Who is in the closet

Can we post pictures of us looking like a couple online? Can we display pictures at work of us looking like a couple? Who can each of us talk to about our relationship? What, if any, are the boundaries for that? How should we introduce one another to friends and family? Where can we go out in public together as a couple, safely? What happens if someone who knows you and I spend time together sees me in a queer social setting or with other out people? How do we act in public?

Is there a code word or phrase we can use when one of us is feeling too exposed? Where do we see our relationship going? What are our goals for us as a couple? Am I comfortable keeping our relationship a secret? The concept of being in the closet or closeted is an important one to be familiar with because you may encounter people in your life who are closeted.

Knowing how to navigate that part of their identity will help both of you and allow you to support that person to the best of your ability. Read on to learn what being in the closet means, why someone chooses not to come out, and the effects on someone's life when they stay in the closet. If a person is in the closet, that means that they haven't come out to the people in their life.

They keep their gender identity, or their sexuality, or both, a secret. Closets are small, dark places that are considered private. So, if you think about it, this term makes sense because someone in the closet is hiding a part of their identity. Or they might not disclose it to anyone at all. For example, they might wear clothing designated for a different gender only in private, or have sexual encounters with strangers. Though no specific person is credited with coining the term, it has been used since the late s.

For people who live in major cities or have progressive families, it might seem very strange that someone would be concerned about the negative effects of coming out. However, there are many people who exist in pockets of society where being openly gay is unacceptable.

A person may choose to stay in the closet because they fear for their physical safety. That is a huge difference and one that can feel overwhelming. The fear of a lack of family support can lead to high stress levels. This fear can be so powerful that the person thinks it will be easier to stay closeted than to come out to their family and risk being ostracized.

It isn't necessarily bad for a person's career if they come out, but there are statistics that make it seem like coming out will potentially make one's career all the more difficult to succeed at. For anyone with a health concern, this can be incredibly daunting, and even for people who just want to ensure their health remains sound, the idea that disclosing their sexual orientation to a healthcare provider could lead to less care is an understandable deterrent to coming out.

However, there are some themes that play out through the lived experiences of people who are in the closet. People who are in the closet don't have to deal with the above issues, such as lack of family acceptance of substandard healthcare. So it is safe to say that the benefits of being in the closet are simply that a person doesn't have to deal with the issues they otherwise would have to from society if they were out.

However, this doesn't mean their quality of life is any better. Being closeted means that people you are close to don't know who you really are. That can be a stressful notion, and it can prevent closeness to others. Additionally, anyone a closeted person gets involved with romantically might feel that being with a closeted person is complex and inauthentic, which can make dating especially hard for closeted people. For example, someone who is in the closet may not bring their significant other to meet their family or to work gatherings and likely wouldn't display affection publicly.

It might seem straightforward that living in the closet would be stressful, and coming out would provide relief from those stressors. However, that isn't always the case. It is a realization that previously unacceptable feelings or desires are part of one's self.

It is, in part, a verbal process--putting into words previously inarticulated feelings and ideas. It is a recapturing of disavowed experiences.

Coming out to oneself may precede any sexual contact. Sometimes, the moment of coming out to oneself is sexually exciting. Some gay people describe it as a switch being turned on. In the language of Winnicott , it can be experienced as a moment in which they make contact with their true selves. Coming out to oneself may be followed by coming out to others. Such revelations are not always greeted with enthusiasm, and fear of rejection often plays a significant role in a gay person's decision about who to tell or whether to come out.

For those who cannot come out in their hometown, moving to another city offers opportunities to come out among strangers. It can be exhilarating to come out in new and faraway places where one is not known to either family or friends. After making such a move, gay people may completely and perhaps dissociatively sever relationships with their past lives.

A therapist's recognition and respect for individual differences allows multiple possibilities in the coming out process. There is no single way to come out, a fact sometimes overlooked by well-intentioned therapists trying to affirm a patient's homosexuality. Every coming out situation may be associated with anxiety, relief or both. As previously stated, being gay, in contrast to being homosexually self-aware, is to claim a normative identity.

From this perspective, coming out to oneself is integrative and often serves to affirm a patient's sense of worth. It is a prerequisite of this work that therapists be able to accept their patients' homosexuality as a normal variation of human sexuality, and that they value and respect same-sex feelings and behaviors as well Drescher, A therapist fluent in the meanings of coming out can point out both obstacles to and inhibitions of the process.

However, patients may hear therapist fluency as tacit encouragement to "hurry up and come out," even rebuking a therapist for perceived efforts to force movement in that direction. Therapists need to be aware they can be heard this way and treat it as grist for the psychotherapeutic mill. Therapists should recognize gay patients' struggles to define themselves as the important therapeutic focus--and that this is not a typical struggle for those who claim a heterosexual identity.

Gay patients face a whole set of decisions unlike anything heterosexuals face. Hiding from oneself depends upon dissociative defenses, while coming out to oneself holds the possibility of psychological integration. An implicit value of psychotherapy is that integration is more psychologically meaningful than dissociation. Consequently, therapists cannot be neutral about coming out to the self. Coming out to others can be fraught with danger.

A need to hide may be based on reasonable concerns, as in the case of gay men and women serving in the military. A therapist would be unwise to advise a patient to come out without knowing the attitudes and opinions of the intended object of the patient's revelation. A therapist cannot fully predict the consequences of such a revelation on the relationship of those two people. Again, coming out to others needs to be addressed in a way that recognizes individual differences.

Internalized, antihomosexual attitudes are often rigid and disdainful of compromise or "relativism. Nevertheless, exploration of such internalized, moral absolutes, and the identifications from which they stem, requires therapeutic tact. Some patients may try to resolve inner conflicts about being gay by selectively attending to their antihomosexual identifications. Unable to tolerate conflicting feelings about homosexuality, these patients rather unconvincingly tell themselves, "It is OK to be gay.

In the subjectivity of the latter, heterosexuality is idealized and homosexuality dissociated. After coming out, being gay is idealized, while disapproving feelings are denied. Therapeutic holding entails being able to contain both sides Winnicott, When gay patients understand their own antihomosexual attitudes--and the defenses against them--they have a wider view of themselves. As patients feel more comfortable with themselves, they may begin to feel more comfortable with others.

Not only does this encourage self-awareness, increase self-esteem and enhance the quality of relationships, it helps a patient more accurately assess the implications of coming out. If a patient chooses to come out, the decision needs to be carefully explored. Conversely, the same is true if a patient decides not to come out.

Given the social stigma, the severity of antihomosexual attitudes in the culture and the difficulties associated with revealing one's sexual identity, why would a gay person come out at all? Furthermore, coming out offers gay people the possibility of integrating a wider range of previously split-off affects, not just their sexual feelings Drescher et al.

Greater ease in expressing themselves, both to themselves and to others, can lead to an enormous enrichment of their work and relationships. To many, such activities constitute a reasonable definition of mental health.