The Gorgon in the Mirror

Medusa was a Gorgon, and according to Greek mythology the gaze of a Gorgon was so terrifying that it is said to turn a person who returns that gaze into stone. The version of the story that I remember saw Perseus slay Medusa by following only her reflection before striking his fatal blow. I grew up thinking that I was a Gorgon that everybody would despise, so I justified in my own mind the idea that people would want to be rid of me if they ever saw me as my true self. I was even afraid that my parents might suffer permanent and lasting harm if I was exposed. Following Perseus' lead, I survived by only having relationships with others through mirrors.

After first hearing this metaphor of the mirrors, some might argue that because I could only control what others saw of me, then it would imply that these others in my life were living in reality and I was not. I disagree. The truth is that I knew very well who I was; I was a Gorgon. If in fact these others were living in reality then they too would have been able to see me as a Gorgon, but they could not. So you see, the one who is doing all of the deceiving is really the one in control, and the ones being deceived are therefore living in an alternate reality that I created for them.

It is for this reason that I use the metaphor of the mirrors when I talk about my relationships. The mirrors, that only I control, have trapped these people in a kind of prison where I get to pick how they relate to me. One of the powers of a modern Gorgon like me is that I get to place a mirror as a stand-in for me with anybody of my choosing. It becomes a matter of semantics at this point to debate who was real and who was a mere reflection, but from my perspective I only had relationships with mirrors, not people. I specifically want to talk about the relationship that I had with my mother-mirror and my father-mirror.

I discovered the need for mirrors at the age of eleven. It was at that point when I knew that I was evolving into a Gorgon-like creature, and in order to protect my parents I knew that I would have to prevent them from seeing me for who I truly was. I have only myself to blame for having substituted a mirror in the place of my mother and my father, but I only did what I thought was necessary to protect them. I was, after all, just an emotional, irrational kid, but the fact remains that I kept the mirrors up for the next 30 years. By then, both of my parents had passed away, leaving me with a problem that will never be resolved. You see, every time I look at the portraits of my parents on the wall of my den I realize that I only have memories of the relationships that I had with my mirrors.

The demarcation point of when I went from having a relationship with my real mother to a relationship with my mother-mirror is kind of blurry, but I do remember that my real mother loved to nurture "lost sheep." When I was very young my sisters would bring home boyfriends that did not believe in our particular mythology. I would see how my real mother would go out of her way to try to convert these boys to our belief system, and if they would not convert I would see how my real mother would encourage my sisters to be nothing more than “good friends” with those kinds of boys. Like me, my sisters had been taught from a very young age that there was nothing more important to our family than our mythology. That meant that if these boys...the lost sheep...would not convert, it necessarily placed them outside of our culture.

When I realized that I was becoming more and more like these lost sheep that my sisters would bring home I awoke to a hard truth. I knew that my unbelief, if ever uncovered, would place me outside of the culture that my real mother and father believed in. That was when I realized how useful the mirrors would be.

My real parents had become strangers to me by the time they died. My mother was 61 years old, and my father was 73. I knew my mother-mirror and father-mirror intimately, but before I could get to know my real parents I would have to shatter the mirrors and expose myself as a Gorgon. I couldn't find the courage to do that. The risk of rejection was too great. It was the frightened 11-year-old inside me that demanded that I maintain the relationship with the predictable mother-mirror and father-mirror.

It would be another decade before I would stop using the mirrors around my five brothers and sisters. What were the consequences of that decision? As it turned out, they all preferred the lies of the mirror over the reality of the Gorgon. They've had four years now to get used to the idea, and still, just this past month my sister invited me to send my mirror to the family reunion in six weeks so that they could all pretend that nothing had changed. My sister made it very clear that the Gorgon...the real me...was not invited. They won't admit it, but in the mythology of my family...that same mythology that ranks higher in importance than family ties...Gorgons will always be seen as a threat. Their mythology has evolved to the point that it no longer calls for the mortal assassination of Gorgons, but it leaves no room to doubt that their god will undertake a systematic elimination of Gorgons in the after-life. It is because of this dogged adherence to their mythology that it is easier on them if I just send my mirror to the family reunion instead of coming as a Gorgon.

So what is the moral of this story? In order to understand the fable you have to see it from the perspective of a teenager. That is when Gorgons begin to see themselves as different from the rest of their family and society.

Religious and cultural traditions are tough on teenagers. It is the very nature of adolescence to challenge traditions, but when a mythology cannot stand up to the rigorous questioning of a young person then one of three things will happen.

The first outcome, which is the one that every culturally devoted parent hopes for, is that the teenager will embrace the idea of living under the shroud of unanswerable questions and stop challenging authority. Under this option the parents perceive that their mythology has won the day, but society invariably suffers a loss when truth is suppressed for yet another generation.

The second outcome is that the teenager could rebel against authority and refuse to conform to the traditions of his or her parents. This places the parents in the awkward position of having to choose between their mythology and their own flesh and blood. If a teen chooses this option, and is old enough or mature enough, then the chances are good that they will find an authentic life. This is a win for the youth and his or her future descendents. In rare circumstances the family will actually follow the rebellious youth and leave their cultural roots in favor of truly authentic lives as well. This would be a win for everybody, but that outcome is rare. All too often these youth lack the maturity to be left alone, but nevertheless they either run away or are kicked out of their home. These teens then fall into a subculture that is all too eager to take advantage of the vulnerable, and this becomes one of the worst tragedies imaginable.

The third outcome is the one that I chose in the late 1970’s, which forced everybody involved into an alternate reality. The teenager lives a dual life and the parents are blissfully unaware that their child secretly no longer believes in the cultures or traditions of the family mythology. In this option everybody is a loser and scores of innocent people get dragged into the lie before it is exposed for what it is.

Is the fault all mine because I opted for the predictable outcome of a relationship that I could control with a mother-mirror and a father-mirror, instead of taking the chance on being rejected by my real parents?

Or does the fault lie with my mother because she adopted this rigid mythology where anything outside of our culture held a diminished value? I do not have to wonder much about where my real father would have been in the continuum of love because when it came to matters of the heart I am confident that he would have followed the lead of my mother.

The hard truth is that the slightest movement on the part of any one of the three of us would have shattered all of the mirrors. The real tragedy is that none of us, not a single one, had the courage to take that chance. And to this day, neither do my brothers or my sisters. The mythology is still ranked higher in importance than blood.

And so the tragedy continues, more than 30 years later. I can honestly say that I don't give a damn about my brothers and sisters. I saw their hypocrisy for what it was four years ago, and I had no hope that it would evolve back then. It would be nice to still see them and catch up on life, but I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of dealing only with my mirror. It is now time for them to grow up and accept me as a Gorgon. That means that they need to find a way to respect my rights, and to see me and Gorgons like me as their equal. We now live in a modern society where mythology has been trumped by science.

But unfortunately for my siblings, and because I am more like a Gorgon than I care to admit, I still find a perverse pleasure in poking them in the eye with a stick, just to see them twitch. No, I do not seek or need the approval of my family to be a complete and authentic gay man, and an atheist. Instead, what I care passionately about is what they are symptomatic of in the 21st Century.

Gay teenagers and non-believing teenagers alike still fear that they have become Gorgons when they realize that they cannot uphold the mythology of their family. As vulnerable and frightened teenagers, in order to cope, they first will try anything in order to please others. This is most easily done by adopting relationships with the predictable mirrors. This way they have complete control over every important relationship in their life. The only requirement is that they sustain the lie of their closeted lives.

My experience is far from unique. Conservative parents continue to choose an existence in an alternate reality where teenage atheism and homosexuality is something that happens to other less-than-perfect families. And so they deny themselves the authentic relationships that they could otherwise have with their teenagers; relationships where humanity triumphs over cultural dogma and narrow ideology. These parents have no idea that their children are constructing mother-mirrors and father-mirrors with whom they relate on their own terms.

These parents do not know who their real children are because they don’t want to know, and they make no effort to find out so long as the mirrors are reflecting a favorable storyline heading into their fictitious future. I now live in a community of Gorgons. They are my adopted family. I literally have hundreds of brothers and sisters, and among us it is still...by far...more common to send a mirror home for the holidays and family reunions than it is to go in person.

When parents and siblings are willing to question the dogma of their own mythology and embrace the authentic lives of their children, brothers and sisters, however they turn out, then and only then will they shatter the mirrors that are used to maintain inauthentic but predictable relationships with them.

As for myself, I will forever wonder as I stare at the images on the wall of my den. I will never know if the faces are real or reflected. I will also never know who should ultimately be held responsible for the actions of that frightened young teenager.