This is something my therapist has talked about a lot. I’m not sure I’ve ever understood it. So, naturally, I must blog about it.
I feel like I’ve lived (and to some extent still live) my life with secrets. Most of the time after I came out to myself I was only out to myself, really – I mean, a conversation or two with a husband does not, apparently, a convincing case make… as I found out when I discovered how much talking it took to convince him of what I knew inside.
Also, one of the first therapists I saw, about a year or so into this process, listened to my whole story, told with some trepidation since, well, it was just a year in, and said she didn’t know if I was gay or not, and that this was only part of what I needed to explore. Never mind I had spent the previous hour coming out to her!!!!! I didn’t go back to that one.
So I wonder. My therapist has said many times that my life is my life and what I choose to do with my time, my life, my heart, is my private business. This contrasts rather sharply with the views I adopted from my upbringing, in which everything about my experiences, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and actions, should be visible in the light of divinity (or human authority) and completely exposed.
I haven’t lived the last few years in obedience to (any of) the rules of theology that I was raised with. Most especially I haven’t made any attempt to be open – about much of anything. I’ve often considered myself to be keeping secrets. And perhaps to some extent that fits. But if my therapist is right, mostly what I’m doing is claiming my own psychic space, my right to my own life, and my inner privacy.
Apparently, in this way of looking at my life, I get to decide what I share about myself and with whom, and under what circumstances. There is no god looking over my shoulder, and no human figures to whom I owe any sort of ultimate allegiance.
I guess it makes sense then. If there’s no divine police officer watching for the first sign of an infraction of the rules, then maybe I’m just living my life.
Perhaps it’s messier than I thought life would be. Perhaps it’s less well defined. Perhaps what counts runs deeper than what can be easily seen. And perhaps, just perhaps, I have a right to my privacy.
If that’s alright with everybody. Haha
Dr. Evil!!!








