Anyone who’s read this blog much knows that I’m a big fan of self help books and programs. So this last weekend I did the Advanced Course at Landmark Education (which presents the Landmark Forum, which I did in June.) I could report all kinds of things, but the one area that really struck me was seeing how pervasive my tendency to hide is. And it’s not like I didn’t know this about myself beforehand, but it just really hit home in a much bigger way than it has in the past with other programs and therapists that I’ve seen over the years.

I’ve talked before about this incident from when I was a child, when some boys at a church were goofing around and played a game of crossdressing in order to amuse some of the adults that were nearby in the next room. I really wanted to play along with them but was terrified that people would know it was more than just fooling around for me, that I really really wanted to dress up like, and even be, a girl. So I felt I couldn’t take the risk and I stayed quiet while the other boys were clowning around. Looking back I’m amazed that they even had the balls to do such a thing anyway, but who knows? Maybe they were really into dressing up too, just with more bravery about it? Or maybe not? I’ll never know.

But it was a really traumatic incident for me and I remember thinking that I’ve got to hide this part of myself or I’ll be judged and shamed. This one incident had a huge impact on my life and led me to hide not just my crossdressing desires but just about everything else that I felt might get me into trouble. And over the years those things that I had to hide just grew and grew until finally hiding myself was just the default way of operating in the world, even hiding stuff that didn’t have anything to do with my sexuality. I just became a “hider.” If there was any doubt, the best response was to hide.

It makes me sad now at how persistent that tendency is and how it’s impacted my life and affected the people in my life whom I love. And although I’ve always known I had this tendency I really saw it much clearer this weekend and feel a new commitment to dealing with it and putting it behind me. No, it’s not going to go away, but just knowing the persistent negative ways in which we deal with the world is huge. It gives us the chance to actually do something about it instead of operating automatically. So that’s me tonight. No more hiding.

Landmark – There’s a part of me that’s reluctant to recommend Landmark, fearing that people will think that I’m just a big sucker, as the courses aren’t cheap – The Forum costs about $495, depending on where you live. In any case, here’s a guy I like on “43 things” who has a nice description of the Forum. He’s a bit cynical about it but actually gives a good description of a lot of the concepts and suggests that even with his cynicism that it was a good and worthwhile experience.