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Woman with Mask
Jake was an outgoing, affable 50-year-old craftsman, married with grown kids and a solid career. Most in his social orbit liked him, and he seemed to feel the same about them.
And then one sparkling afternoon in May while his spouse ran errands, he chugged down some bourbon, turned on his car in the garage, closed his eyes and let the carbon monoxide do the rest. She returned to find his lifeless body with a note pinned to his shirt.
The first time I visited with his wife, she handed it to me. In a nutshell, it explained, in very rational terms, how Jake had kept hidden his authentic self, even from those he loved and who thought they knew him well.
It had taken a long time, he wrote, but eventually living a lie became untenable, while the idea of coming clean about his true nature felt unthinkable. The note was short on specifying exactly how his hidden “real self” differed from the public one but hinted at sexual orientation and an unspecified addiction.
“Why didn’t I see it coming?” his wife pondered.
“With folks like your husband, you can’t,” I explained.
Your False Self
Some people live a lie, deliberately showing the world a patently false version of themselves. Often, these persons learn early in life that their true self is not acceptable to significant others, such as family and friends. Gradually, concealment and pretense become their modus operandi.
Over time, the effort to avoid rejection by others morphs into self-rejection. To paraphrase what Jake wrote in his note: “I’m ashamed of who I am, and ashamed I didn’t have the courage to be who I am.”
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Those left behind by these types of folks often wonder what sort of game they had been playing with the deceased. It’s like having the foundation of your life pulled out from under your existential feet in one fell swoop. Everything you thought you knew about that person proves either false or open to question.
It’s hard to imagine that someone like Jake could be so opaque, particularly to those who felt close to him. His wife struggled mightily with how she had swallowed his deception “hook, line and sinker,” as she put it.
“I didn’t think I was that gullible,” she said.
“It’s my job to recognize what’s authentic in people,” I told her. “But I’ve had a couple of people like Jake sitting right where you are now, and I missed what was really happening with them.”
Fear of Rejction?
Most of us harbor a secret self of sorts. The disparity between the private me and the public one may be minimal or, as was true with Jake, extensive. When the latter proves true, the psychological risks escalate, sometimes resulting in suicide, be it sudden or in slow motion, or just chronic self-sabotage.
The fear of social rejection and shame are usually what keep a person in their closet, whatever version of themselves may reside there. Ironically, in an effort to avoid repudiation by others, these people suffer self-rejection instead, often creating an even greater degree of distress and shame than what they imagined would result from “coming out.”
Living other people’s version of who you should be rather than your own constitutes a personal tragedy. As author Shannon Adler stated, “One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others want you to be, rather than being yourself.”
It is a regret that can sometimes kill its host.
For more, visit philipchard.com.
