look at how oddly stick-uppy this guy's veins are
“How did I get here?” I wondered to myself, lying back on my psychotherapist’s couch and looking out the window at the clouds overhead. I’ve always thought of myself as a fairly cheerful, well-adjusted sort of person, but I’ve long been burdened with a nagging sense that there is something buried in my past still tripping me up and holding me back. With my memories piling up and my future ever shrinking, I decided 6 weeks ago it was time to look in the musty lumber room of my memory and clear out some old baggage. This is how I found myself in Kentish Town describing a dream involving board games, Japanese crafts and the disembodied head of Portuguese explorer Fernando Magellan to someone who looked disconcertingly like my mum.
What is this minger doing in my dream?
Yes, therapy can be odd, but initially, I enjoyed it. It’s an entire hour to go on about yourself, so what’s not to love? As the weeks unfold, however, I’ve discovered something that might seem glaringly obvious but has still shocked me. I’ve learnt that I still have a sense of shame and embarrassment about my gender and sexuality, and that this is deeply rooted in my early childhood. After years of living openly and happily as an out gay man, I find this more than a little annoying.
Looking back, my early years were relatively stable and my parents have always been kind, but I clearly remember discovering some uncomfortable truths very early (about aged 4 – yes, I have an amazing memory). Starting school, I learnt that
1: I was definitely very different from everyone else, and felt neither like any of the boys or girls I knew.
2: While I wasn’t clear exactly what this difference was, I knew it was shameful, awkward and, if possible, to be concealed.
Concealment wasn’t something I was very good at, however, and I spent many of my early years being nervous, shrill and defiantly anti-social. I cross-dressed whenever I could – I remember a memorable time when I did a one-man show to my class at aged seven playing Henry VIII’s 6 wives (Anne Boleyn’s headdress was a pair of rose print bloomers belonging to my grandmother). I also got into trouble constantly for being outspoken – many of my primary school memories involve standing with my hands on my head in the corner after being caught playfighting or telling people their lunches looked like sick (which they did).
Is any of this antique trivia really significant? I think it is (to me). By contrast, the vicious homophobia around during my late 80s/early 90s teenage years were a breeze. While there was plenty of hatred around, my 13-year-old self could see it came from people I despised and whose good opinion meant nothing to me.
Dead bears are currently ruling my life
That early sense of shame and awkwardness, however, has stayed with me (albeit buried deep), as a young child has no real defence or distance from the messages it receives. Even now, I find it difficult to accept praise – the voice in my head still says “ah, but I know what I’m really like” – and my relationship with myself isn’t as smooth as those I have with other people.
I don’t want to dwell on this – I have seen the dangers in other people. Sometimes I meet gays who have such an acute sense of victimhood that they look for offence in anything, convinced that every tiny detail of mainstream society is a dart trained to wound their already bruised sense of self. This seems to be continuing the hurt rather than turning it around. At the same time, I think it’s hugely important for many gays to realise that their frustrations with themselves often come from outside not within. So many of us think our bodies are ugly, that we have to fit in, sometimes even that we’re not worthy of protection from HIV infection. Turning society’s disapproval in on ourselves, we are often hyper-critical and intolerant of our own personalities. Many of us also project these feelings onto each other through judgment, cliquishness and disapproval – I’ve often come across the idea that there are a group of “bad gays” out there (drag queens/muscle boys/fat blokes/”straight-acting” gays – you name it) who are ruining it for the rest of us.
It’s useful to think about the roots of these varying degrees of self-hatred, to unpick how we arrived at them and start forgiving ourselves. Right now I’m starting to look back and see my younger self not as a bizarre, outspoken exhibitionist but as someone angry and confused, fighting back against narrow-minded ideas of what a boy should be that, deep down, I sensed were wrong. That, at least, is a start.
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