In today’s column, you will meet Aimee, 26, Paul, 59, and Natalie, 19. All are suffering from the same nightmare: hidden in their pasts are buried secrets — secrets so terrible and hideous that if revealed, an avalanche of shame would bury them. We call these secrets, skeletons in the closet.
Aimee is an intensive care nurse with an exemplary professional life. Her personal life, on the other hand, is in shambles. Her six-year marriage to Shaun, a passive man, is a mess. Shaun allows Aimee to make every decision in their marriage, so she walks all over him. Two years ago, she began a binge drinking pattern where on the night she completes her work week, she drinks bottles and bottles of wine. When drinking, she baits Shaun, “You are having affairs, right? You are a spineless, lazy man.”
At night, Aimee has the same repetitive dream. She is a 10-year-old child, alone in her bedroom. Her door opens, and her gut clenches as it picks up the presence of something huge, frightening and inevitable. She tries to scream, but she has no voice. She awakens, sweating and in terror. She knows why this dream has returned. Aimee’s skeleton in her closet is her sexual assault from age 10-13, by her step-father. Aimee’s drinking will soon be her second skeleton.
Next, we meet Paul. Paul’s bulging belly and bald head make him look older than 59. He has the facial features of a good, sensitive and kind man. Unfortunately, he is also a deeply troubled man. Unable to sleep, Paul escapes outside, but the cold black air gives him no comfort. Loneliness descends, like an iron dragon swooping down from a moonless, obsidian night, to land upon his shoulders. This new weight is insignificant compared to the older, darker, and heavier weight he holds inside. His eyes begin to leak, the back of his nose stings, his mind, an open sore, weeps over what he has buried: “I was 16. I was high on marijuana and pills, and I was driving home. I swerved and hit an oncoming car. A small child, a girl, was killed that night.”
Paul, never married, always alone and unable to keep a long-term relationship with a woman, starts, but does not finish, his application to an internet dating service.
Lastly, we meet Natalie, a drop dead gorgeous girl with emerald eyes, curly blond hair, and a 1,000-megawatt smile. She is a freshman in college. She has her heart set on being in a sorority, and has just completed an interview with the selection committee. Here is a snippet of the discussion by the committee chairperson, Sheila, after Natalie left the room: “Natalie is a sultry piece of work. I went to the same high school as her so I know her. She is in the Guinness Book of Records for sleeping with the most men. She would stain our sorority.”
Natalie’s skeleton in her closet (the alleged sexual promiscuity) comes from a distortion of the truth: at 15, she was raped. Because small town rumors have a very long shelf life, Natalie’s “skeleton” stays alive.
The phrase, skeletons in the closet, was first used in 19th Century England. It refers to the time prior to 1832, when it was illegal for surgeons to obtain corpses for medical study. So, physicians paid to have dead bodies secretly delivered to their homes, where they were stored and locked up in cupboards (the British word for closets). In 1832, the Anatomy Act was passed, allowing the legal use of corpses.
You don’t have any “large skeletons” like Aimee, Paul, or Natalie? OK. But how about smaller ones? Affairs, DUI’s, law breaking or probation, gambling, poor or absent parenting, the list goes on and on.
Most adults carry some version of a skeleton in their closet. What to do? In the same way that children are taught to use erasers on their pencils, so too must adults like us learn a new way to wash away our guilt and shame. Here are two good “erasers”:
First, practice daily self-forgiveness. This is hard to do because we live in a culture which sells us a false value: there is no 2nd act in America; you either win or lose, succeed, or fail, and if you fail, you pay for it forever. Here is a more human value: Life is series of trials and errors, of ups and downs. Our setbacks, failures and hardships are the gasoline which powers the engines of human growth.
Second, try to believe that life gives you an infinite number of “start over” cards. All it takes is the courage to play them.
The content of this article is for educational purposes only, and should not be used as a substitute for treatment by a professional. The characters in this story are not real. Names and details have been changed to protect confidentiality.
Dr. Richard Elghammer contributes his column each week to the Journal Review.
