The Great Pretender
What I was really covering up when I put on a costume
From my earliest memories, I loved playing dress up.
There’s a photo of me at about a year old wearing an eyelet onesie and a very long grey wig with peekaboo bangs. My mother’s wig. I’m smiling right into the camera as I tuck some of the hair behind my left ear. I have no idea if my mom popped the thing on my head or if I put it on myself. Clearly I’m enjoying myself.
There are other pictures like this and the memories that go along with them. At age 7, posing like Farrah Fawcett with two tennis balls under my shirt. At 10, sprawled on my new pink bed in my new bedroom (styled by me, all pink and red hearts) pretending I was going to be on the next cover of YM. At 12, dressing up like a waiter, mustache and bowtie included, to serve my parents a fancy dinner for a long-forgotten occasion. These are the happiest times of my childhood.
I was born on Halloween, which may explain my obsession with dressing up.
But there were other elements at work too. Dressing up is how I got the most approval in a family that loved but didn’t really see me. My parents wanted the best for my brother and me, and had two very different ideas of what that meant. My mother was fun-loving, emotional, and often distracted. My father was like a simmering pot who’d often boil over and burn me in the process, especially if I dared to speak my mind. I am a mixture of their best and worst traits: imaginative, emotional, sometimes fiery. In trying to gain the world’s approval, I grew determined to become a well-known actress. Determined to hustle for my worthiness by pretending to be anyone but myself.
No accident or surprise that that didn’t quite work out as I’d hoped.
It was a paradox, this desire to hide and also be seen.
There’s a tension in these competing emotions, and so much shame. At age 12 or 13, I entered a Madonna Wannabe contest at the Sherman Oaks Galleria. I’d spent hours perfecting my look and arrived at the Galleria to find hundreds of Madonnas of all ages and sizes also dressed to impress. “ If I win, I’ll know I have what it takes,” is what I told myself.
The crowd voted with applause and I was chosen as a finalist. I stood center stage while the disc jockey MC checked out my get up. Doc Martins, check. Lace gloves, check. Teased hair, check. Red lips — — “Oh look!” he said gleefully, “she put the mole on the wrong side!” Madonna’s mole is on the right (I guess). I put mine on the left. The audience booed and my face immediately went hot. My worst pre-teen nightmare had come true. I walked off stage, humiliated.
For years, I held on to this memory as yet more evidence that I wasn’t good enough to “make it.” The adult I am today feels so sad for the little girl who’d sold out her self-worth to the crowd.
At the crux of this paradox — wanting to hide and be seen — is a question:
Are you brave enough to come out of hiding and be seen as you really are?
For most of my life, the answer was no. I was terrified.
Hiding — either by being alone or silent in a group — was safe, and I felt I needed safety.
Pretending was part of my MO, whether playing a role or acting in my life as though I liked something when I really didn’t. On the outside, I seemed quiet and easy going. You’d probably call it “nice.” But inside, I was raging, emotional, and afraid to express it. I wished I could be like a snake and shed my own skin. I wanted to escape being me. Ironic because I didn’t have a clue who I actually was. That would come much later.
In her amazing book Untamed, Glennon Doyle says “the only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” The messages I got as a child were that being opinionated or enthusiastic or curious was too much. I took that to mean I was too much, and wrong. And so I shrunk down, morphed, and rendered myself invisible. I did this for years until it hurt too much to stay small.
“And the risk to remain tight in a bud was greater than the risk to blossom.” — Anais Nin
Part of my coming out and finally coming into myself is sharing my story, because it might be your story too. Because we all wrestle with feelings of unworthiness to some extent, no matter how successful or wealthy or famous. And I want you to know in your bones that you’re not alone, you’re human. There’s nothing at all wrong with you, and a whole universe of right.
Get my Mini Guide on How to Slow the F Down.
Laurie Shiers writes about being an imperfect human and the quest for creative and emotional freedom. She’s also a professional coach whose collaborative approach draws on creativity, mindfulness, and neuroscience. You can find Laurie at brainchild-coaching.com.
