I used to be afraid to be seen
I'm getting better about this and here's how
I first started hiding in my bedroom closet when I was four, I think.
It wasn’t my first hiding attempt. That began when I started to see.
Like a lot of you know, when I was born, they thought I was completely blind. It wasn’t for months before the doctor and my family realized that I could sort of see, just in a blurry way in which there were four copies of everything, four versions of the same truth, I guess.
Before my eye operation, I’d push myself against walls, crawl behind the couch or toddle there, feeling the scratchy fabric behind my hands. I was used to darkness. I was used to the world blurring.
Hiding didn’t just happen during the day. It happened at night, too. I’d get in my bed after my mom kissed me goodnight and I’d pile all my stuffed animals around me and then pull the covers tightly up over my head.
“I am a nothing girl,” I would whisper. “I am nothing. Nobody can find me. Nobody can find me.”
This is not a really great affirmation to live your life by, right?
Anyway, I thought that under the covers was a genius hiding space when I was four, and that makes sense because I was young and stupid, but what doesn’t make sense is how I sometimes still hide there, sometimes.
When I was four and murmuring in the closet one night because it was darker than the bed and safer with walls around me, my mother’s voice rattled through the house hysterical and calling my name screaming it eventually, panicked beyond belief and I sat there behind the clothes, dangling down, hand me downs of other kids’ better lives.
She found me, of course. I made a noise or something, giving myself away and she found me there, huddled up and crying in the dusty clothes.
“Why are you crying, honey,” she screamed, no she sang, no she whispered. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m a nothing girl,” I whispered, no shouted, no spoke, no screamed. “I’m a nothing.”
And she bundled me into her arms and said, “no, no you’re not,” which of course was exactly the wrong thing to say to someone who was hiding and the perfectly right thing to say to someone who never felt quite worthy enough.
There are certain things you are supposed to be afraid of when you’re little—normal things, right?
Spiders. Dead people. Spiders coming out of dead people. Dead people coming out of spiders. Creepy shows. Scary books and songs.
But I was afraid of being—just being—being alive—being noticed. Being.
Jamie, one of the main characters in the TIME STOPPERS series is a lot like this, too. Albeit for different reasons – his fake family are trolls.
I think a lot of us have to deal with trolls in one way or another. It can make us hide. What’s scary to me is when we turn into trolls ourselves. That might be about another football team, about a halftime show. It might be about people we don’t agree with. It might be about celebrities we don’t know. It might be about a book or a movie or a piece of art.
This isn’t really about that. This is about hiding.
Almost every Wednesday, I used to go to my Rotary club’s meeting and it was hard because I couldn’t hide there. Then that same Wednesday night, I’d often head to one of my friends’ houses where people gather to hang out. Some people played poker. Some people knitted. Some people ran around with their kids. Everyone ate random food they brought. This is pretty lovely, right? It’s also pretty scary if you want to hide.
Whenever I came into the house, one of my favorite humans would yell at the top of her voice from the poker table, “It’s the famous Carrie Jones!”
Everyone would turn to look. I didn’t often give into the joy that her act of teasing and love meant. I usually would clench my eyes shut, keep walking and put my food offering on the kitchen island.
This one Wednesday, I wore a big orange necklace on top of my typical L.L. Bean navy crew sweater. Everyone mentioned it. And I decided to be honest and say, “Look. I realize that I like to blend in. I sit on the floor sometimes. I wear all dark clothes. I hide behind a camera and take pictures. This is my first step in trying to be brave. This necklace. I’m trying not to hide.”
And everyone was “cool.” Because if you’re even going to notice something like that, you’re probably going to be supportive.
There’s this weird thing about writers, we communicate through our stories, but we also can hide behind those stories. We put the words out there, hope someone notices because writing is a lot of effort and it is horrible when you create something, try to communicate something, and nobody responds.
But at the same time, you can’t control other people’s reactions to you, to your story. And I’ve spent my whole life so afraid of people’s reactions, of them hurting me, that I hid. I hid for a long time. And I’ve been working on that one necklace, one blog post, one podcast at a time.
Maybe that’s because when the world presents to you in blurry ways where there eight things in front of you, it’s hard to understand what being seen and seeing means? I’m not sure. I’m still working it out.
Here’s what I’m doing to try to feel better about myself and not hide so much:
I’m working on my strengths and not my weaknesses. For instance, I can’t carry the bookcase up single-handedly like the husband can. Instead of dwelling on that, I let him do it and try to focus on things I can do.
When I notice myself thinking something negative, I tell myself the opposite three times. So, if I think, “You should hide.” I think, “No. You should be seen. You should be seen. Freaking a’ Carrie, you should be seen.”
Being okay with being me. I’ve never been a person who wore a lot of make-up or got a lot of haircuts or take photos of myself and post them or who cares a ton about clothes. I know that keeps me from being in wedding parties. :) But I’m okay with that.
This picture that I’ve used for my Substack profile is a big deal for me because I’m actually not wearing a sweater. I have worn sweaters in Mexico in July. I wore a sweater while having a baby. Seriously.
But slowly, I’m peeling those layers off. I hope you will, too.
Random writing prompt for you writers:
What do you try to hide?
Random life prompt for you humans:
How can you show someone that you see them? What can you do?
New Fun and Scary Novel
I think because of the hiding thing, it’s also hard for me to talk about my books, but Steve Wedel and I have a book coming out.
Here’s the blurb. You can pre-order if you’re into it. It comes out in tomorrow. Yep, tomorrow and I haven’t even been talking about it. When I talk about hiding, I mean it.
Some secrets are meant to stay buried.
In this stand-alone sequel to In the Woods, what begins as a carefree double date turns into a nightmare for Chrystal, Logan, and their friends when a terrified stranger stumbles out of the shadows near the abandoned town of Cawton. Her warning is dire: there's something lurking in the ruins-something deadly.
A gruesome discovery and a chilling encounter confirm their worst fears. There's a monster in Cawton, a creature with tentacles, a shell-like body, and a taste for blood. As they try to make sense of the horror, Chrystal and Logan's bond is tested by fear, jealousy, and danger.
When the creature strikes closer to home, they must return to Cawton to hunt it down, armed with makeshift weapons and fragile courage. What awaits in the depths of the old coal mines will test their strength, their relationships, and their very survival.
Can Chrystal, Logan, and their friends defeat the Sleeper, or will its darkness consume them all?