Be kind. Stop the oppressive cycle of internalized gay shame.

Essy Knopf gay men masking shame with contempt
Reading time: 6 minutes

My lack of body coordination has always been a painful fact, evoking a gay shame that stems from my school years. 

Raised in the stoic, sports-oriented culture of Australia, I often felt that my value as a male – at least in the eyes of my peers – was ultimately tied to my athletic prowess and sexuality.

It was not until my diagnosis with Asperger syndrome (autism) at age 26 that I found myself able to shrug off the feelings of masculine “inferiority” that had dogged me for so long.

Where previously I’d treated sports as a high-risk arena for failure, I now decided to turn this arena into a sandpit of experimentation.

After dabbling in cycling ended with me lodged in a stranger’s windshield, I turned to kickboxing instead.

While waiting for classes to begin, I’d watch the invite-only advanced members amble out of the ring, self-assured in a way I could never hope to be. 

Coveting the brass ring corroded my enthusiasm. All it took was one badly aimed kick landing in a stranger’s family jewels for me to decide to pack it in.

Judgment and toxic masculinity

My next stop was an LGBTQ+ recreational dodgeball league. Despite being a lousy aim and an easy mark, I was determined to commit to at least one season of play.

My team members proved for the most part friendly. Longtime players seemed unsparing in their support of newcomers, doling out praise and tips. 

But what had begun as something casual very quickly into an exercise in extreme competitiveness, as gay judgmentalism – normally grounded in the assessment of other’s physicality – now found focus in player’s on-court capabilities.

It was present in how some league members ignored friendly overtures, in the way cliques closed ranks upon approach.

I witnessed team captains actively scouting games and handpicking members, choosing some while excluding others. Never mind that this was a recreational league.

Worse still, players would yell at one another for failing to catch balls. While dodging one ball, I found myself on the receiving end of a rude shove from another team member.

Then there were the players who strutted about with an air of superiority, engaging in dizzying displays of skill and berating first-time players for not knowing the rules. 

The behavior grew more ugly from there. Some players flagrantly defied the rules while the coaches weren’t watching, refusing to take their “outs” as if it were a matter of survival.

This inevitably led to verbal clashes, taunting, and the exchange of obscenities. Par for the course with any competitive sport – and yet an LGBTQ+ league was the last place I’d ever hoped to endure toxic masculinity.

Some people, it seemed, were replaying far older battles, where the stakes weren’t so much team ranking, as they were self-worth

essy knopf gay shame self compassion

A secret legacy of gay shame

In any LGBTQ+ sports league, there’s always an argument to be made for the commonality of our struggles.

As many of us have endured exclusion and bullying over our sexuality in the past, this is probably the last thing any of us would want to inflict upon others. So why does it continue to happen?

Society historically has regarded gay men with contempt, constructing our sexuality as either a despicable choice, a weakness of character, or a moral flaw.

Our way of coping with this atmosphere of psychological, social, and even physical danger according to The Velvet Rage author Alan Downs is by adapting, chameleon-like, to our surroundings.

We conceal visible expressions of our gay identity, such as our interest in members of the same sex. And we suppress expressions of traditionally “feminine” traits, such as emotional vulnerability, while muting our authentic selves.

In short, we make ourselves more acceptable to others, at the expense of our own wholeness. And in so doing, we internalize others’ judgment.

Being told our “perversity” is a choice, and believing this not to be the case, we are faced with an internal dispute. We find ourselves harboring what feels like a terrible secret. Other’s contempt thus becomes our shame.

As young adults emerging from the repressive social environments of our childhood, we may leap headlong into expressions and declarations of self-acceptance; “wrapping ourselves in the gay flag”, as it were.

Such expressions and declarations however represent a destination that can only be reached after a certain internal journey requiring some degree of excavation, examination, and healing.

As Brené Brown explains in The Gifts of Imperfection, “Shame needs three things to grow out of control in our lives: secrecy, silence, and judgment. When something shaming happens and we keep it locked up, it festers and grows. It consumes us”.

Gay shame, when left unaddressed, may even find expression, contrarily, in the form of more contempt.

essy knopf gay shape self-compassion

Calling out shame

The behavior I witnessed – the exclusion, the general disrespect towards others, and the desire to win at all costs – meant that old traumas were being exhumed.

It also meant that players who had once themselves been oppressed were now unwittingly assuming the role of the oppressor, perpetuating a cycle of gay shame.

It’s possible in saying this, I may be projecting my own internalized gay shame. As someone who was usually the last to be picked for any school team, I’ve grown especially sensitive to situations that drive home old beliefs in my being deficient in “masculinity”.

But even if I wasn’t merely indulging my insecurities, I was certainly within my rights to be hurt by how I was treated, and how I saw others being treated.

This left me with two choices: either remain in the league and try to ignore the toxicity or quit a potentially shame-triggering situation. 

Then again, quitting hardly guaranteed complete freedom from the contempt of other gay men.

Self-compassion heals gay shame

When faced with feelings of shame, inadequacy, and inferiority, we adopt one of three tactics: we don the armor of grandiosity as compensation, we crumple, or we employ self-compassion.

To quote eighth century Indian Buddhist monk Shantideva:

Where would there be leather enough to cover the entire world? With just the leather of my sandals, it is as if the whole world were covered. Likewise, I am unable to restrain external phenomena, but I shall restrain my own mind. What need is there to restrain anything else?

Thus, rather than attempting to soften all the world’s painful surfaces, we would be better served by accepting the sensitivity of our figurative feet and finding more practical ways of protecting them.

We do this firstly through self-compassionate inquiry. In the words of Buddhist Pema Chödrön, if we are to attain a new, more empowering view of our suffering, we must embark upon “a process of acknowledging our aversions and our cravings”,

(becoming) familiar with the strategies and beliefs we use to build the walls: What are the stories I tell myself? What repels me and what attracts me? … We can observe ourselves with humor, not getting overly serious, moralistic, or uptight about this investigation.

Having put a name to what I was feeling in the dodgeball league, I was now able to pay attention to the script it was activating and to query its accuracy. 

Hardening into anger, or adopting rigid convictions about other people would not serve me. What then was the alternative?

By abandoning my fixed conception of reality, of right and wrong, by leaning into the discomfort, I could learn to be truly present with my own feelings about the situation.

Being present enabled me in turn to self-soothe, an action Self-Compassion author Kristin Neff says is crucial to the process of healing.

The peace of mind ultimately arrived at was a natural outgrowth of such self-compassion. In my case, that transition was facilitated with the guidance and insights of a therapist.

essy knopf inner critic victor frankl

Using kindness and humor to defeat shame

Pema Chödrön’s suggestion of employing humor when investigating your own patterns of thinking can be particularly helpful, at least where shame is concerned. 

Humor can help dissolve armor and deflate puffed-up defenses. But humor is only possible once we learn to recognize our cognitive and behavioral scripts as they are being activated.

Confronted by subtle and oftentimes not-so-subtle expressions of contempt from other dodgeball players, my instinct was either flee or fight.

On one hand, they could be viewed as reasonable coping strategies. But on the other, they offered no true grounding against these perceived threats. What was required here was the development of resiliency: the ability to tolerate, rather than avoid, adversity.

So I began to actively laugh off my own mistakes, gently poking fun at other’s egotism or aggression, while striving to show others the generosity of spirit I’d witnessed in the more seasoned players.

In cultivating inward and outward kindness, I found myself forging friendships with other players that served as a bulwark against the toxicity surrounding us.

When I eventually decided to quit the league six months later, it was motivated not by anger or hurt over the conduct of others, but by an on-court injury.

This accident aside, looking back, I realized my decision to remain in the league was a kind of victory. No – I hadn’t mastered the game. And no – the demons of childhood past remained.

Rather, what I had achieved was the greatest freedom that a person can desire. Namely, the freedom of learning to let go.

Takeaways

  • Identify “shame scripts”.
  • Practice self-compassion.
  • Use kindness and humor.

Why grieving the heteronormative life gay men were promised is okay

Essy Knopf gay men
Reading time: 7 minutes

You would think that as gay men, we shouldn’t be bound by the same life goals as our straight counterparts. 

Yet as much as we try to shuck off the expectations inherited from heterosexual living, many of us still continue to be burdened by them.

I remember as a child studying the greeting card stands at newsagents, noticing how certain birthday ages seemed to be assigned greater importance. 

“Thirty” was one of them: a perfectly rounded number signifying the transition to competent maturity. An expectational cut-off point for all the usual milestones.

Until my teen years, I harbored ideas about the life I would live. They weren’t necessarily my own, but rather the ones all boys were prescribed: a wife, kids, and a house in the suburbs. 

All of this, I somehow believed, I’d attain by the age of 30. But as my interest in other boys grew, I was eventually forced to surrender these signifiers of adulthood for the wicket picket fence dream they were. 

Thirty is, when you think about it, an arbitrary number. Life expectancies in the West have steadily risen. We live for much longer now, and our lifestyles have shifted to accommodate this. 

Couples are having families later, and a growing gap between income and real estate prices has rendered homeownership impossible for many.

Yet when my third decade rolled around, I couldn’t help but feel like something was missing. Not only had I clung to those old expectations – I also secretly believed my worth as a person depended upon their attainment.

I found myself scrutinizing the zigzagging missteps of my life, criticizing each and every false move. Maybe if I had stayed in one city and planted my roots somewhere, I’d have a wider, stronger circle of friends; possibly even a partner. 

Maybe if I hadn’t devoted most of my income to creative projects, I’d now have something approaching financial security. Maybe if I had kept my aspirations humble, I might have something more tangible than life experiences to show for it all. But to show whom, exactly?

I had lived what Passages author Gail Sheehy called the “wunderkind” life pattern, caught up in chasing risks and victories. I had deceived myself into thinking achievement would blot out insecurity, to discover that the victories I did achieve were ultimately empty. 

To quote one of the men interviewed by Sheehy: “I’m near the top of the mountain that I saw as a young man, and it’s not snow. It’s mostly salt”.

Gay men and the failure of dreams

What troubled me most was an unarticulated belief that in spurning the dependable comforts of home and family, I had failed and was now declining into a life of gay spinsterhood. 

I convinced myself that the connection and happiness I was seeking would forever remain out of reach. Everything I told myself to the contrary was just whistling in the dark. How’s that for a catastrophic spiral?

Life after 30 for some gay men is riddled with uncertainty. Society promised us one thing – then biology pulled the rug out.

Logging onto Facebook today, I see people I’ve grown up with buying homes, marrying, and having children. While they were hitting their life goals, I was like a wheel, spinning in the mud.

Resist comparative thinking

Comparative thinking is especially destructive where it comes to gay men. It does not acknowledge the fact that straight people have thousands of years of social tradition working in their favor. The modern gay community, on the other hand, is without precedent.

Worse still, in the spiritual teachings handed down to us, homosexual people are typically cast as undesirables living in the margins. There is little to no guidance offered to gay men committed to living an authentic, value-led existence.

Comparative thinking also fails to account for heterosexual privilege. Straight people by virtue of their sexuality don’t experience the specific kind of trauma, marginalization, and disadvantage we do. 

And let’s not forget the fact that many gay men in the West could not, at least until relatively recently, get married. No surprise then that we should struggle to achieve these life goals at a speed comparable to that of heterosexual men.

The journey faced by all gay men

Still, as we grow older, missing familiar life milestones along the way, some of us may find ourselves asking: “So that’s it?” 

We may flee our shame, grief, and dread, into the wilderness of material and sensual distraction.

For some gay men, however, these feelings are an opportunity to address the desires we once held for ourselves and begin the process of rewriting them.

In facing our supposed failings, we find we have no choice but to remove the yoke of social expectation. Those of us who make the journey through this valley of symbolic death will face the assailing winds of pain and doubt. 

But if we push on, we will most certainly emerge anointed with a newfound sense of personhood. For it is in the struggle that we learn to articulate our personal definition of a “life well-lived”. 

This journey does not simply involve grieving the things that could have or “should have” been: the children to whom we might have left our legacy, the symbolic safety that a life partner or a home offers. It also involves grieving the life that simply “is”.

For a long time, I pretended I was fine, that growing up as a gay man with a disability, suffering exclusion, bullying, the slow implosion of my family and the figurative loss of my parents had not affected me.

Attempting to escape the resulting depression and anxiety, I connected my sense of worthiness to striving and constant forward action. By setting milestones of my own making when those prescribed to me were no longer possible, I found purpose through achievement. 

But to value one’s self conditionally is to live conditionally. And living conditionally is a life defined by fear, not fulfillment. 

According to The Velvet Rage author Alan Downs, fleeing from pain into grandiosity is an almost universal behavior among gay men. Entering my 30s proved the tipping point in this regard. It was also an invitation to change. 

Entering the ‘neutral zone’

What I lamented when I turned 30 was the fact I had not fulfilled socially prescribed rites of passage. 

Rites of passage help mark the onset of new stages of life or social roles. Dutch anthropologist Arnold van Gennep defines each rite as having three stages:

  • Separation of the individual/group from the larger collective.
  • Transition from the old ways of existence to the new.
  • Incorporation of the individual/group back into the collective.

Gennep noted that during the transition phase, those making the journey will find themselves caught in a neutral zone, where they would remain until the change has been internalized. 

Transitions author William Bridge argues that completion of the middle step means letting go of “something that you have believed or assumed, some way you’ve always been or seen yourself, some outlook on the world or attitude toward others”. 

This requires passage through five states:

  • Disengagement from “the old cue system that served to reinforce our roles and to pattern our behavior”
  • Dismantling of old habits and behaviors
  • Disidentification from old ways of being
  • Disenchantment: realizing you do indeed want to change
  • Disorientation: enduring the confusion and emptiness that follows your choice to let go

According to Bridge, a successful passage is thus marked by a willingness to let go, to experience the resulting crisis, and to embrace self-examination. 

essy knopf gay men heteronormative life goals

Seeking alone time

The middle step for me involved disengaging from systems that perpetuated my sense of having failed. Specifically, I applied “voluntary simplicity” to my social media usage, reducing and sometimes cutting it off altogether. 

Why? You may have heard of the phrase conspicuous consumption: the purchase of luxury goods as a display of economic power. Social media I believe facilitates what I’ll call “conspicuous identification”: promoting images of an ideal self in a bid to capture social capital.

By disabling my Facebook feed with a browser plugin and deleting social media apps from my phone, I dismantled my habit of mindless scrolling, putting an end to what David Brooks calls the “hypercompetitive struggle for attention, for victories in the currency of ‘likes’”. 

No longer did I need to compare myself to others, to analyze where I had supposedly fallen short.

By negotiating with my employer to switch from full-time to part-time work, I was able to disidentify from the rat race and my sense of self as an achievement.

In cocooning myself in therapy and self-help books, I gained better insight into the disenchantment I was feeling. I formed a daily meditation practice to help find meaning in the midst of my disorientation, placing me on the path of self-realization.

While dwelling in the neutral zone, I cultivated self-compassion and started deliberately setting aside time for things as simple as relaxing. I suddenly found I had the time and energy to work my way through aspirational to-do lists, lists that I long since consigned to the dust heap. 

This allowed me to embrace those beliefs that were of most value to me while discarding those that had only kept me shackled to unhappiness.

Coming of age as gay men

Coming of age for many gay men means learning to surrender the baubles of distraction and to grieve old hopes. 

In learning to let go of what we may have long clung to, we escape an existence governed by impossible dichotomies like success/failure, worthy/unworthy, good/bad, and come into an inheritance of vast inner wealth. 

Without the struggle, there are no spoils. So it was, that in finally confronting the source of my inner torment, I understood that while my life had not “gone to plan”, my experiences had endowed me with compassion and empathy.

This realization inspired a career change, a shift towards a life of service, and the decision to launch this blog

Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson argues that from our 20s onwards, we are caught between two opposing forces: intimacy and isolation. Once we have established a firm sense of identity and a desire to share our lives with others, a choice that may not come until our 40s, the struggle after this period becomes one between stagnation and generativity. 

If we choose generativity, we achieve new levels of creativity and productivity in the service of others. We discover a life path oriented toward prosocial behavior and altruism. 

It is only now, years after crossing the gulf of what I then saw as a major crisis, that I recognize the true value of the life I now live. And all things considered, I’m doing pretty darn well. 

For those of you committed to making this transition, as countless others have done before you, I offer this assurance: you’ll probably think so too. 

Takeaways

  • Recognize how you might experience disengagement, dismantling, disidentification, disenchantment and disorientation during this transition.
  • Find wholesome ways of easing your passage through the neutral zone.
  • Imagine what generativity might look like for you.

10 must-read books for gay men seeking growth, healing, and an escape from the struggle mindset

growth and healing Essy Knopf
Reading time: 8 minutes

The coronavirus lockdowns gave us time aplenty to stew and fret. Some of us however took it that time to play “life catch up” or even to undertake personal growth and healing.

As a gay man, I know that it’s precisely when life begins to slow down that I find both the time and the mental bandwidth to seek out the personal insights necessary to said growth.

At the time, I proposed the following reading list to help jumpstart the journey for anyone walking a similar path.

While the worst of the pandemic is largely behind us, the lifelong quest for self-knowledge continues. The following 10 self-help books I consider mandatory reading for this quest. Here’s why.

Essy Knopf growth and healing The Velvet Rage

Understanding the gay struggle – the first step towards growth and healing

“Something about growing up gay forced us to learn how to hide ugly realities behind a finely crafted façade. Why is this so? We hid because we learned that hiding is a means to survival.”
– Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage

Even as an out and proud gay man, I felt like I was still living a life of subterfuge. Only now it wasn’t my sexuality that I was hiding but my vulnerability

My dating experiences revealed I wasn’t the only one struggling with an entrenched sense of self-loathing and shame. More than a few of us had been left emotionally crippled by our experiences.

Not only were we incapable of building robust relationships—we were also prone to seeking relief through substance and process (behavior) addictions.

The Velvet Rage argues however that there is cause for hope. Author Alan Downs charts the journey gay men must take from self-loathing to self-acceptance before concluding with a raft of invaluable suggestions for how we can live happier and healthier lives.

growth and healing Daring Greatly Essy Knopf

Transforming your life through vulnerability

“Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our only choice is a question of engagement. Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose.”
Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

When I came out as gay, I was searching for connection and a sense of belonging. I was, in a way, looking for a replacement family for the one from which I had become alienated.

Initially, I looked for it at gay venues, like bars and clubs. I quickly learned that it was sex, not vulnerability, that many of the men I met were looking for.

These individuals might claim to have achieved self-acceptance, and yet their aversion to vulnerability was so total, the denial of shame so complete, that our relationships remained mired in superficiality.

Any invitation to be emotionally authentic was met with bewilderment, resistance, and even scorn. To those I encountered, being vulnerable was at best weak, at worst dangerous.

Daring Greatly author Brené Brown argues that this need not be our fate. “Shame,” she writes, “derives its power from being unspeakable. Shame keeps us small, resentful, and afraid”.

Her solution? Recognize it for what it is, understand its triggers, strive for critical awareness, and be willing to reach out to others and speak out about our shared experience of shame.

You can watch Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability here.

growth and healing The Body Keeps the Score Essy Knopf

Recognizing the influence of trauma

“Traumatized people are terrified to feel deeply. They are afraid to experience their emotions, because emotions lead to loss of control… Being traumatized is not just an issue of being stuck in the past; it is just as much a problem of not being fully alive in the present.”
– Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score

I was 12 when my family began to fall apart. My older brother’s daily battles with my parents, his drug use, and random acts of violence, lying, and thievery reduced our household to a warzone.

My parents eventually buckled under the strain of it all, withdrawing emotionally and giving my brother free rein to bully me. 

The experience left me stricken with an unrelenting sense of loneliness and worthlessness.

Trauma was a word I exclusively associated with veterans or victims of extreme abuse. But as I came to later learn, trauma can be entirely passive, like emotional neglect.

Trauma for gay children is an all too common experience. We face it when we are rejected, assaulted and even cast out for our sexuality.

Bessel van der Kolk’s comprehensive The Body Keeps the Score is a deep dive into the manifestations and mechanics of trauma.

Readers will come away from it with new insights not only into their own experiences with trauma but possible treatments as well.

growth and healing Learned optimism Essy Knopf

Adopting optimistic thinking

“An optimistic explanatory style stops helplessness, whereas a pessimistic explanatory style spreads helplessness. Your way of explaining events to yourself determines how helpless you can become, or how energized, when you encounter the everyday setbacks as well as momentous defeats.”
– Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism

While my family was disintegrating, I was also being bullied at school due to a then-undiagnosed disability, Asperger syndrome.

My resulting depression and anxiety led to what Learned Optimism author Martin Seligman calls a “pessimistic explanatory style”. 

In moments of difficulty, I would resort to self-blame, telling myself I was unlovable and entirely deserving of my misfortune. These explanations came at a great cost to my mental wellbeing.

Learned Optimism argues that we can correct this chain of thinking by identifying the adversity we’ve experienced, the existing beliefs they trigger, and their consequences. By disputing these beliefs, we can alter the impact they have on us.

You can discover your own explanatory style with the help of this quiz devised by Seligman.

growth and healing Self-Compassion Essy Knopf

Being kinder to yourself

“Self-compassion provides an island of calm, a refuge from the stormy seas of endless positive and negative self-judgment so that we can finally stop asking, ‘Am I as good as they are? Am I good enough?’”
– Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion

Previously I’ve discussed the burden of “grandiosity”, a defense used by gay men against feelings of inferiority or covert depression.

The one thing I’ve found key to my recovery as a workaholic perfectionist is the very thing I’ve denied myself: self-compassion.

When our attachment as children to our primary caregivers is disrupted (more on this below), we fail to develop critical self-soothing skills.

This may cause us to neglect our own needs during times of stress or suffering. We may even seek distraction in grandiose or self-destructive behaviors, like addiction.

Self-Compassion author Kristin Neff offers a third alternative: practicing self-soothing through mindfulness, being aware of our emotional states, and responding appropriately to them with words and acts of compassion.

growth and healing Mindset Essy Knopf

Adopting a ‘growth’ mindset

“Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over… Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser?”
– Carol S. Dweck, Mindset

Those fixed in their thinking, like grandiose gay men, are stricken by a fear of failure and imperfection. 

As such, they seek success in the place of growth, superiority rather than self-acceptance.

But, as in the words of Mindset author Carol S. Dweck: “If you’re somebody when you’re successful, what are you when you’re unsuccessful?” The fall from such heights can be devastating. 

The opposite of a fixed mindset is the growth mindset, which calls for us to suspend constant judgment of ourselves and others. A growth mindset makes us more likely to seek out personal change and development.

The good news is we don’t have to be born with a growth mindset to enjoy the benefits. We learn to adopt one through practice.

growth and healing Boundaries Essy Knopf

Setting clear boundaries

“Setting boundaries inevitably involves taking responsibility for your choices. You are the one who makes them. You are the one who must live with their consequences.”
– Henry Cloud and John Townsend, Boundaries

Boundaries are crucial for all gay men because our right to choose how we live is one that often comes under the scrutiny and judgment of others, especially our own families.

As a gay man who enjoys a close relationship with my mother, I can safely say that it was one arrived at through continual negotiation, and a willingness to defend my personal boundaries. 

My transition to independent adulthood was predictably rough. My mother, for reasons that were perfectly logical to her at the time, would insist on trying to control or judge aspects of my life even after I left home. 

My decision to get a mini-mohawk, for example, would result in the silent treatment. Piercing my ears resulted in her nagging for me to “take them out”.

In moments of weakness, I would kowtow to her will, at the cost of mutual respect.

Renegotiating boundaries with our parents can be a particularly thorny process, yet it is critical to the longevity of your relationship as well as those that follow.

While the non-religious may struggle with Boundaries’ numerous Biblical references, Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s classic remains a vital guide to establishing better relations with our loved ones.

growth and healing Attached Essy Knopf

Understanding your relationship needs better 

“People have very different capacities for intimacy. And when one person’s need for closeness is met with another person’s need for independence and distance, a lot of unhappiness ensues.”  
– Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, Attached

Dating for me has historically been an uneven game of push-pull; a mismatch of varying needs and expectations.

It was only when a friend introduced to me the concept of attachment styles that the cause was at last brought into focus.

Our relationships with our primary caregivers from our childhood onward serve as a template for how secure we feel in the world. It also forms the basis for how we “attach” to others. 

Attachment falls into three categories: secure, anxious, or avoidant. Anxious people seek closeness and affirmation, avoidants seek distance and independence. 

Secures typically have no difficulty bonding with either type and thus serve as an ideal partner for anxious and avoidants.

While this all sounds rather formulaic, being able to recognize your own needs as well as that of your romantic partner is a guaranteed way to save both of you a lot of difficulty—and heartache—down the road.

Those interested in identifying their’s or other’s attachment styles can try this brief quiz by authors Amir Levine and Rachel Heller.

growth and healing Full Catastrophe Living Essy Knopf

Learning to meditate

“Mindfulness is moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness. It is cultivated by purposefully paying attention to things we ordinarily never give a moment’s thought to. It is a systematic approach to developing new kinds of agency, control, and wisdom in our lives, based on our inner capacity for paying attention and on the awareness, insight, and compassion that naturally arise from paying attention in specific ways.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living

In Full Catastrophe Living, author Jon Kabat-Zinn explains that while stress may be an unavoidable feature of life, how to deal with it or not deal with it is ultimately our choice.

For example, the trauma I experienced growing up was hardcoded into the behavioral circuitry of my brain. I found that later conflicts would invariably trigger them.

The resulting fight-or-flight response was often destructive to my relationships.

It was possible however to reprogram my brain to judge and react to every stimulus. This is the essence of self-awareness.

By practicing exercises like diaphragmatic breathing and meditation, we can learn to be present with our experience. Through mindfulness, we can learn to be aware of our feelings, rather than controlled by them.

Improving emotional intelligence

“People with well-developed emotional skills are also more likely to be content and effective in their lives, mastering the habits of mind that foster their own productivity; people who cannot marshal some control over their emotional life fight inner battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear thought.”
– Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence

The skills described above – self-awareness (knowing one’s own emotions) and self-compassion (managing those emotions), as well as self-motivation, empathy, and relationship management – are all critical to what Daniel Goleman calls “emotional intelligence”.

Emotional intelligence is a meta-ability that governs how successful we are in all aspects of our lives, from relationships to our wellbeing, to personal effectiveness and productivity.

My discovery of Daniel Goleman’s seminal work served in this sense as a catalyst for confronting my own trauma and seeking a fresh perspective on my struggles.

I accomplished this with the help of therapy, reading self-help and psychology books, opening up dialogues with others, and yes, undertaking meditation.

While some sections and theoretical discussions may not be relevant to all readers, Emotional Intelligence is an essential read for all gay men on the path of self-improvement.

Why gay men suffer from internalized homophobia

Essy Knopf internalized homophobia
Reading time: 7 minutes

Even today, gay boys and men grow up facing the dual challenge of cultural homophobia and its byproduct: internalized homophobia.

The chance they will suffer from the latter is magnified when that homophobia plays out in the family home.

When I was 14, I remember a relative telling me that HIV/AIDS was the result of “gay men having sex with monkeys”. Say what?

“Oh, but it’s true,” the relative insisted. “Scientists have proven it.”

Today, such a claim could be easily disproved with a quick Google search. And while confusing being gay with bestiality might have been laughable, the statement had carried a hateful subtext. 

What this relative was really saying was that gay men were despicable sexual deviants.

That same message was conveyed in countless other situations. Once while visiting a friend of my father’s, I was forced to listen to him rant about a male flight attendant he’d noticed wearing makeup.

“He’s just a f****t,” the friend said, as if this explained everything. “I found it nauseating”.

These comments left me burning with anger. Any passionate defense I mustered would, of course, have outed me, and meant enduring the disdain not only of this homophobe but my father as well.

In high school, a girl I had considered a friend complained to the entire class about seeing a news segment about the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade.

“Why do gay people have to shove it in our faces?” she said. “It’s disgusting.” Never mind the fact she herself had chosen to watch the segment.

Our teacher had simpered in agreement. Then—in a tone that was meant to convey tolerance—he stated that while he personally had no problem with gay people, he believed they should “keep their sexuality to themselves”.

Which is precisely what I did. With these kinds of comments being thrown about, there was zero chance I would be telling anyone about my sexuality any time soon.

It is no surprise then, that in this kind of hostile climate that we as gay men feel compelled to live lives of subterfuge.

The source of internalized homophobia

The same year I was told gay people should “keep their sexuality to themselves”, I undertook a job bagging groceries at a local chain store.

The store was occasionally visited by a rail-thin man wearing a goatee and garish gold jewelry, who had a tendency to mix and match his clothes: a tie-dyed shirt with cow-print pajama pants, a bucket cap with mandals.

I guessed by his mincing movements that he must be gay, a fact that left me puzzled. Every gay boy and man knew that flamboyant behavior invariably drew negative attention. Was this fellow trying to paint a target on his own back?

It is only with hindsight now that I realize this stranger’s campness was not necessarily an act of showy defiance but self-acceptance. The problem wasn’t his embrace of femininity, but the fact that I was uncomfortable with it.

Femininity, after all, was a quality I had long learned to disguise as a matter of survival.

Yet in accepting that my safety depended upon my ability to conform and “pass” as someone straight, I had unwittingly internalized homophobia.

The low down on gay men and femininity

Gay men face marginalization and persecution often because we tend to behave in non-heteronormative ways, which in turn enable others to identify our sexuality and use it as a basis for exclusion.

Gay men are typically portrayed in the media as being more feminine and are commonly labeled “sissies” and “pansies”.

But is there any truth to the claim that men are more feminine than their heterosexual counterparts? 

In Gay, Straight and the Reason Why, author Simon LeVay reveals that gay people do indeed tend to be “gender-atypical” when it comes to certain “gendered” traits. 

What traits exactly are gendered? According to LeVay:

In the area of personality, men rank higher than women on measures of assertiveness, competitiveness, aggressiveness, and independence… Women rank higher than men on measures of expressiveness, sociability, empathy, openness to feelings, altruism, and neuroticism… Men prefer thing-oriented activities and occupations (e.g. carpenter), whereas women prefer people-oriented activities and occupations (e.g. social worker). Women have better-developed aesthetic interests and less-developed technological interests than men.

As a group, gay men tend for example to score higher than straight men on tests measuring empathy, aesthetic interests, and verbal fluency.

Studies have revealed gay men are less physically aggressive. They are also gender-shifted towards instrumentality, expressiveness, and people-oriented occupations. (Note here the use of “shift”, as opposed to “inverted”; that is, gay men as a group do not completely adopt typically feminine traits.)

According to an analysis of a survey conducted by the BBC in 2005, gay UK-based respondents on average perceived themselves to be more feminine. This finding is backed by a number of other studies.

The pressure to be masculine

In my earlier article on embracing our authentic gay identities, I shared author Terrence Real‘s claim that from boyhood males are expected to reach for the brass ring of masculinity.

This masculinity involves a form of self-reliance that asks us to cut ourselves off from our emotional selves, our mothers*, and the support of our communities. 

Socialization teaches us to view emotional expressivity and vulnerability as feminine traits that must be avoided at all costs.

The prevailing definition of masculinity, of what it means to be a “successful man”, is one of self-reliance.  

This self-reliance and independence are further promoted by widely adopted social beliefs such as rugged individualism: i.e. “I don’t need anyone’s help, I can do this all on my own”, or the practice of stoicism, which advocates keeping a “stiff upper lip” in the face of hardship. 

Self-reliant masculinity is promoted by the archetypal male hero in movies and television, be it the hardboiled detective of crime fiction, the tough-as-nails gunslinger of Westerns, or the ironclad action hero.

These characters typically prove their merit through unflinching courage and physical prowess.

According to this definition, the opposite of self-reliance is weakness. When we exhibit “feminine”—that is, the gender-atypical—traits, we inadvertently signal to others that our masculinity is “defective”, thus inviting homophobic scorn and condemnation.

essy knopf gay internalized homophobia

Double-barrelled shame

Gay men historically have received a double dose of hostility, on account not only of gender-atypical traits but of being seen as inherently flawed.

Being gay was once viewed as an act of rebellion against the laws of God, as per the Bible’s accounts of Sodom and Gomorrah. Gays were viewed as “perversions”, on par with the likes of pedophiles.

The advent of modern science saw being gay reclassified as a mental disorder, a label that would remain until 1973 under the order of the American Psychiatric Association.

The perception that we were untrustworthy and possibly dangerous, however, persisted.

Consider for example the “Lavender scare”, in which thousands of gay people were purged from US military services and intelligence agencies from the late 40s and into the 60s.

In 1953, President Eisenhower even signed an executive order banning gay men from employment by the US government and its private contractors.

Suspicion towards gay men endured even from 1981 onwards, with the advent of what was initially called the “gay disease”, “gay cancer”, “gay plague” or “gay-related immune deficiency”.

Later retitled HIV/AIDS, the resulting epidemic triggered a moral panic that fueled further discrimination towards and ostracism of gay people. 

The impact on gay men

The negative light in which we as a group are regarded and the emotional repression demanded of us places significant strain upon our mental health.

Given we naturally tend towards empathy and expressiveness, I would argue this strain is greater than that faced by heterosexual men.

In the face of social pressure to emulate ideals of “manliness”, and the dismissal, ridicule, and physical harm we may face when we defy them, many of us find ourselves falling in line.

We do this by taking on the loathing others harbor for our authentic selves, altering our self-presentation along the lines of the masculine ideal.

That is, we learn to conceal our more evident “feminine” traits, including our interest in other men. Some of us may even avoid all possibility of judgment by eschewing the company of heterosexuals and moving to live in a gay village.

But the inauthentic shell which we don as a matter of necessity may become a new comfortable norm. Self-loathing will likely leave us crippled by ongoing covert depression.

Unable to tolerate our vulnerability, we find ourselves in turn unable to tolerate it in others. We adopt judgmentalism, rejecting other gay men as we ourselves were once rejected.

Gay bars, clubs, and dating apps are rife with this kind of behavior, which in many cases is an expression of internalized homophobia. Consider, for example, those who write “no femmes” on their dating profiles, or demand a highly specific “masc” type or muscular physique in their partners.

While not as dramatic as a closeted man cruising a gay nightclub and attacking someone for making a pass at him, this is a latent form of internalized homophobia. It is characterized by an emotional repression so painful that many sufferers find themselves seeking refuge in grandiosity or addictive behaviors.

The irony of this repression and its byproducts is that they only further our existing sense of isolation, creating conditions ripe for more depression.

In order to free ourselves from the tyranny of homophobia, we must learn to accept and embrace all facets of our identity – without fear of reprisal. Source: Elise Gravel

The cure to internalized homophobia

In order to overcome self-loathing, we must first acknowledge how we have suffered by turning away from our authentic selves.

To break the hold internalized homophobia has on our lives, we must learn to accept and embrace all facets of our identity—without fear of reprisal.

For some of us, this may involve an outward exhibition of our more feminine traits. We may choose, like the goateed stranger of my teenagehood, to wear whatever we want and to act in the way that feels most natural to us.

Or we may simply seek to reconnect with and express our emotions; to let down our guards and create conditions in which others can do the same.

It is through such shared vulnerability that I believe we can ultimately achieve true healing, not just as individuals, but also as a community.

Takeaways

  • Being gay historically was seen to be a perversion or illness.
  • Gays as a group show some “gender-atypical” personality traits.
  • One is the typically “feminine” trait of emotional expressiveness.
  • Expressive gay boys and men thus face double the stigma.
  • Survival requires hiding our authentic emotional selves.
  • The result is depression and judgmentalism.
  • If we are to heal, we must restore emotional authenticity.

* I acknowledge that disconnection from one’s mother may not apply to all men, for example in the case of being raised by a male caregiver, or gay parents.

Four ways gay men can triumph over the inner critic

Essy Knopf gay inner critic
Reading time: 5 minutes

From an early age, my inner critic made me conscious of how different I was from other kids.

First, there were the niche interests, from learning the Latin names of dinosaurs to cataloging insects. I didn’t understand social nuance and was often direct to the point of being rude.

Labels inside my clothing chafed. I would lie in bed at night, disturbed by the feeling of pilling bedsheets against my toenails. All problems that seemed exclusive to me.

In second grade, I noticed my peers had mastered the art of tying their own shoelaces.

For me, it felt like an impossible task, as if the necessary neural connections just weren’t there. It took me a full year longer to acquire this basic skill.

My feeling of incompetence was deepened by the fact I scored poorly in handwriting and physical education.

I became acutely aware of my shortcomings, to the point I avoided playing sports, knowing it meant putting my coordination problems on display for all to see.

The terrible legacy of the inner critic

For 26 years, I labored under three contrary beliefs: that something was inherently wrong with me, that I was unfairly judged because of it, and that the problem must, therefore, lay entirely with others. My conscience self-righteously embraced the latter.

But as the cruel words and criticisms accrued, and I defensively pointed the finger right back, I subconsciously internalized them as the truth.

Then I received an official diagnosis: Asperger syndrome (autism). The pillars of my self-perception were shaken.

I knew now that there was indeed something different about me. I was not, as I had come to believe, an inherently bad person deserving of the scorn, mockery, and rejection I’d received in my school years.

This diagnosis enabled me to separate my sense of self-value from the limitations of my disability.

In so doing, I was able to abandon the blindspot in which I had lived; to accept that I had room for growth.

I experienced something similar with my sexuality, learning to accept that being gay did not make me a defective person. These revelations should have liberated me. They didn’t.

My inner critic remained, attacking me on an almost daily basis. So long as I took its tongue-lashings, I figured everything would be okay, and my self-esteem would remain intact.

But the critic proved a power-hungry tyrant, demanding constant achievement, perfectionism, and workaholism – what I’ve called three faces of grandiosity.

essy knopf gay identity grandiosity achievement perfectionism workaholism

What began as a means of survival had become the greatest obstacle to my wellbeing.

1. Resist ‘preemptive suffering’

While you may not have a disability, as gay men we are likely to have experienced marginalization, persecution, or invalidation. We may have even suffered neglect, abuse, or trauma.

These experiences teach us to adopt self-criticism as a means of protecting ourselves. The insidious whisperings of this inner critic may not always reach your conscious awareness.

You may not even exhibit obvious signs of its influence, such as grandiosity. Yet sooner or later, these signs surface, sometimes in the form of catastrophizing, or what I’ll call “preemptive suffering”.

People who preempt are their own worst enemies, operating by the principle that they would rather cut themselves down before anyone else can. 

Popular culture leads us to believe that negative self-talk can be countered by building positive self-esteem. But self-esteem is by nature delusional, or contingent. To quote Self-Compassion author Kristin Neff: 

To always feel like you’re awesome you need to either divorce yourself from reality or be on a treadmill of constantly proving your value. At some point you won’t measure up, which then craters your self-esteem. Not to mention relentlessly proving yourself is exhausting and unsettling.

Is there a better alternative? According to Neff, yes. Instead of manufacturing an inflated image of yourself or “slaying dragons every day”, we can opt instead for self-compassion

2. Avoid the blame game

When we fail, when often feel inferior or inadequate. Rather than acknowledging our pain, we go into attack mode, using blame to displace our feelings of guilt, shame, or humiliation onto others.

Venting your feelings may feel great at that moment in time, but it often triggers an escalating, zero-sum conflict. Forced to defend their pride, participants dig in.

Hostility poisons the pool of mutual understanding, and before long both parties have plunged headlong into interpersonal trench warfare.

In the words of Man’s Search for Meaning author Victor Frankl: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”.

So rather than reacting, take a moment to pause and reflect. What has this person said/done? How did this trigger the inner critic? What familiar scripts is it resorting to?

3. Be OK with imperfection

If we don’t blame others, we will most certainly blame ourselves.

When we make mistakes, the inner critic is always there, waiting to pounce. “See?” it says. “I told you so. You’re irredeemably bad. You should feel ashamed. You’ll forever be a failure – that’s a fact.”

essy knopf inner critic victor frankl

Living under the yoke of the inner critic can be incredibly taxing. But rather than refuting such accusations or challenging them with contradictory evidence, we can sidestep them entirely.

We do this by acknowledging our fallibility as a fact. This disarms the inner critic. Finding truth in criticism robs it of its power.

Try repeating this handy syllogism, paraphrased from David Burns’ book Feeling Good

  1. Humans occasionally make mistakes, 
  2. I’m a human being, 
  3. Therefore I should occasionally make mistakes. 

4. Be your own comforter

When something goes wrong, we can offer ourselves comfort and consolation. We do this by verbally affirming our own worth and assuring ourselves that everything is okay, that we did our best given the circumstances.

Here are three self-compassion tips by Nonviolent Communication author Marshall Rosenberg and Kristen Neff you can consider practicing:

  • Call your inner critic out. One trick therapists recommend for dealing with unwanted thoughts or emotions is to wear a rubber band around your wrist and snap it every time they surface. Use one word to identify what you’re feeling, e.g. “shame” and repeat it as an acknowledgment. Identify your inner critic’s intentions in trying to protect you, while offering some gentle course correction.
  • Reframe your inner dialogue by asking yourself four questions: What am I observing? What am I feeling? What am I needing right now? Do I have a request of myself or someone else?
  • In moments of emotional distress, find somewhere private and adopt the role of a comforter, speaking to yourself in the tone of a mother trying to soothe a baby. Caress your arm. Hold your face in your hands. Hug yourself. 
inner critic gay

These nurturing gestures can help trigger a release of the powerful chemical oxytocin, which will, in turn, improve your mood and shift the tone of internal dialogue towards kindness.

By cultivating self-compassion, we can take steps towards achieving the healing we all deserve.

Takeaways

  • Recognize when you’re engaging in preemptive suffering.
  • Rather than blaming others for our feelings, simply acknowledge them – then offer yourself the comfort and reassurance you’re really seeking.
  • Disarm the inner critic by accepting your imperfection as a fact.

Throw off the shackles of depression and loneliness. Embrace your authentic gay identity.

Essy Knopf gay identity
Reading time: 7 minutes

Well before I came into my gay identity, a man approached six-year-old me at the park and called me by a word I’d never heard before.

“You dirty little wog,” he said, apropos of nothing.

My dad overheard this and stormed over, executing some kind of judo move. Next thing the stranger was lying flat on his back—instant comeuppance I might have reveled in, had I recognized the racist insult for what it was.

This was my first real experience of prejudice, but it was by no means my last.

Growing up in small Australian towns, I was aware of the constant undercurrent of homophobia, xenophobia, and ableism. You’d catch it in the way people would weaponize words like “r*****d”, “s*****c”, “gay” and “special”.

Then there were the charming portmanteaus people would make of my name and those of infamous political figures, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. 

As a gay Middle Eastern kid with autism, I was subjected to more than my share of the nastiness.

In high school, some bullies caught me reading a play on the bus and branded me a “f****t”. I had a plastic water bottle thrown at my head.

In order to survive, I hid. By spending my lunch hours in the library reading and not talking to my classmates, I made myself a smaller target.

All the while, I secretly plotted my revenge. One day, I told myself, I would grow up to be someone very BIG and IMPORTANT and SUCCESSFUL—and then I’d show them.

The grandiosity I dreamed of would be the panacea to my feelings of being inferior.

Holding fast to my belief that I was someone important, I vowed to defy my bullies; to prove that I was inherently better. It was a thin veneer for my battered self-esteem and the shame of being different.

When grandiosity overtakes authenticity

For the remainder of my school years, I adopted a fierce work ethic. When I graduated, I was a straight-A student, at the top of several classes.

I was pleased—but I was not vindicated. And so, I labored on, well into my adulthood, abandoning my authentic gay identity.

I lost any concept of downtime. Weekends and holidays were sacrificed in pursuit of lofty goals and ambitious projects.

I accrued degrees, traveled the world, relocated several times, wrote multiple unpublished books, and released a feature documentary. Still, it was not enough.

My way of surviving had become my way of living. The world, as a result, had grown hopelessly grey, while I had become a prisoner at the mercy of an inner critic, whose voice was that of ancient bullies.

In an attempt to manage my depression, I would work around the clock for months on end, before the anxiety driving me gave out and I crashed.

The all-consuming preoccupations of grandiosity would flip into depression, then back again to grandiosity.

While trying to dig myself out of a serious bout of suicidal ideation, I was finally forced to accept that I was trapped in a cycle, one that was only getting progressively worse.

This survival mechanism had paradoxically created conditions ripe for self-destruction.

In the words of Self-Compassion author Kristin Neff, “Feelings of shame and insignificance can lead to a devaluing of oneself to the extent that it even overpowers our most basic and fundamental instinct—the will to stay alive”.

This, unfortunately, is a reality for many gay men. Pressured by society to reject our authentic gay identity, our lives are overshadowed by an enduring sense of worthlessness.

Gay men and depression

In I Don’t Want to Talk About It, a book detailing the silent epidemic of male depression, author Terry Real explains that as boys, we are socialized to split-off so-called “feminine” traits of emotional expressiveness and vulnerability.

We are told to turn away from the nurturing care of mothers, from our own emotions, and from the help of others. Instead, we are coerced into embracing a limited and perfectionist form of masculinity.

But this masculinity is not a state of being, so much as a kind of membership that is at constant risk of being revoked.

Given the widespread prejudicial association of being gay with femininity, we as gay boys in this sense are at particular risk of judgment, ostracism, abuse, and harm.

In most cases, we have no choice but to repress our shamed non-heteronormative identities.

Cut off from our emotional selves and the nurturance that is so critical to our flourishing, all boys suffer a form of passive trauma, which—if left unaddressed—can lead to covert depression.

Our inability to seek the help we need, to soothe ourselves in times of distress, combined with the pressures of conforming to an impossible ideal and the shame of not measuring up, inevitably forces us to seek relief.

So we turn to addictions such as drugs and drinking, or behavioral or “process” addictions like sex, gambling, food, video games or exercise, or the “performance-based esteem” offered by grandiosity.

What is grandiosity?

Grandiosity is a way of coping with the loneliness and grief of self-alienation. It can wear many faces, including those of achievement, perfectionism, and workaholism.

essy knopf gay identity grandiosity achievement perfectionism workaholism

Grandiosity is, in essence, the flip side of depression, and many of us spend our lives alternating between the two, with devastating effects.

The link between grandiosity and depression was first highlighted by Alice Miller in her book The Drama of the Gifted Child, and later, by Alan Downs in The Velvet Rage.

In The Velvet Rage, Downs outlines the struggles gay men face in the course of ignoring or silencing their emotions.

When we fail to investigate and integrate them into our gay identity, we are essentially “foreclosing” on our conferred identity as victims (to borrow a term by James E. Marcia).

We become trapped in a narrative that is not of our own making.

While grandiosity may anesthetize us against pain in the short run, whatever relief we might find comes at a cost.

Afraid that the ground might fall out from under us, we become dangerously addicted to chasing even more grandiosity.

The pursuit of meritocracy is further fueled by the belief that we live in a world where all hard work is rewarded, and effort makes all dreams possible.

This belief, however, can be dangerously deceptive, as philosopher Alain de Botton points out in his excellent TED Talk.

Adding weight to the desire to distinguish ourselves is “somebodyness”, a term coined by spiritual teacher Ram Dass.

“Somebodyness” refers to the popular Western belief that we are destined to one day be “somebody”. It fosters the idea of individual exceptionalism.

While these ideas can be motivational, for the grandiose gay man, they may lead him to view success and recognition as the only true measure of his self-worth.

When he fails to constantly achieve, he is thus likely to blame himself, to the exclusion of all other factors, thus denying himself the right to self-compassion.

In seeking external validation rather than internal validation, we grow increasingly distant from our authentic selves, which further reinforces the pursuit of grandiosity.

It is crucial therefore to recognize the role grandiosity is playing in stopping us as gay men from breaking harmful patterns and achieving true healing.

Authenticity = healing

Brené Brown in her book The Gifts of Imperfection describes authenticity as “the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are”.

For Brown, authenticity involves:

  • “cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries, and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable;
  • exercising the compassion that comes from knowing that we are all made of strength and struggle; and 
  • nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we believe we are strong enough.”

Thus, before we can achieve the true healing and self-acceptance offered by authenticity, we must first reclaim our split-off emotional selves.

Here are a couple of suggestions I have found helpful on my own journey:

1. Stop running from your gay identity

Our recovery depends upon our willingness to be self-aware. Self-awareness for me is a process of connecting the dots: we come to devise a clear story about how our past experiences have influenced our present circumstances.

Daily journaling and meditation help foster conditions for self-reflection. Two books I have found helpful for facilitating journaling are Jen Grisanti’s Story Line, which is designed for screenwriters but is nevertheless helpful, and Katherine Woodward Thomas’ Calling in “The One”.

essy knopf gay identity authenticity

It is through the process of excavating buried experiences that we will start to identify with our painful emotions and understand why and how we have repressed them.

These “Aha!” moments help bring into better focus the sources of our grandiosity. They enable us to reconnect with our authentic gay identity.

2. Do a cost-benefit analysis

Once you’ve identified why you might be driven towards grandiosity, draw up a simple cost-benefit analysis.

At the top of a page, write the habits or behaviors you are grappling with. Then create two columns below, one labeled “Advantages”, and the other “Disadvantages”.

Now grade both columns out of a shared pool of 100 points. Is it a 50-50 split? 60-40? 30-70? Your honest assessment should give you a good idea of whether it might be time to revise your grandiose habits.

You can find a sample version of a CBA by Feeling Good author David Burns here.

3. Face your depression

In order to reclaim our emotional authenticity, we have to surrender our addictive defenses, such as grandiosity, re-identify with the injured parts of ourselves and reject our entrenched sense of shame.

We do this by allowing our covert depression to surface as overt depression; by embracing the emotions we have long suppressed. It is by doing this that we reclaim emotional authenticity.

In the words of author Terry Real: “Depression freezes, but sadness flows. It has an end”.

This transformation can be achieved with the kind of corrective experiences offered by a therapist.

Through their support, we learn to “reparent” ourselves: to reconnect with our split-off emotions, and to employ self-soothing in times of distress.

4. Reprioritize self-care

Alongside self-soothing, we must also learn to employ regular self-care. A common belief with grandiosity is that your health, well-being, and happiness should never come first.

You can combat this perception by practicing self-care as a matter of priority. Consider:

  • Scheduling at least an hour of downtime every day.
  • Ensuring at least one day of the week is designated work-free.
  • Set time limits on activities you know lead you towards grandiosity.
  • Start self-nourishing hobbies like reading, gardening, or hiking.
  • Treat yourself to a bath, a massage, or a fancy meal out with a close friend.

Embrace your authentic gay identity

Ultimately, your journey towards wholeness can only happen if you are willing to accept that the promises of grandiosity are ultimately flawed.

You won’t prosper by them—not at least in the metrics that truly count. Nor will you feel better about yourself in any enduring or substantial way.

And the independence you achieve through grandiosity is a fallacy because it by its very nature demands your dependence.

essy knopf gay identity self-care tips

We are social creatures. Relationships with others are crucial to our sense of wholeness. And to love and be loved requires that we first be vulnerable. It necessitates interdependence.

So rather than clinging to some much-vaunted masculine ideal, we would be better served by embracing our authentic, vulnerable gay selves, rather than allowing ourselves to be defined exclusively by our achievements. 

Dismantling long-held ways of living is not an overnight process. But next time you catch yourself grappling with the inner critic, treat it as an opportunity to call grandiosity out on its crap—and to start being that little bit kinder to yourself.

Takeaways

  • Reconnect with your authentic gay identity through journaling.
  • Conduct a CBA of your current “survival tactics”.
  • Employ the help of a qualified professional to address your covert depression.
  • Make self-care a daily habit – starting from this very moment.

Confessions of a Control Freak – Part 1: An Obsessive Compulsion

Reading time: 8 minutes

Cocktail: The Joykiller.
Description: The perfect cocktail for the aspiring wet blanket.
Ingredients: Four ounces of perfectionism, a dollop of workaholism, a splash of stubbornness. Method: Mix, shake well, strain into a glass of rigid thinking. Serve with a twist of stinginess.

Confessions of a Control Freak is a memoir blog series exploring the impact of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, its origins, and the rocky path to recovery. Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of all featured individuals. Subscribe to receive all future posts. More about OCPD here.


I

Exploring India for most people may sound like a great way to spend a vacation, but for someone with undiagnosed Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), it was an unmitigated disaster.

Days before my trip, I completed a web series and the first draft of an alternate history fantasy novel—one of several creative projects on a never-ending, self-perpetuating carousel of work.

Having accrued more than a month’s worth of leave, I decided that the best way to spend my time “off”, naturally, would be to start yet another project. 

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Me, outside Dehli’s historic Parliament House.

No, I was not going to be going on an adventure and collecting photos for a post-trip slideshow with family and friends.

Instead, I was going to conduct research for a novel—a sequel to another book I technically hadn’t even finished yet. Talk about getting ahead of myself!

I booked a ten-day guided tour around the arid northern Indian state of Rajasthan, once a patchwork of princely states under the British Raj. 

This I figured was the very least amount of time I would need to document every inch of my surroundings. I couldn’t afford to miss a single thing.

Printing a copy of my novel draft, I packed my camera and boarded my flight. First stop: Mumbai, where I spent a few days visiting a friend, before striking out on my own to New Delhi.

The next ten days passed in a frantic blur. When I wasn’t snapping photos at some site of historical significance, I was ensconced in my hotel room bed, eating from room service trays as I scrawled notes on my already-dog-eared manuscript.

Room service would knock and I would bark a reply. My sheets and towels didn’t need changing, thank you very much. I could manage just fine with the ones I had.

If I had hoped to soak up the ambiance of my surroundings, I found myself too preoccupied to do even that. 

Instead, I found myself staring down, first in confusion, then horror at the metal nozzle projecting on from the toilet seat, not quite ready for the culture shock presaged by a bidet.

When I was outdoors, I distracted myself with a packed schedule. This meant that I was, more or less, constantly moving at a sprint, checking off sightseeing to-do lists in advance of my departure for Rajasthan. 

Relaxing, I told myself, would be a waste of my hard-earned leave time, and a plane ticket to boot. Ever the master of delaying gratification, I told myself I could take a proper vacation later, some other time, but only after I had truly earned it.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
The Amber Fort in Jaipur.

II

This unwillingness to relax took its toll, however, and by the time the touring car finally arrived to whisk me away to Rajasthan, I was practically manic. 

I may have already conducted a ton of research, and yet I still hadn’t completed the second draft of my novel. 

Then there was the irksome fact I’d had to sacrifice a crucial train trip to several UNESCO World Heritage sites due to last-minute itinerary changes.

Having planned my visit with the goal of literally seeing everything possible, the completionist in me ached with the idea that I might miss a single thing. 

And given my life was already bursting with other commitments, I couldn’t reasonably expect I’d be making a return trip anytime soon. 

For the remainder of the ride to Rajasthan, I sat in the back of the car, earphones in, head bowed, reviewing page after page of my manuscript. 

If I’d hoped to take satisfaction in my progress so far, I instead found the novel to be sorely wanting. The dialogue was clumsy, and the characterizations paper-thin.

Desert vistas crawled past my car window, and crumbling stonework ruins whizzed by, but I didn’t see them. 

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Not considering myself to be a “true” tourist, I was opposed to the camel and elephant rides that came as part of my tour package and reluctantly agreed to take them.

My driver slowed the car, pointing out to me grazing antelope. I looked up only long enough to feign wonderment, before resuming striking out text and scribbling corrections.

At the end of each day, I would lock myself in my hotel room and refuse to come out. There was still too much work to be done.

When people dragged their chairs in the restaurant one floor above, generating what sounded like thunder in my room directly below, I complained about the noise to the hotel receptionist. 

Didn’t these people realize I was engaged in serious work, churning the next cross-genre literary masterpiece?

How lucky they must be, these carefree vacationers. They didn’t carry with them multiple internal timepieces that were forever ticking over. They didn’t have to fear ceaseless deadlines.

When one hostel I was staying in notified me that hot water was only available one hour of the day, I barked at the receptionist.

Didn’t he understand I ran on my own schedule? That I had places to be and things to do?

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Walking among the tide pools in Mumbai.

III

My anger was proportional only to my dissatisfaction with myself. Forever hovering over me was the dreaded realization that there would need to be many more rewrites before my novel would be fit to show to the world.

And even then, when I finally did, time and distance would reveal to me a dozen blindspots that had gone unseen and undermined all my carefully planned and meticulously researched story sequences.

This was a position I had more or less already arrived at the minute I’d wrapped work on the first draft. 

If there wasn’t a problem, I would be sure to find one. My reasoning? It was better to preempt criticism and get the jump on disappointment than suffer a sucker punch from a stranger.

With each leg of the journey, my tour driver grew increasingly agitated, hunching over the wheel like someone with chronic road rage, intent on mowing down whoever might cross his path.

He stopped offering me free bottles of water and stopped calling my name. I was no longer “Mr. Ehsan”, but someone to be addressed strictly out of necessity—and only then in a clipped voice.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Colorful saris in Jodhpur.

When, finally, I asked him what the matter was, he revealed he had been expecting to receive a daily tip from me. 

In the years of chaperoning foreign vacationers during the height of the tourist season, my driver had apparently never met someone who clung as stingily to my purse strings as I had.

In my defense, however, I had already paid a princely sum to the tour company. 

And then there was the fact that in my home country—Australia—we simply didn’t tip. Never mind my driver was expecting only a nominal amount. Not tipping him was, I told myself, a matter of principle.

Besides, I’d practically spent all the money I had getting here. And let’s remember, this wasn’t a true vacation, but a research trip

I wasn’t some privileged Westerner with deep pockets, but a reluctant martyr for my own ambitions.

This approach did not go down very well with one of my tour guides. When I failed to tip him at the end of our two-hour-long walk, he stood over me, glowering. I pretended not to notice. 

As far as I was concerned, he was the one who had breached social norms by expecting payment on top of the fee he’d already received from our tour company.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Inside the Red Fort in Delhi.

IV

The rest of the trip slipped by like an afternoon dream: majestic hill forts of gold sandstone, soaring pink city walls, a shimmering sprawl of blue buildings at the edge of the Thar desert.

Towards the end, I climbed a hill to a viewpoint frequented by tourists. Local kids had gathered to fly kites or beg politely for pencils.

One of them was singing, accompanied by a wizened man on the harmonium. 

As I watched the sun dip toward the horizon, I was struck by the realization that for all the beauty that surrounded me, I was not moved. I felt in some ways cut off, my feelings trapped behind a rigid, impenetrable shell. 

Since my late teens, all I’d was a steely determination to survive in the face of whatever hardships might be thrown in my path.

The skies turned from gold to amber to umber. The young singer crooned a final, wistful tune. A crack appear in the shell, and suddenly I was crying.

I felt like a jack-o-lantern that had its insides scraped out. Empty, and exhausted.

Then came the profound sense of loneliness—a stalwart companion from earlier days.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
A stranger flying a kite on a hill overlooking Jaisalmer.

Rigidity as a survival mechanism

This same loneliness I credited for launching my never-ending crusade of workaholic perfectionism. 

Since my late teen years, I felt perpetually harried by a need to be productive. I’d create lists of things I wanted to achieve and, one by one, ticked them off with machine-like efficiency.

My default was “bustling”. When I wasn’t running to catch buses or bolting from commitment to commitment, I was writing a new story, shooting a new film, and undertaking a new degree.

My home was not a sanctuary—it was a workplace. I spent most of my time in front of my computer, taking the occasional break to tidy, clean, cook, and work out. When I wasn’t running on a physical treadmill, I was always running on a figurative one.

Nothing I did was ever good enough; I could always do better. Everything was a problem to be fixed. There was forever room for improvement. 

This philosophy extended to not just my life, but that of others as well. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and I hammered away to the detriment of my relationships.

In my mind, this behavior had the perfect rationale. I was someone with big dreams, the job I was doing wasn’t my true passion, and I lacked any sense of financial security. 

The only way I was going to rise above these obstacles was by applying myself. 

These standards I had set for myself, however exacting they might seem to others, were in my estimation fair.

If I could learn to follow them with religious zeal—so why couldn’t they? 

As righteous as I felt on this path, what I failed to acknowledge was that this work I endlessly generated for myself was really just a kind of coping mechanism. 

For too long, I had been troubled by the sense that something fundamental was wrong in the world; something that threatened my sense of wholeness, worthiness, and safety. 

But so long as I stayed in the saddle of workaholism, I could avert the many impending crises I imagined loomed large over my life.

Grandiosity, or Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder?

My behavior, I would later learn, had all the hallmarks of Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD).

OCPD, according to the DSM-5, involves a more “a pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency”.

Key traits of OCPD include:

  • Preoccupation with details, rules, lists, order, organization, or schedules
  • Perfectionism that interferes with task completion
  • Excessive devotion to work and productivity
  • Being overly conscientious, scrupulous, and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values
  • Being unable to discard worn-out or worthless objects without sentimental value
  • Reluctance to delegate tasks or to work with others unless they follow your precise way of doing things
  • A miserly spending style
  • Rigidity and stubbornness

A distinction should be made here between OCPD and the better-known Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

People with OCD experience uncontrollable, persistent thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions), which they often have some degree of insight about. 

People with OCPD on the other hand cling to their way of doing things and seem comfortable with their self-imposed systems of rules, believing nothing is inherently wrong with their style of thinking. 

A positive diagnosis

My trip to India represented a crisis point in my life. The rigid habits, rules, and structure by which I’d lived my life had been challenged, and the control I was forever grasping was slipping from my grasp.

When presented with demands to change, rather than making the necessary concessions, I dug in. Unstoppable force, meet immovable object.

The misunderstanding and misery that had resulted could, in hindsight, have easily been averted. 

I could, for example, have surrendered my constant need for productivity and been more mentally present, and actually enjoyed this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I could have also smoothed ruffled feathers by tipping my driver and guides, rather than stingily withholding.

It would take some yearsand many more immovable objectshowever, before I would achieve true insight into my behavior. 

And even then, surrendering my self-appointed moral high ground would prove no easy task.


Confessions of a Control Freak continues with Part 2: “An excess of perfection”.

Confessions of a Control Freak – Part 2: An Excess of Perfection

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Reading time: 9 minutes

Confessions of a Control Freak is a memoir blog series exploring the impact of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, its origins, and the rocky path to recovery. Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of all featured individuals. Subscribe to receive all future posts. More about OCPD here.


I

“Police car!” I murmured.

At the far end of the alley, a police van had crawled into view. No sooner was it glimpsed, however, did the vehicle reverse back the way it had come.

My filming companion Nia looked up from the camera viewfinder.

“I can’t see anyone?” she said. “I think we’re good.”

At that very instant, we were standing a few feet from the McDonald’s parking lot, recording a scene for one of my college film assignments. 

Essy Knopf confessions of a Control Freak
A still from our rather daring shoot.

By scene, I am referring to a few shaky shots of me approaching the storefront, toy handgun in hand.

It was meant to be a cinematic allusion to a shooting that had occurred in the 80s. Minus, of course, the shooting part.

Nia and I had spent the past 15 minutes filming me doing multiple takes of me walking up an alley in a hoodie and taking a few bold strides across the lot.

After each take, we’d return to the alley to review the footage, whereupon I would identify some fault. Either I was walking too fast, the shot was too shaky, or the framing was somehow off.

I’d asked Nia if she didn’t mind “getting one more in the can”. A freshman keen for more filming experience, she’d obliged.

Soon, what had started as a quick-and-dirty exercise had ballooned out to become my own private Ben Hur.

“I’m pretty sure I just saw a paddy wagon,” I said, after a moment.

“Well, they’re gone now,” Nia said, raising the camera for another take.

“OK,” I said warily, “but this is the last take.” 

Certainly, this wasn’t the first time today I’d said it, but this time I meant it.

I was part way across the McDonald’s parking lot when I heard a shout.

“Drop the weapon!”

Officers burst from cover, surrounding me like in some scene from a cop show, guns pointed in readiness to shoot.

Instinct took over and I squatted, placing the toy gun on the ground.

“On your knees,” one of the officers shouted. “Hands behind your head.”

Next thing I was being cuffed and forced onto my face. Somewhere nearby I heard Nia’s voice. 

“We’re making a student film,” she cried, playing the part. “The gun isn’t real! The gun isn’t real!”

“Shut up!” someone barked. My pockets were searched and a barrage of questions followed.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Me in one of many roles I would play over the years.

Did I have anything on me I shouldn’t have? Did I not realize that from a distance my gun had looked real? That I had been this close to being shot?

“Not that I’m aware”, “apparently not”, “it never entered my mind”, went my responses.

Little did the officer questioning me know that a few hours prior, I had considered painting over the toy gun’s fluorescent orange tip “for the sake of realism”, only to change my mind at the last minute.

This reflexive decision may have been what ultimately saved my life.

I tried, lamely, to explain myself, while the officer chastised me for my recklessness. It was revealed that just before Nia and I had shown up, a McDonald’s patron had called the police to report her child missing.

This patron had been sitting in her four-wheel drive, parked in the McDonald’s lot when I’d rolled up, toy gun in hand. Our eyes had even met on the first take.

By the second take, however, the woman had vanished. It was only now I realized that she in her panic had somehow connected her child’s disappearance with my appearance and called the cops on me.


II

I was 19. Just a kid, really. And I was about to be arrested and charged. My fledgling film career—if that was what you wanted to call it—was, as of that moment, over.

But after a few minutes, the police officers realized the extent of my naivety, and Nia and I were let go with only a warning.

We drifted back to the college campus, shell-shocked, trying to process what had just happened.

I eventually made my way home, vowing to never do something so stupid again. A few hours after my brush with death, I worked up the will to look through the footage on my desktop.

The resulting footage proved rather dramatic. Applying a black-and-white filter conveyed a certain impression of documentary realism. Our little gambit, it seemed, had paid off. 

But there was one problem. We had plenty of takes of me approaching the McDonalds, but none of me firing the gun. We hadn’t, in short, got the money shot…pun not intended. 

And given the gun was barely visible in my low-res MiniDV footage, how would viewers ever realize what I was trying to depict?

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
The “money shot”.

The solution was obvious, if unpalatable, but I summoned my courage all the same. I was a serious filmmaker, and no serious filmmaker should be stopped by some fear of being arrested. Or say, killed.

Having honored my resolution not to take my life into my own hands again for a total of three hours, I collected my filming kit and went out to the front lawn of my apartment complex. 

Mounting the camera on a tripod, I pointed it towards the sky. Then, checking that the coast was clear, I hit record, extended the toy gun into view, and proceeded to hammer the trigger.

I played back the shot on the camera’s built-in LCD. The result was gloriously realistic, the toy pistol’s slider flicking backward with each pull of the trigger.

Tucking the toy gun out of view, I packed up my gear and returned indoors to begin work editing my masterpiece.


III

A few days later, the assignment was complete. It wasn’t due for a few more weeks yet however, which left me with time—time should be spent sharpening the filmmaking saw.

When the due date rolled around, I had not one but three films to submit from. I showed my classmates what I had accomplished and their only response was to stare. 

What person in their right mind would do a school assignment three times?

But this was, I told myself, what was required if I wanted to become a capital P Professional.

So I continued to film, adding new techniques bit by bit to my repertoire. Spooling through the raw footage, I would marvel at what I’d accomplished.

But I also wavered between a celebration of my artistic ability and insecurity.

Essy Knopf confessions of a Control Freak
More often than not, I was the (grudging) star of my own show.

Would my stilted acting pass for naturalistic? Would viewers appreciate that my choice to weave the camera around subjects was inspired by the rich tradition of cinéma vérité?

What I ultimately ended up with would be either worthy homages to my favorite films or confused pastiches: a little bit of everyday Italian neorealism here, a little bit of classic horror tension-building there.

As my skills improved, the bar rose. Determined to rise with it, I agonized over the little details: the choice of camera angle, the position of a prop, the lilt of an actress’s voice.

My growing competency meant that while my classmates were mastering basic editing in iMovie, I was trying to recreate Apple’s classic “silhouetted dancer” ad. 

My strategy was something that may best be described as…unique. 

One attempt at creating a chroma key effect involved assembling a green screen on my tiny balcony (because it offered the best lighting). 

Recording myself singing the backing track required that I crouch beneath a tented mattress (because it dampened reverb). 

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
This still was a part of a swooping camera rise, complete with racked focus, over some composite images. It took days to perfect.

Then, finally, performing the actual dancing required I shimmy and pirouette in my underwear for all my neighbors to see (because wearing clothes interfered with pulling a key).

As time went by, my experiments grew bolder. I taught myself how to operate a soundboard and assemble a 5.1 surround soundtrack, tasks which involved spending days locked in the sound-dampened gloom of a mixing studio.

I taught myself to composite live footage with special effects, creating complex tracking shots across Photoshopped fantasy landscapes.

The plastic shell of my Macbook laptop was literally going to pieces, and yet still I would sit patiently as it rendered its shot, sometimes for hours, sometimes days, leaving the entry-level computer basically inoperable.

For a final project, I directed a short film set in both modern and 1980s East Germany (despite being in Sydney, Australia), with dialogue written exclusively in German (which I didn’t speak fluently), using native Germans (who weren’t actors).

The only limits, I told myself, would be those set by my own imagination.

Essy Knopf confessions of a Control Freak
There was no length I wouldn’t go to for my craft.

IV

These various projects were so time-consuming that I was barely able to hold down a job.

On one hand, I was content to live on the smell of an oily rag, but on the other, the absence of funds meant I had to serve multiple roles on any given project: storyboarder, scriptwriter, sound recordist, mixer, composer, producer, director, and editor.

And when there were no actors, I would hit “record’ and insert myself in front of the camera instead.

I cast myself in a variety of roles: cosmic fetus, creepy Hollywood executive, political terrorist, medieval village boy, zombie, time traveler, and barbarian warrior. Limits of my imagination, indeed.

When one role called for me to shave my head and don a monk’s habit, I didn’t hesitate. I was a card-carrying anything-for-art-ist.

As for having no funds or actors, there were always friends I could beg to shoot, star, or be interviewed. 

None of them proved immune to my approach, which could perhaps be best described as “exacting”. 

I’d dominate group meetings, interrogate doubters and argue detractors into silence. If someone gave me an inch, I’d take 10 miles. 

Essy Knopf confessions of a Control Freak
One of my less elaborate special effects composite shots, complete with grade, smoke effect, and screen shake.

Some may have dared crack a whip or brandish a chair against this onslaught, but fewer still would be able to back me in a corner. 

During a shoot, I’d niggle and micromanage. Inevitably I would learn that my volunteer crew members either weren’t up to snuff or didn’t share my level of dedication, I’d shoulder them aside and take the camera or boom.

When an actor didn’t hit their mark, I’d overcorrect with detailed instructions. A dozen takes were, as a general rule, mandatory. 

My “leadership”—and to call it that would be generous—was met with hostile silence and exchanged looks.

“Can you believe this guy?” my collaborators seemed to be saying to one another.

I was unrelenting; exhaustive in my film-from-every-angle approach and exhausting with my endless stream of instructions. 

There was one person, Nia—poor, indefatigable Nia—however, who weathered it all, always with a bounce in her step and nary a broadside. 

From her very first on-camera debut as a victim of spousal abuse, Nia carried herself with total aplomb.

Essy Knopf confessions of a Control Freak
When confronted with a vacant role, what did I do? I shaved my head and pulled on a monk’s habit.

When asked if she would be willing to smear her face with fake blood, she didn’t so much as blink and even offered to do it herself.

When handed a frying pan and instructed to wail on a phonebook in lieu of her onscreen abuser, Nia summoned rage with the ease of a seasoned pro.

When her role called for an emotional breakdown, Nia melted into hysterics so electrifying I almost didn’t dare to yell “cut”. And all of this on the first take. 

After the incident outside McDonald’s, I wouldn’t have blamed Nia if she’d decided to back out of future projects. 

Yet time and time again, Nia would turn up, eager to do anything that was asked of her.


V

There were many things Nia was prepared to tolerate in the name of my cinematic vision, but hectoring was not one of them.

Some months later, Nia turned up on a set we were both volunteering on, waving a script I had sent her several days late.

Fearing that her little flourishes might somehow signal to the crew we were amateurs, I asked if she wouldn’t mind putting it away.

“Stop bossing me around,” Nia snapped and walked away. 

This show of defiance was not only out of character—it was also just plain confusing. Couldn’t Nia see I was trying to save her—and by extension, me?

Despite our little row, Nia agreed to feature in another film of mine. She was to star as a wood nymph: a malevolent, shape-shifting seductress.

Not only did Nia agree to brave the cold, sludge-filled waters of a public lake—she also did it topless

While Nia was her usual no-questions-asked self, I sensed for the first time some reluctance. This proved our last collaboration together, and we soon fell out of touch. 

Then, some years later, by pure accident, I happened to spot her crossing the campus. 

Essy Knopf confessions of a Control Freak

“Hey, Nia!” I called. Nia turned and saw me.

“Oh, hi Essy,” she said, without so much as breaking her stride.

“How have you been?” I asked, catching up to her.

“Sorry, can’t talk—late for class!” Nia explained and left me in the dust.

This was, I understood, a dismissal…and possibly a deserved one at that.

The loss of my chief collaborator proved a blow to my filmmaking ambitions. It also left my conscience burdened more than ever by the realization that maybe—just maybe—it was my obsessiveness and not others’ lack of staying power that was driving them away.

My drive to reach some always-out-of-reach destination had meant not only that I had failed to truly make the journey, but that I also made it hospitable for my travel companions.

If people like Nia had been the cement foundations of my aspirations, I was like the workman with the earmuffs and jackhammer.

The problem wasn’t so much that I was a workaholic as that I—barring all obstacles save complete physical incapacitation—refused to settle for anything less than absolute perfection. And absolute perfection, for anybody, is a pretty tall order. 

Essy Knopf confessions of a Control Freak
When I couldn’t get access to a location for filming, I green-screened my way into a photo instead.

I convinced myself all the same that it was one I absolutely had to meet. That road to success was not paved by half-measures, after all.

But very quickly the pursuit of perfection would bleed into other aspects of my life, sometimes quite literally. I brushed my gums so hard that they bled, then eventually started to recede. 

While trying to meet one of my many perpetual deadlines, I sat at my desk, absently cramming the contents of a salad bowl into my mouth.

Thinking I was biting into a piece of capsicum, I chomped down on the tine of a metal fork instead. 

Later that week, while surveying my normally perfect pearly whites in the mirror, I saw that the bottom part of one front tooth had broken off. 

Most people I expect chip their teeth through genuine misadventure: a drunken faceplant or a brawl. 

But not me. I had managed such a feat with nothing less dramatic than an eating implement. 

This was, I realized, a case in point. My perfectionism and untiring ambition meant I was also forcing outcomes and rushing processes. Processes as basic as eating.

My little accident not only landed me in a dentist’s chair with a hefty bill—it also led me to a troubling realization. 

Sooner or later, there would be another accident just like this. And the results, potentially, could prove far, far worse.


Confessions of a Control Freak continues with Part 3: “A rebel yell”.

Confessions of a Control Freak – Part 3: A Rebel Yell

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Reading time: 7 minutes

Confessions of a Control Freak is a memoir blog series exploring the impact of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, its origins, and the rocky path to recovery. Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of all featured individuals. Subscribe to receive all future posts. More about OCPD here.


I

“About this holiday,” a friend began via instant message, “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not really sure if you should join us.”

This friend—Mig, we’ll call her—and I had been planning to spend a few days vacationing with a few others in the neighboring city of Wollongong. This sudden reversal threw all my plans into disarray.

Mig’s comment was the first indication we’d had some kind of miscommunication, the nature of which I didn’t yet understand. 

“Because the whole point of this trip is to chillax, you know?” Mig went on to say. “And I’m worried you might mess with the vibe.”

This wasn’t the first time someone had performed a heel turn in my company. In fact, it was a pattern that had resulted in what few friends I had vanishing, often without explanation.

Something about my presence seemed to unsettle people, and I suspect it had something to do with the fact that I had a rather dry sense of humor, and was reliably direct and to the point.

This was a quality that both endeared me to some while setting others on a swift exit trajectory. 

Though it would be many years before I received a diagnosis, my brutal honesty was in fact closely tied to the fact I was on the autism spectrum.

Autism would also in part explain my rigid approach to life and my perception there was only one “right way” of doing things. 

My Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) helped push this to another level, the most obvious example of this being my bossy domination of shared creative endeavors.

Suffice to say, when those in my life turned on me over my differences, my standard response was to raise two figurative fingers. 

In Mig’s case, this involved me logging off the messenger app without the courtesy of a farewell.

When Mig later apologized for their words and renewed her invitation to join her on the holiday, I didn’t graciously accept. 

Rather, I declined, citing my finances, all-too content to nurse my grievances.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
At a computer lab during my undergraduate program.

II

The problem with declaring one’s self the eminent enforcer of rules is that it inevitably culminates in a one-man dictatorship.

When challenged, one feels compelled to silence critics, impose curfews, and enforce martial law. 

Yet my tendency to claim and never cede the moral high ground would almost always land me in steaming hot water.

While producing my final college project—the quixotic piece set in both present-day and 80s Germany—I clashed with my first meeting with a college professor.

“That doesn’t look like Berlin,” was Dr. Javers’ first remark upon seeing a rough cut. “It’s obvious it’s been filmed in Australia.”

The scene in question had been staged in a pine grove and featured a Stasi officer—a member of the German Democratic Republic’s secret police—shooting an informant. 

It was to serve as the film’s dramatic lynchpin, the coathanger upon which I would hang the thin plot of my spin on the mumblecore genre. 

On that note, if there was anything Dr. Javers was going to criticize, you’d think it would be the long sequences in which characters monologued at one another. 

Instead, his words merely struck me as a rather lazy attempt to undermine our efforts. Didn’t he see the nobility of our intentions? The rich thematic potential of exploring life after a surveillance state? 

“We’re happy with the scene, actually,” I said, knowing full well I was probably coming across as defensive. 

“The location was the only one we had access to. Anyway, what are you suggesting we do? Throw out all of our footage and start from scratch?”

This was, I went on to explain, a no-budget student production. The only places we could film were at school or a handful of public locations. It wasn’t exactly like we had a ton of options.

Dr. Javers stiffened, and instead of responding to my questions directly, spent the remainder of the meeting addressing everyone else in the room but me. 

In the weeks that followed, Dr. Javers failed to show up for production meetings and stopped returning emails and calls. 

Then, finally, in the final week of school, my producer forwarded some backchannel communication she’d had with Dr. Javers.

In it, the two had spoken with casual friendliness, neglecting to mention me, as if I—the visionary director—was an inconvenient fact neither wanted to acknowledge.

I was steamed. If my mother had taught me anything, it was never to take an insult lying down—least of all from people in positions of authority. 

Thus I set myself to composing the most passive-aggressive response I could muster, asking—no, demanding—Dr. Javers CC me in all future correspondence.

Dr. Javers’ clap back appeared in my inbox mere minutes later.

“Hardly the way you should be speaking to a staff member, Essy. Expect your communication scores to be docked!”

Rage took possession of me then. Just who was this tenured sellout with next-to-no filmmaking experience to criticize me, auteur filmmaker ascendant?

A wiser move would have been to cut my losses there; maybe even go over Dr. Javers’ head, if needed, and pleaded his defense to someone further up the food chain.

Instead, I let my fingers perform a furious tap dance over my keyboard.

“Wow,” I typed. “I was really…expecting more professional conduct…from you, Dr. Javers.”

My cursor moved to the “send” button, then stopped. As intent as I was unleashing my indignation upon this hack, part of me knew that a cooler head would prevail.

So I gave myself ample time to fully consider my countermove and the potential fallout. This amounted to approximately 30 seconds. 

But within minutes of sending the email, I was having second thoughts. By replying, I had only stoked the fire. 

What would I do if Dr. Javers rose to the challenge? I couldn’t possibly let him have the final say in this battle of wills. 

The only sensible thing to do now, then, was to block the professor’s email address, and therefore the possibility of a reply.

An hour later, remembering I was meaning to migrate to a different email host, I took the nuclear option and deleted my email account entirely.

In terms of severing contact completely, deleting one’s account was about as final a method as they comeno more final a method.

And yet for all my attempts at creating closure, this little exchange with Dr. Javers had left me feeling somehow dirty

Underneath my anger, there was a bitter suspicion that I myself might be culpable of some wrongdoing. One I had tasted when Mig had uninvited me, and when my filmmaking company Nia suddenly ceased contact.


III

My willingness to steamroll over obstacles was as much a matter of determination as it was inflexibility.

While my peers coasted through their undergraduate programs, spending their downtime partying or going to the beach, I put all of my time, effort, and money into teaching myself the craft. 

Given this investment, I felt justified in fighting for my success…even if my definition of “success” verged on questionable. 

So what if I alienated people in the course of following my own north star? 

For as long as I could remember, people had seemed never quite “got” me”. My intentions were often mistaken and my actions subject to criticism, so much so that I felt trapped in an ever-deepening hole of futility. 

Thus in my teen years, I decided to defy the aphorism and become the man who was the island. 

My inspiration was the eponymous protagonist of Charlotte Bronte’s classic “Jane Eyre”, a woman who seemed entirely sure of her purpose, and resilient in the face of opposition.

“I care for myself,” went Jane’s declaration. “The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”

I took Jane’s proclamation as an endorsement. Others might see me as self-righteous or inflexible, but to me, these were qualities born of strength.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Alone on a ferry in Sydney Harbour.

IV

In reality, they were born of low self-worth. Deeming the world to be a threatening place, I wore them less as a badge of honor than a protective carapace.

When others attacked this carapace, they were in effect attacking me. Point out my shortcomings, and you were like to receive a rebel yell in response.

And so I became a stranger to my blind spots, and despite my best efforts, continued to trip over my own feet.

When I was not trampling the feelings of friends, I was offending would-be allies, trying desperately to set others right—even when I myself was in the wrong.

Once, on a flight home to visit my parents, I noticed the man next to me had put the armrest down prior to take-off.

“Excuse me,” I began in a brittle voice, “but I think the armrest is supposed to be up.”

The man, a brawny Asian man who could very well have been a fitness instructor, continued to look down at the inflight magazine he was reading.

Actually, it should be down,” he replied.

“Well you’re wrong,” I retorted, barely stopping myself from saying more. 

Brawny acted as if he hadn’t heard me, and my face burned with anger as I waited for the pre-flight safety demonstration that would surely vindicate me.

Attendants donned life jackets and took their positions in the aisle. An attendant chirped instructions over the P.A. system.

“In the interests of all passenger’s safety all seatbacks should be stowed prior to take off, and all armrests placed down.”

And suddenly it was not anger but shame that scalded my cheeks. My gaze, formerly fixed on my seatback in front of me, slunk to the floor.

Brawny would have been well within his rights to smirk, and yet for all his feigned indifference, I knew—I knew—that deep down, my enemy was gloating. 

I spent the rest of the flight contemplating the decidedly un-petty ways I might exact my vengeance. 

There was always the “accidental” coffee spill or elbow to the face when getting up to use the toilet, but those verged on blatant.

By the way Brawny failed to glance in my direction, it was clear that our little tiff did not occupy him in the same obsessive way it did me. 

When, at the end of the flight, he hoisted his tote bag out of the overhead locker in preparation to leave, I stared daggers at his back. 

There, I thought, run away, like the coward you are.

And savoring my unearned sense of triumph, I followed.


Confessions of a Control Freak continues with Part 4: “A flight from shame”.

Confessions of a Control Freak – Part 4: A Flight From Shame

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Reading time: 7 minutes

Confessions of a Control Freak is a memoir blog series exploring the impact of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, its origins, and the rocky path to recovery. Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of all featured individuals. Subscribe to receive all future posts. More about OCPD here.


I

When Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder takes the reins, there are no truces or compromises—just scorched earth.

And looking back upon my years in college, frenziedly working to advance my filmmaking career, that was mostly what I saw.

My explanations for what had gone wrong demonstrated the extent of insight one might have expected of a bacterium grappling with astrophysics.

I was, the argument went, a unique, intense person. So intense in fact, I often offended the sensibilities of my fellow Australians.

The long and short of it was that, for whatever reason, I hadn’t bloomed where I’d been planted. The natural conclusion, therefore, was high time I transplanted myself to fairer climes.

Overseas, I might begin life anew, free from the brooding thunderheads of others’ disapproval and the lingering shadow of shame and self-doubt.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
I realized soon after purchasing this $15 Homburg hat that it was at least one size too small. Never one to waste money, however, I decided I would disguise this fact by perching it on one side of my head, in the jaunty fashion I hoped would convey to onlookers that I was a creative person.

What I envisioned was less a relocation than a reinvention; an opportunity to become someone successful and well-liked, whose company was sought by all and sundry.

My first place of choice was Germany. Germans were, according to my general understanding, about as direct and upfront as they came. They surely would be able to tolerate—no, appreciate—my blunt honesty.

As an outsider (or Ausländer, according to Pimsleur German Level One), I could also expect to enjoy the kind of interpersonal amnesty normally afforded to visitors. My differences in temperament and character would, I hoped, go excused.

And Germany, as it turned out, had a sturdy, if not small, filmmaking industry. Not quite Australian cottage industry level, but neither was it the European version of Hollywood.

Then again, Hollywood couldn’t really hold a candle to a country where belting out an enthusiastic “Das stimmt!” or “Super!” was readily tolerated.

And the menus in Los Angeles, I was certain, would never yield such warble-worthy compound nouns as “Schweinebraten mit Semmelknödel”.

There was also the fact the United States had never had any monarch, let alone one of equal caliber to “Fairy Tale King” Ludwig II, a closeted eccentric who commissioned the Neo-Romanesque wonder that was and is Neuschwanstein Castle.

Sure—I might be cherry-picking reasons, but for someone intent on escape, any justifications would do.

And so I booked my ticket, and mere weeks after completing my undergraduate degree, I departed for Germany.


II

It was my first northern hemisphere Fall. The weather in Berlin was, according to locals, mild, but walking the streets of Kreuzberg in November 2008, I often felt like I was wandering the Siberian tundra in a pair of briefs.

On blustery days, the wind would tear right through my frame, transforming my exposed fingers into half-frozen cocktail weiners. 

At night, the mercury plunged and I was stricken with bouts of asthmatic coughing. 

When my host offered to turn on the heating, I—conscious of the gas bill I would partially be responsible for—insisted in between coughs that no…I was not sick…and would do…perfectly fine…with the heating…off…thank you.

Though I had scrimped and saved in the lead-up to my trip, I had only a few thousand dollars in my bank account. 

Even Couchsurfing with a friend and a distant relative, I had nowhere near enough to cover the basics of my stay.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Autumnal colors in Berlin, Germany.

The only way I would survive was, at least in my fear-riddled mind, to cling to my miserly ways. 

But hiding from the weather in the confines of the apartment, as poorly insulated as it was, I could only do so for so long. 

In my defense, Australia was a country without true seasons. Growing up in the tropics, I recall spending most days wearing little more than a shirt, board shorts, and sandals. 

But in Berlin, dressing proved a cumbersome process, involving at least the application of four layers of clothing.

Even then, rugged up, I was in a constant torpor, shuffled from train station to supermarket with all the speed of someone using a walking frame.

“Could we perhaps move a little faster?” my host called back one time, from a distance of 12 feet.

But haste could not be coaxed out of me, not at least until I was within dashing distance of a store or cafe with indoor heating.

Sitting in the furnace-like interior, I would wait for various parts of my body to defrost, removing articles of clothing piecemeal to compensate for my sudden-onset sweating. 

Then, when it came time to leave ahead, I would have to put each of them back on, one by one, a process I quickly came to begrudge.

Despite these challenges, I managed to drag myself to and from German lessons in neighboring Neukölln on an almost daily basis. 

The short ride took me past an overgrown graveyard, corner cafes, and roast chestnut vendors, and might have been enjoyable, had I not often found myself caught in horizontal sleet, cursing into the thin summer scarf I was using as a muffler.

After the first month of furiously studying German and applying for jobs, I paid a visit to a nearby film college, where I was told in no uncertain terms that I could not apply until after I had become a fluent speaker.

Still, I told myself this obstacle, just like my dislike of the cold, was one that could be surmounted with enough time and diligence.

Yet my bank account balance was rapidly depleting, and to make matters worse, the world—as my mother soon advised me—was on the cusp of a financial crisis.

Crisis, schmisis, I said, when she first broke the news. What point was there in dwelling on forces outside of our control?

Besides, I had come this far—wasn’t that proof enough of the power of determination?

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Berlin Victory Column, a famous monument in Berlin, Germany.

III

But with no job offers forthcoming and my account balance perilously low, I outgrew this conviction.

By late December, I conceded defeat and advised my parents I was going to head home. 

“You know I’m really disappointed,” my dad said. “I thought at the very least you would try to stay and make it work out.”

Apparently, he was under the belief that I’d spent the past three months strolling through French Provence vineyards or lapping cocktails at an Amsterdam dive bar.

Little did he know I had been locked in a frantic hunt for a job that had taken me from the Czech Republic to Barcelona, Spain. 

Highlights of my trip—if that was what you could call it—had included acquiring public lice at a youth hostel, racing through a frozen forest in pitch darkness to catch a train, and cramming my starving face at a 10-euro all-you-can-eat sushi train in Barcelona.

All that time, I had been in limbo, not knowing where I would land, or how I would survive. 

To remain in Europe would have been stubborn beyond reason—a description that in other circumstances, I would have eagerly lived up to.

And so, wanderlust temporarily slaked, I returned to Australia with my head hung and was met with a surprisingly strict reception. 

I could crash at folks’ place on the condition I paid rent and worked as a server at their restaurant until I had paid back all the money they had loaned me during my trip.

By February, my death grip on the filmmaking future I had once envisaged was failing, and the angst that had first propelled me to travel abroad remained as strong as ever.

But given the deplorable state of my finances, I was grounded indefinitely.

In my search for an exit hatch, I decided I would put my Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages certificate to use by teaching English in China.

Outside of the big metropolitan centers like Beijing and Shanghai, life for an English teacher—according to the forum posts I read by expatriates currently living in Asia—could actually be quite comfortable. 

The immediate consideration at the forefront of my mind was not the language barrier, but my dietary requirements. 

For years I had suffered what I’d concluded were gluten and dairy intolerance, the existence of which was not common knowledge in mainland China.

Eating out would therefore prove particularly difficult—an inconvenience I would nevertheless need to have to overcome. 

The only alternative open to me was, after all, stasis. And after months of living under my parents’ roof again, I needed this out.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
An eerie sunset above an ice-locked forest in Czech Republic’s south.

IV

When I asked my dad if he would be willing to spring for a plane ticket, promising that I was good for it, his response was completely unreasonable.

“But what about the money you already owe us?”

Catching wind of my plan, my mother’s anxiety finally boiled over.

“You know, you’re just like your siblings,” she said during one car drive when we were alone. 

“Always making bad decisions. Never learning from your mistakes.”

I bridled at these claims. To compare me to my brother and sister was completely uncalled for. There was no contest. I won every time, hands down.

As for my mother’s criticisms, was it really my fault she could see the inherent genius of my plan?

Another attempt to establish myself in a country where I knew next to no one wasn’t a continuation of the same broken logic that had inspired my last trip. Rather, it was a strategic evolution.

And anyway, what did she know of my overwhelming need to prove my worth—if only to myself?

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Frozen fields in Czech Republic’s south.

Rather than responding, however, I fidgeted with levers and knobs on the underside of my car seat.

“How do I put this thing back?” I asked.

“First it was Germany, now China,” my mother said, refusing to be thrown off. “When are you going to realize?”

“Are you going to help me or not?”

“You know, it’s a simple thing, Essy,” my mother retorted. “Why can’t you just work it out?”

“Because it’s not my car!” I shouted at her.

I spent the rest of the trip stewing over my mother’s accusations. By the time we got home, I had reverted completely to my resentful teen self, announcing my anger with the slamming of my bedroom door.

All of a sudden, I found myself wrestling with old feelings of failure; the sense of being trapped in a relationship I had run from four years prior.

When I had first moved out, I had made it clear that if my parents wanted me to continue being an active part of their life, things would need to change. No more maternal dictatorship, no more paternal criticisms.

My parents, for their part, had tried to honor the terms of our truce, but this latest attack represented, at least in my imagination, the worst kind of violation.

There was nothing for it—I was going to leave without notice, and so send a very clear message to my mother: “You’re not the boss of me!”

I tossed my suitcase onto the floor, thumping books into it and yanking clothes from hangers. 

Hearing this commotion, my mother appeared at the door.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Leaving,” I said. Mom took a step into the room.

“Where will you go?” 

“I don’t know,” I said, fighting back tears. 

“Please don’t,” my mother said, her manner switching from stonewalling judge to frightened child.

Part of me had believed that nothing—not even my unexplained departure—was capable of breaking the hard shell of my mother’s resentment. 

And yet the mere possibility of it had exposed the terror it sought to protect.

My mother wrapped her arms around me, half-pleading, half-restraining. 

“Let go of me,” I said.

“Please,” she said. “I’m begging you. Don’t leave.”

“I have to,” I said. And it was the truth.


Confessions of a Control Freak continues with Part 5: “An enforcer of standards”.