Why we hide behind the curtain of life & why it doesn’t work
Everyone knows the story of the Wizard of Oz, where the Great and Powerful Oz turned out to be just a man behind a curtain.
The Greek word for curtain is connected to aule, or “court,” perhaps because the “door” that led out to the courtyard of a Greek house was a hung cloth; figuratively, from the early 15th Century, from the French cortiner¸ “to enclose with or as if with a curtain.”
Why HSPs end up “behind the curtain” instead of traveling the roadmap of life.
When I think about how I stayed hidden most of my life I am more sad than anything—and yet how could it have been otherwise?
HSPs learn, as many who are afraid to reveal parts of themselves that others might consider unworthy, and at any early age, that sharing our “over-the-top” feelings, our fears, our natural, ingrained responses to overstimulation, etc., is Not A Good Thing.
There are lots of ways to hide, lots of different kinds of curtains. For me, there was the “I need to go practice the flute” curtain. From age five or six, I had the perfect excuse to close my door and be alone. Over time it felt like my only escape. Sure, over time it felt like a prison sometimes, but at least I was alone in my own self where I could read or sleep or listen to weepy music like “Bridge of Troubled Water” and let the tears flow.
The problem is that years and years of prison life is a real drain on your entire being. Literally. I always felt tired, partly because I slept so badly due to my chronic anxiety. My body ached from head to toe, no matter what I did or didn’t do. You get the point. Eventually, you go looking for labels and diagnoses, things to have and own, like “I have anxiety.” “I suffer from depression.” “I have fibromyalgia.” Having disorders then allows you to seek help for the distressing symptoms, and life becomes a revolving door of doctors and self-help books and pills.
Not that medical attention is bad. I myself seek medical assistance when I need it. And self-help books? There are lots of them on my shelves and many of them felt like they saved my life at the time. So there’s no judgment here. Only the suggestion that hiding who we are can lead to much more than a device for self-protection, and most of it isn’t good.
In other words, I was a high-functioning HSP. Are you?
Going behind my personal curtain allowed me to breathe. It allowed me to put away the constant act I promoted in front of other people because I felt it was what was expected of me and I would be chastised for being myself. My curtain developed a thickness over time, layer after layer of methods to hide.
Eating. Sleeping. Keeping my mouth shut. Pretending I was okay when I wasn’t. Always feeling less than and staying silent about it. Closing out, closing off, closing in. Shutting down, shutting out, shutting in.
The really sad thing is how many of us are smart enough and talented enough and brilliant enough to figure out ways to hide when all that brain power and heart power could power an entire electric grid!
It’s time to open the curtain, pull out your road map, get in the car, and go…go…go.
In other words, enjoy the ride!
