This blog tracks coming out to its end and ultimate value. Although coming out is synonymous with gay and queer communities it has value for everyone.
One of my gay colleagues remarked that me writing about it is, ‘a gratuitous act of cultural appropriation,’ though he was teasing, he has a point. Even so, in a different and literal sense we all came out long before having any idea about sexuality. I will come back to this shortly.
Much like writing and the practice of psychotherapy, coming out is like performing in a peep show: you have some control over what you reveal while having no say in what people see.
All three entail stepping out. My writing and psychotherapy are at their best when stepping out of myself. The final coming out is a stepping out of the closet of the self. This is what this blog is about.
Writing and psychotherapy are both unconscious autobiography, and so writing and reading what I have written offer an opportunity to realise or discover my own coming out. I think this is what is meant by ‘writing for yourself’: a coming out where you do not know who or what might come.
***
Our first coming out is one we have no memory of. When an infant first comes out it is immediately welcomed with hope, love, fear, expectation and the projections of family and the world; it is a mixture of these that will make up the child’s first closet.
Though the infant comes out into the world naked, bloody and screaming, it is the adults that provide the drama and emotionality. With help from its parents the small child will gradually learn how to live in a closet in order to fit in and survive.
***
Closet living is fundamentally conservative: it cannot afford to give itself away, whereas coming out, writing and psychotherapy are the desire to give yourself away.
It is the big and small slips, the unintended acts and utterances of daily life that give us away. They may be embarrassing in themselves, although a greater discomfort may come from the inadvertent disclosure of leading a double life.
Closet life is mindful living: having to be mindful with your words, thoughts and behaviour. Mindfulness is awareness adapted for the closet.
***
Coming out is both profoundly selfish and perhaps the greatest generosity. Though inextricably linked, we might wonder which of them is the greater relief: unrepressed selfishness or unrepressed generosity.
Life in a closet is unlikely to be fulfilling, although as C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia suggests the consolation for spending time in a closet can result in a rich imaginary and make-believe life.
***
Since coming out entails loss, one good indication of having finally given up the closet is when death becomes a way of life and no longer looms as the final coming out.
The ultimate value of coming out is not in what is left behind or now embraced, though these can be very significant, its ultimate value is in what appears to be between them, which, from another perspective, is not an in-between, it is more like running out of road.
***
Coming out can have great significance in a person’s life even though it generally means leaving one box to go into another, albeit bigger box.
It was only when I began coming out to myself as a Nietzschean psychotherapist that I realised I did not come out in the way I had thought. I imagined myself as a hermit crab.
Hermit crabs come out of their shell when they have out-grown it, they then go in search of a bigger one. However, when I came out I quickly realised it was not a bigger shell: it was not a shell at all.
As I heard myself say, ‘I’m a Nietzschean psychotherapist’ it dawned on me that I could not possibly say this unless I had already left Nietzsche behind. It is this that gives the statement its paradoxical value. A Nietzschean psychotherapist cannot follow Nietzsche.
This paradox only became clear with the speech act of saying it out loud in response to someone’s question. It would seem that the act of coming out can perhaps have an even greater significance when it reveals there is no more coming out.
Without a shell a hermit crab is extremely vulnerable to be being eaten. Besides the many differences between a hermit crab and a homeless psychotherapist, it struck me that just like a homeless hermit crab I too was ready to be eaten.
***
Holy Communion is a celebration of being eaten and of the delight in becoming God. It celebrates an awakened hunger in each of us for the nakedness of ceasing to be: of having no shell. It celebrates a return to the nakedness enjoyed before shame cast us out of The Garden of Eden.
When you become nourishing you cannot help but give yourself away, not as self-sacrifice, but rather an illegitimate selfishness born of a generosity so generous that it knows no salvation.
Not traditionally seen as a selfish man the story of Jesus is nonetheless a coming out story. If Jesus did eventually come out as God he inadvertently put himself into another, albeit bigger shell.
To say, ‘I am God’ is of course ridiculous, whereas, ‘I am becoming God’ is not. The former is an egotistic declaration and territorial claim to exclusive ownership, while the later embraces uncertainty and mystery and does not claim ownership, exclusive or otherwise.
By choosing to cast Jesus as God, the church created followers, believers and worshipers. If instead it could hear him saying, ‘I am becoming God,’ it might have inspired people to go their own way.
***
Theism and atheism are antagonistic to becoming God. Becoming God is beyond belief and disbelief. Since belief and disbelief are two sides of the same coin, becoming God is perhaps the best way to stop being a flipping coin.
Agnosticism is more conducive to becoming God. Agnostics are more inclined to admit they cannot know for sure if they exist, and they also question whether anyone else can.
***
Becoming God is the most innocent and least prejudiced existence possible, since God affirms life as it is.
Becoming God is to appreciate how you create the world and see that it is good.
***
Becoming God means no longer projecting God elsewhere, any projection of God is idolatry.
Becoming God has nothing to do with self-belief: it cannot happen if you believe in, or worship yourself.
***
Since there is no God-shaped shell becoming God is a sort of homelessness. When you no longer try to belong or find your place in the world you will likely feel more at home in yourself, and yet becoming truly at home is to leave yourself.
It is only when you see that you have no home that you realise you can never become homeless.
Becoming God means not knowing what you are becoming, after all no one (including God) knows the mind of God. A good indication of becoming God is when you know yourself well enough to realise you have no idea who you are, and that who you are is unimportant. Beyond this point there is no more coming out, besides, becoming God is self-evident and unremarkable.
All rights reserved © Copyright Glenn Nicholls 2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from the author of this post is strictly prohibited.
Nietzschean Psychotherapist 