Autism/ADHD Identity Wellbeing

Gatekeeping actually makes the neurodivergent community less of a safe place

Essy Knopf8 Comments
autism community gatekeeping Essy Knopf
Reading time: 5 minutes

Living within an ableist society, neurodivergent (ND) folks often experienced marginalization. But to experience it within the ND community is not something most of us would expect.

Consider young autistics and ADHDers who go in search of community online, only to have a total stranger blast them for using terminology some have deemed inappropriate.

Any sense of belonging and acceptance this person might have found is suddenly withdrawn the moment they express themselves.

This was my experience, and one I believe is shared by many. The policing of ND identities is a very real phenomenon, and one I think requires further discussion.

The people responsible for this behavior—I’m going to call them “gatekeepers”—have a tendency to treat our community as monolithic.

According to these gatekeepers, only their worldview is endorsed, while all others are incorrect and subject to harsh criticism.

Knowing that one could be punished by such folk for speaking “out of turn” creates a chilling effect in online discussions. And so it’s the voices of the gatekeepers that usually end up being the loudest—to the exclusion of all others.

Some disclaimers

I want to make it clear that many advocates within the ND community do important work. And I’d like to believe that most of them are motivated by genuine compassion. Yet the gatekeeping approach to advocacy raises a number of concerns.

Full disclosure: I am speaking today as someone who is autistic and has ADHD. Any opinions I share here are entirely my own.

I acknowledge that my ability to speak out in the first place is a privilege. Not everyone in our community enjoys this privilege.

I also want to acknowledge that NDs have been marginalized and oppressed throughout history.

Widespread ableism means that the status quo largely exists to serve the interests of neurotypicals (NTs). This is why challenging the status quo and fighting for ND empowerment are so crucial. 

Gatekeeping in the ND community feeds toxic shame

That said, I believe some gatekeepers challenge for the sake of challenging in and of itself. What doesn’t help is when they behave in a way that can be dogmatic, if not militant. 

These gatekeepers appoint themselves the authority, defining what is “good” and “bad”, “right” and “wrong” for everyone else.

Typically, they take a very strong stand on hot-button topics, like the use of person-first language, the term “Asperger”, or the naming of autism and ADHD as pathological disorders.

Yes, these are important topics worthy of discussion, but discussion can’t happen so long as one party feels they have a monopoly on the truth, as gatekeepers so often do.

Believing in their own righteousness, many gatekeepers will label those who disagree with them as ignorant, ableist, and oppressive.

Demonizing people in this fashion feeds shame. In the words of Brené Brown:

“Shame is the fear of disconnection—it’s the fear that something we’ve done or failed to do, an ideal that we’ve not lived up to, or a goal that we’ve not accomplished makes us unworthy of connection. I’m not worthy or good enough for love, belonging, or connection.”

Nobody likes to feel this way. Everyone—and I mean everyone—wants to feel worthy of love and belonging. 

Worse still, if the intention of gatekeepers is to create shape, when they shame others, they undermine their capacity for change. As Brown goes on to explain:

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we can change and do better… In fact, shame is much more likely to be the cause of destructive and hurtful behaviors than it is to be the solution.”

There is a history of NTs weaponizing shame against ND folk. So when ND folks shame both NTs and other NDs, it is—to say the very least—problematic.

Gatekeeping drowns out other voices

Gatekeepers claim there is a consensus within the various ND communities, one again that usually aligns with their own personal beliefs. 

But in fact, no such consensus exists. These communities comprise diverse individuals who identify and express themselves in a variety of ways.

No one has the right to speak for every member, just as no one has the right to silence those who don’t agree with their points of view.

One example of this is when gatekeepers whitewash autism, painting it exclusively as a positive while failing to acknowledge that it may be experienced by others with mixed feelings, or as a negative.

Similarly, many gatekeepers frame autism as a mere social challenge caused by systemic ableism. This social model of autism has been adopted as an alternative to the medical model, which has sometimes been used to oppress autistic folk.

But romanticizing autism in this fashion dismisses the reality of those individuals who experience autism as a debilitating disability. 

Likewise, gatekeepers who insist that autism is an intrinsic part of our identity fail to admit that this isn’t the case for everyone.

By dominating discussions about autism, gatekeepers fail to hold a space for other community members and even compromise their right to self-expression.

Gatekeeping ignores privilege

What a lot of gatekeepers don’t realize is the ability to advocate is a privilege that not all ND folk get to enjoy.

For example, many individuals on the autism spectrum experience some form of intellectual disability and/or are nonspeaking. 

These individuals may not have the opportunity to express how they feel. And so, their wishes go unheard, and their needs unaddressed. 

If the inclusion of all ND individuals is our priority as a community, why then are so many of us assuming the right to speak for others? 

Again, by virtue of being the loudest, gatekeepers get to decide what issues receive the most attention.

Their advantages allow them to privilege their own voices, rather than elevating those more disadvantaged than them.

Gatekeeping undermines coalition-building

The final issue I want to address is the “us vs. them” attitude gatekeepers take towards the medical community and parents of ND folk.

We know, for example, that ND folks have been treated horrifically in the past. The Nazi regime for example actively murdered our forebearers, so it stands to reason that many of us might treat medical authorities with suspicion.

The problem begins when some gatekeepers claim all researchers want to “cure” autism—an action compared to eugenics. This is a smear campaign.

Consider those autistic individuals living in full-time care who are prone to frequent seizures, meltdowns, self-injury, and violence. They undoubtedly experience autism in a way that differs vastly from that of privileged gatekeepers.

Many researchers are working to enhance the quality of life for such individuals, and yet gatekeepers continue to accuse these professionals of endorsing ableism.

Similarly, when desperate parents of autistic folk reach out to the community seeking understanding, insight, and support, often they are shut down and declared the enemy.

Instead of building coalitions with community allies, some gatekeepers sideline them.

Gatekeeping is not social justice

Gatekeepers may be part of a social justice movement, but there can be no justice so long as one party assumes the moral high ground, dominates the discourse, and bullies both allies and NDs alike.

I gave up my previous career to enter social work with the hope of serving the ND community. Yet I’m troubled by the knowledge that should I ever fail to measure up to the demands made by ND gatekeepers, I’ll be judged and shamed. 

This leads me to wonder, are these individuals truly invested in serving the ND community? Or are they just traumatized individuals who are now inflicting that trauma upon others?

Gatekeepers often point out that words can oppress, only to themselves use words in an oppressive way.

The result, more often than not, is not dialogue, or mutual understanding, but very public social media attacks upon someone’s intelligence, knowledge, values, or character.

Wrap up

Have you experienced some form of ND gatekeeping? Or do you completely disagree with the points I’ve raised here? Let me know in the comments.

Autism/ADHD LGBTQI+ Social work

Trauma recovery begins when denial, repression, and dissociation end

Essy Knopf Leave a comment
Essy Knopf trauma recovery
Reading time: 4 minutes

The first proof of my trauma recovery was the return of memories once thought lost.

In the years after I started my therapy journey, I would find myself going about my business—walking my dog, showering, or driving to an appointment—only to be suddenly ambushed by recollection. 

Usually, these memories came to me in fragments: an odor, a feeling, a face, or a conversation.

I’d remember my excitement playing Link’s Awakening for the first time on my Gameboy Color. Or maybe I’d recall my late aunt’s tuxedo cat, Sylvester; the mockery of a snub-nosed boy in sixth grade.

Sometimes, I’d hark back to my first glimpse of the technicolor shells of iMac G3 in a school computer lab; the fantasies of collecting one of each “flavor”: Bondi Blue, Strawberry, Lime, and Tangerine. 

Other times, I’d wax nostalgic about the rain rattling the tin roof of the family home or the particular smell of the department stores my mother would like to spend hours wandering in search of sales.

Now and then, I’d think fondly of the moments spent loitering at the local newsagent, thumbing through copies of PC Powerplay and Nintendo Power magazines, dreaming about one day owning all the latest gaming consoles.

With each of these memories came emotions, often in a big jumble: longing and regret, as if for something lost, bittersweet joy, and sadness. 

A past rediscovered: the start of trauma recovery

When I think of time, I think of years, represented as a series of three-dimensional bar charts. Each bar represented a different month, arranged in a stair-like formation.

At the end of the month, I would imagine myself ascending a new bar, continuing until I had arrived in December, before moving on to the next chart behind it.

After my traumatic experiences, when I tried to peer back to the charts that had come before, my recall became hazy and my brain seemed to actively resist the effort.

If memories are like snapshots, all that was left to me were the countless throwaways that were returned to us when my family got our photos developed.

Always there were four or five shots that were to be out of focus. Sometimes a thumb was blocking the lens, or the flash of our disposable camera had blown out the image.

But the snapshots that now came to me, sealed for over 25 years inside some protective, internal vault, had all the vivid clarity of the present moment.

Puzzling as I was by this return, I was equally puzzled by the timing. The fragments were random and unconnected to my current circumstance. Just what was going on?

A sign of healing

For decades, trauma had strip-mined my consciousness of all evidence of my past; of memories both pleasant and painful.

Now, I was starting to amass a sizable collection. But having no idea what to do with them, I consigned them to a mental storehouse for later review.

Then, during one particularly humid summer—a summer that reminded me far too much of those of a childhood spent in the tropics—I was inundated by a wave of these memories, leaving me both bewildered and melancholic. 

“I just don’t understand,” I said during one therapy session. “Why am I remembering all of this?”

“It sounds like you’re healing,” my therapist replied, trying to normalize what to me felt painfully abnormal. 

“But why? What function does this serve?” I asked through my tears. “Why now? I just want to understand.” 

What I wanted was a cut-and-dry explanation for what is, for everyone, a messy and unpredictable recovery process. 

Therapists liked to call this behavior “intellectualizing”. In my case, I was trying to bypass an emotional experience by using my intellect. 

This “ego defense” was one I had depended upon for years to cope with my trauma. It was also one of the key obstacles to my healing. 

Reintegration: the beginning of trauma recovery

So rather than resisting the wave, I rode it, allowing the memories and emotions they conjured to come and go.

Soon after, I embarked upon a single-minded hunt for various articles from my childhood. 

This involved preparing a playlist containing every memorable song of the 90s and the early aughts. Next, I put together a book list containing every title my teen self had read. 

After this task had been completed, I hunted down scans of the magazines I’d once flipped through and the illustrated video game guides and manuals I’d once savored during long car trips.

Often, my searches did not culminate in any action; I didn’t always listen to the music or consume this reading material. 

Instead, I found a strange comfort in the fact I once more had possession of these formerly lost relics from my past.

This obsessive collecting on my part I realized was an outward expression of an internal process: reintegration.

The part of myself I had once cut off was returning piece by piece, and I was searching for props to help facilitate its assembly.

I was working, in my own way, towards a whole, coherent narrative of self and past.

Overcoming denial, repression, and dissociation

In the words of author Judith Herman’s seminal work, Trauma and Recovery:

“The goal of recounting the trauma story is integration, not exorcism.”1

Herman goes on to explain:

Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites…for the healing of individual victims. The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom. Denial, repression, and dissociation operate on a social as well as an individual level.

Undertaking therapy allowed me to finally release the taut knot of my trauma survivor psyche. And with that release had come recollection—not just of traumatic events, but everything in between.

Memories in turn triggered “floods of intense, overwhelming feeling”, which proved wholly alien to me after years spent dwelling in the “extremes of amnesia…and arid states of no feeling at all”.

I was not in crisis; I was in a state of trauma recovery. And in order to complete that recovery, I would have to let go of the three skills that had permitted my survival through alienation from my own self—denial, repression, and dissociation.

When one cannot escape a reality in which one feels threatened and powerless, one finds ways of adapting. 

I too had once acted as if nothing had happened, ignoring my emotions, burying memories, and mentally checking out when confronted by a frightening reality.

They had served an adaptive function. But maintained over time, they had caused the margins of my life to contract to a pinprick in which only survival is the only possibility, and never true flourishing.

This is a kind of living death; imprisonment in a psychological internment camp.

And now, finally, after years spent walking through a dim, gray limbo, I could see the possibility of a death revoked, and life renewed.

Identity LGBTQI+ Wellbeing

How magical thinking destroys gay men’s chances of living authentically

Essy Knopf Leave a comment
Essy Knopf magical thinking
Reading time: 6 minutes

Are you sitting down, dear reader? There’s something I need to tell you: almost everything we’ve been doing up to this point in the pursuit of happiness may very well have been undermining it.

Many aspects of the gay monoculture—the party lifestyle, substance abuse, hookups, out-of-control sexual habits, love addiction, our obsession with personal image, status, and achievement—are in some way tied up with magical thinking.

“If I get this, do this, be this, then I’ll be OK.” Wish-fulfillment keeps us walking the hedonic treadmill, riding an endless carousel of self-gratification.

Even supposing we achieve our goal, we may find the bar only continues to rise. So we clutch in vain for the brass ring of materialism, personal transformation, acceptance, recognition, and adoration.

Maybe all of this isn’t exactly news to you, and you have long since grown out of chasing elusive thrills. Or you may have simply upped the dosage and drowned out the hurt and disappointment.

The trauma of being gay

The first step on the way to surrendering the magical thinking that keeps us trapped in this cycle lies in identifying the causes.

As gay men, we can arrive at chronic suffering in a variety of ways. We may have also experienced misattunement with our caregivers, who may not have had the capacity to fully meet our emotional needs.

Or our caregivers may have invalidated us on the basis of our sexuality—an all-too-common experience for gay boys. 

We may have experienced some form of childhood adversity. Some of us are even survivors of trauma. 

Trauma includes abuse and neglect, but also any experience that places “an overwhelming demand placed upon the physiological human system”, to quote International Trauma Center President Dr. Robert D. Macy. 

You may for example have been traumatized by individual acts of homophobia, or from the minority stress that results from its many systemic manifestations. Rejection, exclusion, marginalization, or physical harm for many can take a great toll. 

If we are already lacking social support, such as the unconditional love and acceptance of family members or friends, the damage is only magnified.

For men, this is a fact of our existence. We are socialized from an early age to believe that in order to qualify for gender membership, we must strive for an impossible masculine ideal of self-reliance.  

We do this by cutting ourselves off from our emotions, from the support of our mothers, and from our communities, a tragic development outlined in Terrence Real’s I Don’t Want to Talk About It.

We suffer even further from the absence of father figures and a lack of parental involvement. According to the Pew Research Center, one-in-four US fathers live apart from their children. 

Twenty-nine percent of those same fathers see their children at least once a month, while 21% visit several times a year, and 27% don’t visit at all. 

And according to the National Fatherhood Initiative, this absence carries a very real impact on children’s wellbeing.

Healthy, mutual relationships with primary caregivers are how we learn how to form nurturing attachments with others, maintain personal boundaries, regulate our emotions, and soothe ourselves in times of distress. 

In this sense, our first relationships are the most defining, setting the stage for how we adapt—or maladapt—to our future circumstances.

When we are deprived of these crucial supports, we can develop an insecure attachment style, and struggle to develop the resilience so necessary to weathering life’s many storms. 

A final but crucial source of trauma emerges from the relationships we engage in as adults. For those of us with difficult histories, we may turn to our partners for comfort and healing, only to find ourselves re-enacting toxic attachment patterns.

We may even lash out, inflicting the abandonment, abuse, or betrayal we ourselves have suffered. This only serves to compound our existing pain, driving us with increasing desperation towards escape and reprieve.

magical thinking the thoughtful gay

Becoming ‘masters of survival’

When we feel threatened, the system charged with ensuring our survival—the autonomic nervous system (ANS)—kicks into gear.

This “personal surveillance system”, Polyvagal Theory practitioner Deb Dana moves us many times daily between states of social engagement and connection (safety) to mobilization (scared), and immobilization (shut down).

These state changes are adaptive survival responses, driven by special powers of danger perception Polyvagal Theory author Stephen Porges calls “neuroception”. 

Trauma survivors or those with insecure attachment styles may find their neuroception runs in overdrive, leaving them wary and hypervigilant. As a result, they may spend long periods stuck on the lower “scared” and “shut down” rungs of the “autonomic ladder”. 

Our autonomic responses eventually become patterned not around the need for connection, but self-protection. 

An out-of-whack autonomic response thus makes a state of safety next to impossible. With the ANS no longer able to adequately self-regulate, we suffer ongoing stress, physical illness, relationship strain, and changes in our mental functions.

While the ANS is activated, we are unable to socially engage, causing us to miss out in turn on the benefits of co-regulation—what Dana calls the “reciprocal regulation of our autonomic states”.

This co-regulation occurs when we connect and attune to others in healthy, mutual relationships. It is a key requisite to shifting from a state of danger, back into a state of safety.

“Supported by co-regulating relationships, we become resilient,” Dana writes. 

“In relationships awash in experiences of misattunement, we become masters of survival.”

Given the collective trauma within the gay community, however, finding such co-regulation within may prove difficult. 

In its absence, we will pursue less savory means of regulation such as objectification, exploitation, invalidation, and exclusion, which have reached new lows on gay dating services and hookup apps.

essy knopf authenticity

Deception, magical thinking, and self-medication

We survive through adaptation. When things go wrong early in life, however, we stand a great chance of maladapting instead.

Experiencing homophobia and resulting shame leads many of us into a life of emotional inauthenticity. Denied the ability to explore our own identities and to embark upon relationships during our formative years, we don a cloak of secrecy and self-deception as a matter of survival.

“Something about growing up gay forced us to learn how to hide ugly realities behind a finely crafted façade,” writes The Velvet Rage author Alan Downs.

Outwardly, we may proclaim self-acceptance. Inwardly, however, we are still carrying around unworthiness and internalized homophobia.

Its poisonous whisperings may lead us to reject other gay men arbitrarily, just as we ourselves were once rejected. Prejudices within the gay dating scene—be it racial, age or weight-based—are just a few expressions of this.

The deep, unexpressed pain we carry as trauma survivors, if left addressed, may eventually bubble back to the surface in the form of deep-seated anger.

That anger may be directed either at ourselves in the form of self-harming behaviors, or at the individuals or systems that we believe have failed, betrayed, and harmed us.

Without the knowledge or means to move forward, we ignore our wounds, numb the pain, and chase distraction.

We may find it in fantasies of personal transformation or romantic fulfillment. For those of us weaned on Disney—a company that built an empire on the power of dream—it’s all too easy to indulge in the idea of Cinderella-style transformations.

One day, we tell ourselves, we’ll shed our sooty smocks and don the glass slipper. Some dashing Prince Charming will appear and bestow upon us the fortunes of unconditional love and acceptance.

Our pursuit of such an embodiment of perfection of course is doomed from the outset. And yet we continue to plunge headlong into romantic liaison after liaison, without pausing to consider the whys and hows.

Denied co-regulation, we may also turn to self-medication in the form of process (behavioral) addictions, such as compulsively working out for hours on end so we can achieve some idealized physique.

Or it may take the form of substance addictions, which are present among gay men at significantly higher rates than the general population.

When we indulge in magical thinking, we try in vain to paper over the void at our core, believing that someway, somehow, our injuries will be healed and all wrongs righted.

But so long as we spend our energy cultivating distraction rather than introspection, our damage will go ignored and our very human need for healthy attachment and co-regulation unrecognized. 

essy knopf magical thinking co-regulation

Letting go of the false solutions of magical thinking

Each of us understands on some level that magical thinking is an act of deception. We recognize that the forms of satiety we seek run counter to self-care. 

And yet it is all too easy to get caught in the rut of trying to appease, ignore, or blunt our autonomic responses.

Try though we might to escape our dysregulation, all we are ultimately doing is deferring peace of mind.

Polyvagal Theory teaches us that in order to course-correct from scared and shutdown back to safety requires healthy relationships.

It is only through co-regulation that we can ever hope to loosen the hold misattunement and trauma have on our bodies, minds, and spirits. 

If your autonomic state makes finding co-regulations difficult, or if you’ve been burned by past interactions, a relationship with a mental health professional can prove an effective substitute. 

Through the support of a therapeutic alliance, open wounds both past and present may eventually start to close. Through a therapist’s supporting presence, autonomic regulation may suddenly become possible. 

In recognizing and addressing your autonomic needs, you are taking the first step towards a life of authenticity. To quote Brené Brown:

cultivating the courage to be emotionally honest, 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 connected to each other through a loving and resilient human spirit; nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we let go of what we are supposed to be and embrace who we are. Authenticity demands wholehearted living and loving—even when it’s hard, even when we’re wrestling with shame and fear of not being good enough, and especially when the joy is so intense that we’re afraid to let ourselves feel it. Mindfully practicing authenticity during our most soul-searching struggles is how we invite grace, joy, and gratitude into our lives.

By choosing authenticity, we surrender the false solutions of magical thinking. By choosing authenticity, we give up temporary rewards and commit ourselves to some much-needed repair. 

LGBTQI+ Wellbeing

Five reasons gay men should consider doing therapy

Essy Knopf 1 Comment
Essy Knopf gay men therapy
Reading time: 9 minutes

It’s not uncommon to meet fellow gay men suffering from anxiety and depression. It’s also not unusual that they are either unaware, in denial, or unwilling to recognize these challenges, or to take the steps necessary to address them.

Some years ago, I had a falling out with my flatmates. At the time I was directing a major shoot at film school and was under immense pressure. Amid my mad scramble to find a new apartment, I decided to meet Samson*, a gay man in his 20s who worked as an IT consultant. 

Having exchanged niceties, Samson quickly got down to brass tacks, advising me he wanted a flatmate willing to hang tea towels and stack dishwashers in a specific fashion.

As someone known for my somewhat OCD tendencies – I for example never allowed people to sit on my bed while wearing their “outside clothes” – I could to some degree relate. 

But Samson seemed to take things one step further. A health fanatic devoted to all-natural products, he told me I wouldn’t be allowed to clean with bleach, on the account he might be exposed to its fumes.

Despite my reservations, I took the room. But from that first meeting onward, the stipulations piled up. One minute I was using too much fridge space, the next I was filling the kettle with “excess” water and wasting energy.

Samson even took to switching off the oven when he believed I was using it too long.

While he managed to bend some of his rules for me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my presence in Samson’s home was not welcome. I could tell that while he wanted to save on rent, but also wanted to live alone. 

Worse still, whenever we happened to cross paths, Samson would complain. First, it was about his cutthroat colleagues at work. A week later it was the ex who seemed incapable of empathy, and the friends who failed to understand Samson’s very specific health choices. 

Samson told me he was against eating hydrogenated oils, on account of them being carcinogenic. For him, discovering that a meal contained even a trace of such was enough to ruin an entire night out.

Listening to Samson, I felt torn. Some of his complaints were understandable, and yet I knew I was being used as a sounding board for his discontent.

I tried to bring empathy and some perspective to the issues Samson raised, and yet nothing I said or did made any difference. Samson was trapped in a cycle of negative thinking, focused only on assigning blame to others.

So long as he continued to see the apparent failures of others as a reflection of their respect for him – and by implication Samson’s worth as a person – this would likely continue.

Samson’s paradigm was clearly at fault here, but I became convinced that it was serving double duty as a smokescreen for Samson’s inability to manage his own distress. 

By pretending it was not there, he would never have to confront it. Yet this unwillingness to accept and recognize his covert depression was precisely what was keeping him stuck. Rather than practicing introspection, Samson searched for scapegoats. 

Once or twice I broached the subject of seeing a therapist. Each time, Samson produced a readymade excuse.

The few therapists Samson had approached would not take his health insurance. The nature of Samson’s job meant he was often on the road with short notice, making it difficult for him to plan therapy sessions in advance.

Then there was the question of trust: Samson didn’t want to open up to just anyone. 

These were legitimate friction points, ones faced by many gay men looking to undertake therapy. But they were also excuses. As per the old maxim, if you really want to do something, you’ll find a way.

1. Gay men often suffer from depression

An inability or unwillingness to acknowledge one’s own mental health struggles is usually a product of self-denial; of alienation from one’s own authentic feelings.

Like a majority of men, we as gay men often suffer interpersonal prejudice and discrimination over our identities. These minority stresses can leave us stricken with shame while placing us at greater risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide.

That risk is exacerbated by the fact that males are socially programmed to go at it alone. Masculinity is popularly coded as being self-reliant, an idea more widely echoed in our culture’s embrace of rugged individualism, i.e. the “I don’t need help from anyone” mentality (see my earlier article on embracing your authentic gay identity).

Gay men tend to be more emotionally expressive than their straight counterparts. Gender-atypical tendencies like this often lead to us being singled out and persecuted. Any wonder then we should be especially challenged when it comes to asking for help.

But forcing ourselves to repress our emotions and to cut ourselves off from the help of others leaves us prone to covert depression. This depression is often the reason many of us should seek help…and yet it can also serve as a major source of resistance.

Depression sufferers know all too well how we can become trapped in the stasis field of negative thoughts and “automatic”, self-perpetuating cognitive distortions.

In his book Feeling Good, David D. Burns notes that these distortions lead in turn to procrastination and “do-nothingism”. That is, we found ourselves restrained by the very same inertia we are seeking to escape. 

Thus the depressive, lacking the motivation to change, surrenders to the comforting familiarity of their unhappiness.

Another reason it is difficult to take action is that covert depression operates as a kind of background presence that evades easy detection, or may be put down to just a passing “mood”.

Similarly, anxiety – depression’s fraternal sibling – may also be dismissed as an inevitable feature of modern life. It may even be regarded as a helpful crutch that gives the sufferer a motivational edge; a willingness to go the extra mile that is recognized and rewarded by employers.

2. We may have attachment difficulties

Caregivers play a crucial role not just in early development but our future wellbeing. They comfort us during times of distress, fostering a sense of security through healthy attachment. That attachment serves as a template for future relationships, shaping whether we are able to form close bonds with others. 

Attachment also provides children with an internal working model of self-worth. It defines whether we see the world as a safe or nurturing place, or one full of pain, uncertainty, and anguish. It provides the primary reference point for our lived experience. 

Ruptured attachment is the result of either active trauma, which typically involves a boundary violation such as physical or sexual abuse, or passive trauma, which involves some form of physical or emotional lack, such as neglect. Ruptured attachment can occur at any point during childhood or teenagehood.

Gay men experience both active and passive trauma when a parent rejects, neglects or attacks them over their sexuality, an experience which is all too common.

During early attachment, trauma is preverbal, making our suffering literally beyond words. As such, it can be difficult to “re-cognize” the experience and come to grips with its effect on us as adults.

Without the help of a trained practitioner, we will continue to live unknowingly in the shadow of our trauma, afflicted with mental health conditions like depression.

3. We may be unable to self-soothe

Ruptured attachment results in an inability to self-soothe. When our caregivers fail to properly “attune” to us and provide the correct behavioral modeling, we fail to develop this vital skill. 

Self-soothing means being able to realize we are hurting, to give ourselves the comfort we need, and to seek it from others when we can’t. 

Without self-soothing, we may find ourselves prone to “fight, flight, or freeze” in times of stress. 

That is, we engage in one of three coping strategies: coming out guns blazing, running from danger, or shutting down. We don’t seek the support we so desperately need, leaving us beholden to depression and anxiety.

In an attempt to pacify our troubled minds and hearts, we may turn to the Band-Aid fixes of grandiosity or process addictions.

4. Gay men are debilitated by shame

For gay men, depression is often compounded by longstanding shame. The distinction between guilt and shame, as pointed out by Brené Brown, is that guilt involves believing “I did something bad”, while shame involves assigning a permanent negative quality to yourself, like “I am bad”.

We come by shame firstly through socialization. Society teaches us our sexuality is abnormal, perverse, and even morally wrong. When this view is adopted by our caregivers, it may not necessarily lead to outright rejection, but rather words or deeds that are invalidating.

Invalidations, no matter how small they may seem, can inflict profound psychic wounds, Alice Miller says. If the only people in the world duty-bound to love you unconditionally mock or belittle you because of your sexuality, you may come to believe you are inherently unlovable.

The child with a devastating belief in his own unworthiness is likely to carry it into adulthood. If left unaddressed, this belief can leave us relationally impaired, resulting in an insecure attachment style.

Attached authors Amir Levine and Rachel Heller estimate about half of the adult population suffer from insecure attachment styles. In the case of gay men, this figure may arguably be even higher.

essy knopf gay men therapy

How a therapist can help gay men

Therapy is one way we can identify the impact ruptured attachment or invalidation has had upon us. It offers avenues for reconnecting with aspects of ourselves we may have become alienated from as a result of parental and social rejection and invalidation. 

And it is through this connection that we develop self-awareness, what Daniel Goleman calls “emotional intelligence”, and thus the ability to self-soothe.

A relationship with a therapist ideally is reparative. They model the unconditional acceptance of an ideal caregiver, creating an accepting space in which clients can vent to thoughts and feelings they have been forced to repress, often as a matter of survival. 

A good therapist uses compassion and insight to help their patients reintegrate alienated parts of the self. Through their guidance, gay men can come to terms with the loss and anguish they have suffered.

Therapy requires that we go to places we have been avoiding. After a lifetime spent mastering the art of emotional concealment, gay men undergoing therapy are asked to forgo their craft and expose their wounds and weak spots.

Embracing vulnerability in this fashion allows us to ultimately regain our long-lost ability to be emotionally authentic.

As Buddhist Pema Chödrön points out:

Without realizing it we continually shield ourselves from this pain because it scares us. We put up protective walls made of opinions, prejudices, and strategies, barriers that are built on a deep fear of being hurt… Finding the courage to go to the places that scare us cannot happen without compassionate inquiry into the workings of ego… Either we question our beliefs – or we don’t. Either we accept our fixed versions of reality – or we begin to challenge them. 

Choosing a therapist

Making the decision to undergo therapy sometimes feels like half the struggle. Then you have to deal with the deadly triad: money, scheduling, and what Samson called trust, but which I like to think of as compatibility. 

You can’t put a price on your mental wellbeing, so don’t let the cost alone thwart your efforts. If you don’t have a mental health care-inclusive health care plan, consider finding a therapist who offers sliding scale fees. If you need to take time out during working hours, negotiate with your manager or HR department.

When choosing a therapist, we all need assurance that we are in safe hands. We are, after all, seeking the unconditional acceptance we were once denied. Our chosen confidant, therefore, needs to show they will honor this responsibility. 

Bessel van der Kolk suggests three criteria by which you can gauge this: comfort, curiosity, and collaboration. To that list, I would also add proactivity and accountability:

  • Comfort: Do you feel comfortable and safe in the presence of this therapist? Do they seem comfortable with you? In the words of van der Kolk: “Someone who is stern, judgmental, agitated, or harsh is likely to leave you feeling scared, abandoned, and humiliated, and that won’t help you resolve your traumatic stress”.
  • Curiosity: Does the therapist seem interested in you as a person? Or do they see you as just another patient to be handed a rote list of advice and instructions? Do they actually listen to you? Are they comfortable sitting with your distress? Or do they immediately leap into diagnosis and prescription?
  • Collaboration: Is the therapist demonstrating a genuine desire to work with you, to explore your issues in-depth and to formulate a treatment plan?
  • Proactivity: Some therapists tend to take a nondirective role. As a result, you may feel you have to overcompensate. Sessions may become endless talk marathons, broken only by you prompting your therapist for participation. There is great value in a sympathetic ear, and venting is definitely part of the process. But given for example depression’s tendency to keep us trapped in automatic thoughts, we are never going to make the necessary shifts in our thinking without the help of someone willing to interrupt, redirect and even challenge, where necessary.
  • Accountability: Does your therapist honor their appointments with you? Do they cancel or reschedule on short notice? A therapist who is unpredictable or inconsistent can’t provide you with the security and caregiver-like “containment” you need. This also works in reverse. Do they help keep you accountable? Set tasks and homework? Without proper follow through on your behalf, your recovery may be hindered.

Remember: you are not locked into any therapist relationship. Treat the first session and those that follow like you would a date. You may be seeking immediate relief, but your objective should be to assess compatibility. 

In the end, there is no use building a relationship with someone who isn’t capable of giving you the support you need. Be willing to shop around until you find the right fit. And if it isn’t working, be prepared to move on. 

As with any endeavor, you will face setbacks. Sometimes these setbacks may simply come down to lack of motivation. If this is the case, break the task of finding a therapist into baby steps and try to complete one step a day.

The act of unlearning maladaptive behaviors and patterns can take months, if not years. Your recovery ultimately comes down to your being patient with the journey, flexible in your approach, and perhaps most importantly, remaining committed to your wellbeing.

Creating a new self unburdened by the injustices of your past first requires that you choose to break with the old.

“When I let go of what I am,” says Chinese philosopher Laozi, “I become what I might be”.

For advice on finding a therapist, check out this handy post by the American Psychological Association.

Takeaways

  • Acknowledge you may have depression.
  • Consider how your attachment history and feelings of shame might be playing a role.
  • Fight motivational inertia! Take it one baby step at a time.
  • Stay committed. You're in this for the long haul.

* Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of all individuals discussed in this article.

LGBTQI+ Wellbeing

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

Essy Knopf Leave a comment
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.

Stories

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

Essy Knopf Leave a comment
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 years—and many more immovable objects—however, 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”.

Stories

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

Essy Knopf Leave a comment
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”.

Stories

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

Essy Knopf Leave a comment
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”.

Stories

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

Essy Knopf Leave a comment
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”.

Stories

Confessions of a Control Freak – Part 5: An Enforcer of Standards

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Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
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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

“What are you doing?

I was seated in the teacher’s office at an English school in Dalian, Liaoning province, China. The room was rectangular, rather pokey, and lined with chipped tables that looked well past the age of retirement.

The question had come from directly behind me. I turned and found Lucy, one of several of our school’s many super-competent assistant teachers, standing there.

She’d plastered a gummy smile to her face, and yet her eyes held raptor-like interest.

Lucy had caught me in the act of editing a classic novel: The Forsyte Saga by British author John Galsworthy. I froze, pen poised above the opening passages.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
A man, his mule, and a horse-drawn cart at a street market.

“What am I doing?” I repeated. “I’m fixing it.” And as if to punctuate my point, I crossed out another phrase and scrawled a correction.

Already, I had removed “pale eyes”, “pale and well-shaved”, “pale, brown face”. Next to go were “his cheeks”, “lean cheeks”, “cheek-bones”, and “in her cheeks”.

These minor repetitions were, upon later reflection, probably intentional; meant to convey the blandly similar appearances of Forsyte family members.

Still, the repeated use of the words irked me in some unexplainable way. So much so, in fact, I’d taken it upon myself to address the problem directly, leaving the book resembling something closer to a D-grade paper. 

Lucy’s smile remained frozen on her face, but her eyes were now bulging, much in the same fashion they had that one time I’d patted her shoulder. 

The gesture had been my way of softening a joke I’d just made. By her response, it was clear that all I’d succeeded in doing was violating a personal or cultural boundary.

When it happened, Lucy and I had been in a van on a freeway. Escape had not been an option for her. Now, however, she had an exit and was steadily inching toward it. 

In Lucy’s mind, I was a certifiable weirdo. But what my colleague didn’t understand was that I was simply trying to be equitable.

If I was going to criticize someone, I should be willing to criticize everyone. No one should be spared…least of all a Nobel Prize-winning author.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Vendors at a street market.

II

I’d arrived in China a month earlier, on a one-way ticket purchased with the help of an unexpected tax return windfall.

My timing perhaps could have been better. Dalian was on the tail-end of a protracted northern winter.

Drifts of hardpack snow still littered the sidewalk, forming muddy, compacted slipways which had to be navigated with the utmost delicacy, lest one be sent skidding into oncoming traffic.

My latest venture abroad was fueled by a single resolution: no matter what, I was going to spend the next year in my current post.

To this purpose, I had brought with me a single, trundling suitcase packed with clothes, boxes of gluten-free bread mix, and a stack of Penguin classic paperbacks.

Having jettisoned my filmmaking ambitions—for what alternative did I have?—I now dedicated myself instead to a new project. I was going to read the best literary works Western culture had to offer. 

For this purpose, I had drawn up a regimented reading schedule. The schedule guaranteed that by the elapse of two full years, I would have read the top 100.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Workers outside a restaurant in China.

It was an ambitious goal, and one that would not have been possible were it not for the fact my job teaching elementary, middle, and high schoolers basic English only demanded 22 hours of my time a week.

I also had a multipronged strategy. Walking the cobbled streets of northern France months prior, I had managed to complete the 50-hour-plus audiobook adaptation of Les Miserables. By combining traditional reading with audiobooks, I stood a good chance of exceeding my goal.

Of course, aspiring to live abroad while planning to remain indoors reading isn’t exactly the definition of sensible. 

I had promised myself that I would go out and experience the people, the places, and the culture, but a combination of factors was rendering it rather difficult.

Namely, the self-consciousness that began the instant I entered any unfamiliar social setting. Coupled with my minimal working knowledge of Mandarin, I found myself more or less housebound.

My fellow English teachers—expatriates from countries like the US, Canada, and New Zealand—made token efforts to include me, including an invitation to eat hot pot. 

This was followed a few weeks later by a boozy outing at a bowling alley. I attended with the understanding that this was to be a kind of test; my opportunity to prove that I could be one of them.

The expected method? Demonstrating masculine prowess…prowess I was certain I lacked. Strutting, boasting, and carousing was about as natural to me as oil painting with my toes.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
A woman sending flowers by the roadside.

As a gay, clumsy, socially inept teetotaller, I sensed immediately my own status as an outsider among hetero social drinkers and seasoned bowlers.

I was helped by the fact my hand-eye coordination began and ended at the computer keyboard.

Nine out of ten times, I gutter-balled. And like the good sport I was, I took these losses bravely, grumbling and slinking back to my seat. 

The other teachers offered praise and encouragement, but I was trailing behind in the scorecards—and I hadn’t even had a single drink!

Listening to my peers taunt one another and exchange playful digs, I realized that when it came to me, they were all pulling their punches. 

It could have been an act of courtesy. It wasn’t like we were long-standing friends after all.

But when I really thought about it, it was probably also the fact they knew better than to kick a killjoy when he’s already down.

Fifty gutter balls later, I excused myself and trudged home through the bone-numbing cold.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
People cross a city street.

III

Like many expatriate communities, my fellow teachers had formed a fraternity based on their status as outsiders looking in.

Membership in this fraternity required the daily trade of outrageous stories involving acts of cruelty or brutality; a trade that was always conducted in the spirit of oneupmanship.

Have you heard about the children who tied lit firecrackers to the tails of rats? What about the man who bricked a stranger in a drunken rage?

Discussions of corporate corruption, oppressive one-party rule, or the incompetence of government officials were so commonplace as to have become almost banal.

One time, my colleagues offered biting commentary about the 2008 Chinese milk scandal, in which a company was charged with adding melamine as a filler to baby formula. 

Another time, they mocked the installation of giant perfumed fans during the Beijing Olympics, meant—apparently—to disguise the stench from an adjacent garbage dump.

As my coworkers looked down their noses upon the local populace, I in my supreme self-awareness looked down my nose at them. 

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
Highrises on the far bank of a river that ran through the city.

While they remained faultlessly polite, I desperately needed to find some reason to dislike them…if only to cover my own insecurities. 

Special resentment was reserved for one individual in particular: fratboy-in-chief Trevor.

Tall, loud, and boyishly handsome, Trev, as he liked to be called, would often lean in one corner, as cool and casual as James Dean in khakis.

From this position, he would proceed to orate, relating foreign media news reports usually confirming his own negative biases about China.

“Did you hear about that case in Harbin where someone started stealing manhole covers?” he said one day.

“Turns out they were selling them for scrap metal. The police only noticed after someone fell into an open hole and died.”

The other teachers exchanged a round of knowing looks—the symbolic equivalent of an elbow jab.

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
During my brief time in China, I met up with a friend who was also living in China. Together we explored another province and hiked up a holy mountain.

“That’s so f***ed up,” someone said.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” another added.

But if the shocks and scandals had ceased to outrage you—well, that was to be expected. People in China were, after all, not exactly trained to be civic-minded, but rather selfish to the point of sociopathy.

Trev’s accounts would inevitably inspire more, teachers piling on with scathing narratives until the idea of China-as-aggregate buckled under all the accumulated proof.

Sitting at my desk, I glowered at Trev, irritated not so much by his arrogance but by the fact he always seemed to be gloating. 

“You think you’re so goddamn superior, don’t you?” I’d fume…silently. “You with your strapping physique, your perfect Aryan looks, your molasses voice.”

“If you hate living here so much, why don’t you just go home? It’s not like anyone’s stopping you.”

Listening to these hard-bitten accounts, day in and day out, one had to wonder. Any English speaker with a TESOL certificate and college degree could find ready employment in China.

For many, it was an easy gig with few responsibilities. An escape from the realities of life back home. A chance to disappear over the horizon.

Then again, wasn’t this more or less why I myself had come? 

Essy Knopf Confessions of a Control Freak
One of the few buildings we encountered along the way.

IV

My first months in China were spent with my backside firmly planted in an armchair, working my way through my book pile.

Occasionally, I would venture outside to visit a local park, restock my fridge, or hazard a restaurant meal—the latter of which often resulted in vomiting spells.

In my eagerness to avoid future illness, I removed eating out from my ever-narrowing list of things to do and started making all my meals at home.

But even this presented a challenge. Food labels were almost never in English, so vetting ingredients for potential cross-contamination was impossible.

And given how narrow the list of items I could safely eat was, I found myself forced to branch out and try such novel ingredients as dried fungus or Chinese red dates. 

Using seasonings was a rather dicey proposition. The most widely available were fermented sauces such as soy, but as many contained wheat gluten, I avoided where I could entirely.

Even finding meat I was willing to eat was difficult. Most of it often came packaged bloody and with veins intact, a sight that had the effect of quelling all appetite.

After a period of experimentation, I managed to nail down a rotation of new dishes: shrimp and vegetable stir fry, goat curry, purple rice pudding, and potato-and-sweet-corn salad.

But eating the same meals over and over quickly grew tiresome. Worse still, none of them seemed to be particularly nutritional. 

Weight fell from me like water. Cheekbones protruded, lending my face a gaunt aspect. A sty appeared on the bottom of one eyelid.

Me at the end of the climb. My legs by this point had been turned to spaghetti.

Three months in, I stood before my bathroom mirror, taking in my transformed appearance. According to the scales, I had already dropped a total of twenty pounds.

At my current rate, in 21 months’ time, I could expect to weigh exactly zero pounds. Which was, coincidentally, when I was due to finish my reading list.

Given that a weight of zero pounds and my future survival happened to be mutually exclusive things, it was probably safe to assume that I’d never achieve my goal.

I was torn. My trip to Europe had ended in failure, and I had been adamant from the outset that this one would not.

China was to have been my gap year; an opportunity to enjoy the kinds of formative experiences I knew I had hitherto missed out on.

But now, I was being sabotaged, and the culprit this time wasn’t a financial crisis, but my own body. 

“Cutting yourself slack” wasn’t exactly an idea I kept in my ideological phrasebook. But given my current state of health, I really had no choice.

Once again, I was going to have to pack it in and return to Australia.

Confessions of a Control Freak continues with Part 6: “A treadmill of achievement”.