of compassion for both of my adoptive parents and have worked through most of the issues. They had two children prior to adopting my sister and me. Their daughters both had a genetic disease that caused them to deteriorate until each passed away. Before adopting us, my parents basically watched their first two children slowly die over the course of a decade. That would mess me up too. Adult me can fully forgive and have compassion for them. I am just setting the stage for how I became a people pleasing doormat for Jesus.
Long before I was aware of my same sex attractions, I had learned to be a good little boy, to excel in every endeavor, and to avoid confrontation at all cost. I was seven or eight the first time I remember being hit and punished for something ridiculous. There was a new kid at school and I could only remember his first name. Something in that conversation infuriated my dad and he reached across the dinner table and slapped me hard. It was hard enough to knock me off my chair into the wall. The replay over the decades has seemed like a distorted Looney Tunes cartoon with me hitting the wall and slowly sliding down to the floor. The punishment did not end there and I was sent to bed without supper. Evidently, my presence was too vile at that moment for the family to enjoy supper. Later, my mother did bring me some food in my room, but she did not stand up for me when I needed it. They loved my sister and me, they were just not emotionally ready to have kids so soon after losing their own. Yes. I worded it that way because I did not feel like I belonged or even fit in.
To avoid conflict and out of self protection, I became proactive. I fulfilled everyone’s expectations. I started working for my dad to desperately earn his favor and later began delivering newspapers for money. The first time my dad paid me and that I felt he was proud of me was after I worked a ten hour day planting reed cane. He had left me, an older cousin, and one of his friends to finish planting. My cousin and his friend got in the tractor. While one drove, the other threw cane roots into the trenches, leaving me to come behind, make sure the bulb was upright and then fill in the trenches with a shovel. I was only nine, but I kept up with those high school boys that day. I earned a whopping $9.00, but I also was given use of a small patch of unplanted field for the rest of the summer; watermelons, pumpkins, and corn coming out the ears. I had finally done something that made my dad proud. I have worked hard most every day of my life since then without much play time, though now I am desperately seeing the value in slowing down to enjoy life. After my personal realization that I was gay and subsequent mirror confessions, my brain, which had never slowed down before, finally started to come into peace with the rest of me. I no longer had the need to stand guard and strategize how to protect my secret, which to me was a life or death matter up to that point.
People pleasing was not just a family value I had assumed. In junior high I dove head first into evangelicalism and the make-shift family it provided. My good little boy endeavors and super achievements served me well as I found a mostly comfortable church family to fit into in lieu of my adoptive family. To please people and fit in, I took on a life of extremes. And fitting in really was different than belonging. I learned early in my evangelical connection to defend the party line, to believe what I was told to believe, and to not waiver at any cost. The problem was that I had to bury myself in order to fit in rather than feeling accepted for who I was. At least, that was my perception. Those extremes and the fear of being rejected rendered me powerless to stand up for myself. The people pleasing trap had engulfed me. I was officially a doormat for Jesus.
As a worship leader, I hated conflict and often found myself a puppet in other people’s interpersonal struggles. A “friend” (emotional attachment number 2 from my previous post), had encouraged me to record a worship album. Though I had paid for most of the studio time, as we neared the end of the project (which was not well-thought-out), he was going to pay for mixing, mastering and duplication. I had been deferring to everyone else during the process, even though I was not happy and so stressed out that I was regularly vomiting. During this time, that guy decided to start a new church…in my house without telling me (I was still a full-time worship pastor at another church) and the subsequent consequences that befell me were devastating because I could not say “No.” Anyway, the recordings for the worship album were done to create the effect of “live” worship within a studio setting. That probably doesn’t sound bad, but even when I said “no” during the process, no one took me seriously. Standing up for myself was almost impossible and I felt completely powerless. I had been pleasing other people for so long, it seemed that no one took my needs and wants seriously. If my disagreement was heard, it turned into uncomfortable confrontation with my supposed friend. At that time, the only thing I knew to do was to acquiesce and retreat into myself to keep what I thought was peace. To stand up for myself was a risk that I just was not ready to take. It could mean confrontation, exposure, rejection, and abandonment. At least, that is what I thought and felt. It was easier to just be a doormat for Jesus.
The recording included in this post is an intimate worship song that again reflects the desperation of trying to suppress my sexuality, my resignation to celibacy, and the need for extremely close intimacy with God. The problem was that when we were recording, the violinist had “magically” recorded two noodle tracks that harmonized with each other at times. Though I worked with the sound engineer to identify the best of each of the tracks and have them accent the song, I was overridden. I keep this track on my computer as a reminder of what can happen when I do not stand up for myself. It almost felt like I was the Mr. Cellophane song from the musical Chicago. The intimate message of a very intimate worship song gets lost in this sea of violin (she was awesome, it was my friend who buried me because he thought it was “cool” how she harmonized with herself). The recording is an example of just one of the consequences of letting myself be a doormat and not fighting for me. I lay my heart open in the lyric and let myself be slightly vulnerable. The prominence of chaotic violin noodles in the mix then leaves a layer of cellophane over my voice that somehow recklessly distorts my truth in the song, at least that is what it feels like to me.
From what I have read, for many of us who are deep in the closet, people pleasing in order to avoid conflict and keep any form of spotlight from illuminating our lives is a common behavior (definitely not healthy). Though people pleasing may keep everyone at bay for awhile, it really is not sustainable (though it was my M.O. for decades). By the time I came out to my wife, people pleasing had morphed into a whole lot of other issues including numbing, dishonesty, emotional disconnection and many others. The psychological numbing had even began to affect my physical body. I could hide behind the religious pretense of putting others before myself, but the truth was that I loathed the fraudulent me. My religiosity was actually more about hiding my truth than it was genuinely about caring for others needs, wants and desires.
As you listen, you have to dive below the busy violins to hear the actual song. It is somewhat metaphorically like our lives. Often we have to go below the surface to find what is true. Recently I took three photos of a redwood stand on my morning walk. Each was from a vastly different perspective. Though each photo gave some very specific information, a thousand photos would not give all of the information about that stand of trees. Have self-compassion. Take a few steps back to get some perspective. Breathe. God loves the true you. God accepts the true you. Being kind and being a doormat no longer have to co-exist. You are just as important as anyone else. Self-compassion and self-love are key components to fully embracing God’s unconditional love for you.