I was going through my old high school papers for fun the other night, when I came across this one in particular. It helped bring back some of my old feelings about being in the closet, the struggles I faced, and the struggles of coming out. Obviously I was a bit of an over-dramatic teen, but I thought it might be nice to share. It's important for me at least, to remember where I came from and help me to understand the struggles that other youth are going through. I think people often don't understand the difficulty about being in the closet or coming out of it, particularly as a young teen. anyway, here it is
Wow, that hit home in it's own way with me. Just the part about your mom not accepting you, that's hard. I can relate to that, although I am not a lesbian. I do have tons of emotional issues because of my father, no matter what I do with my life it will never be good enough for him and it's just very hard dealing with a parent who won't accept you for who you are and just love you unconditionally. My mom always said though, time heals all wounds. I like to believe that. Thank you for sharing.
That is so sad. I couldn't imagine how it would feel, knowing your family was against you before you even spoke to them. Have your parents changed the way they think after all these years?
While I think it's true that everyone has parts of themselves they share only with those they trust, the thrust here is that gay people, living in a society where open hostility toward homosexuality is fairly common, learn early on that trusting the wrong people can be dangerous, even fatal. And that this danger comes from one's own family members - the people who supposedly know the most about you - the people you rely upon to support and protect you as a child - the effects of this are hard to convey to those who don't have that experience. It does indeed lead many of us to close ourselves off from peers as a form of self-protection. Which in turn makes people mistrust us. The choice to be truthful about one's self is not an easy one for many of us. Especially when we get criticized for it, and told we should just "stay in the closet". On the flip-side, when we do stay closeted, and those who think of themselves as being close to us discover it by some other means, they feel betrayed, and that "betrayal" just creates distrust. We find ourselves censured by family and so-called friends. Under these circumstances, it's not so hard to understand why a large number of gay youth try to escape, either relocating to safer neighborhoods in large cities with significant gay populations, or through suicide. It is not easy taking the alternate route - continuing to live in the midst of predominantly straight communities. I know whence I speak; being gay naturally isolates us from our straight peers, and at the same time we feel isolated from the "gay community" by not being an active part of it. It can be a lonely life, but it's the location we chose, so no one's pity is required. Just providing another viewpoint on these issues.
I gotta tell you,I'm so sorry that even your own family won't accept you,thats (*)(*)(*)(*)ed up. My wife and I are,I guess you could consider conservative,BUT on other issues we are liberal. We have two beautiful girls and if they both turn out to be lesbians when they grow up,I would NEVER consider disowning them. I would be honest and tell them that the life style they will lead will be hard on them from cosed minded people,but I would never stop loving them if they were.
Back in the 70's I knew a young man that came out of the closet at 18 and his family ostracized him. I remember is saddening me at the time. I personally cannot imagine my family doing that to anyone.
I guess the older I get,I start seeing things from a different view. When I was younger,I hate to say,I thought that gays were something that needed to be stopped. I don't know how,I just thought it was wrong. Now that I'm older and wiser,my view has changed to just live and let live,you know? Life is hard enough and too short to get your panties in a wad about two guys or two girls wanting to get together.
If you're talking to me,I guess wisedom comes with age??? I don't know,I'm still pretty young,37,it's just I see all the B.S. going on around me and I don't see what the big deal is'you know???
Many teens are overly dramatic and suffer from the stresses of the unknown, but they often don't have to go through it alone. Most of them can talk with their peers or family. It's a select few who get to know what it's like to carry a secret that they think will make their own mother hate them and not be able to tell a soul in the world about it, and to have to cary that secret for years. Most parents don't hate their children after coming out, and just to be clear, my mother and I have a close relationship nowadays. Keep in mind, this paper was me, in my highschool years remembering what I was going through in my early teens. As a child, it's not easy to understand or deal with all of the different messages being sent to you, and the fear of what may happen when you come out may be far worse than the reality of it... it usually is, and in my case it certainly was. But it's the fear, and the constant stress of living the lie to every family member and friend, and the fear of what they will think of you if you don't keep up that lie that does the damage. People telling gays to "stay in the closet" don't realize how prominent a role sexuality is, especially as a maturing teen. I can't tell you how many times I was asked if I had a girlfriend, if I find such and such girl attractive, what my plans were when I grew up, if I were to be married. I can't tell you how many times I got to listen to people, my peers, my family and the media talk about gay people or use it as a slur... and have to be silent or make up some lie. Everybody has secrets, but there are few secretes like this that are so prominent in your life, that so frequently come up, that so often stirs strong emotions in people, and that you so often have to lie about or bite your tongue. Keeping up the lie, the illusion, the pretend life that you portray to everyone... it is literally exhausting. I hate to sound like such a sap, but I can remember literally crying myself to sleep as a 12,13,14 year old simply afraid and not knowing what to do. I am happy that most parents quickly come to terms with it, but sadly much of the damage is already done by the child living in secrecy up to that point. It's this child, afraid of what their family and peers will think of them that causes them to recluse themselves, or worse, to start living a secret double-life where they meet people from the internet or elsewhere without any support or guidance from their family. That is, imo, how many gay youth get into sex and drugs and get more deeply involved in the "gay lifestyle" subculture that ruins many of us, because our secrecy shut our family out.
I had to go through that countless times (and it went on through to my 40's). I swear, I can feel the utter pain/sadness of those days in your words. I thank God I've been able to ascribe new meaning to those things I suffered (alone and in silence). It was really hard to deal with. I'm glad you survived it. Peace and grace to you.
topic aside who keeps HS papers unless of course you are still young? I looked at my HS yearbook a while back just to get a good laugh at how we dressed and wore our hair.
I can definitely relate. My parents didn't throw me out, but my mother did tell me I would burn in Hell, whined about what other people would think, etc. Seriously - your kid "confesses" to being gay after you ask them the direct question, and then all you can think about is how its going to affect your social status. That's basically what happened in my situation. She asked, I told, and she proceeded to make it all about her. I told her that since she obviously couldn't deal with it, we simply wouldn't discuss it again. And we didn't for 12 years. That's 12 years of having to pretend to my family that my orientation didn't exist even though they all knew, because my mother had told them about it - something I didn't know she'd done until I came out to one of my brothers several years later. That's how closed off things were in my family. If we avoid any and all acknowledgment of the facts, we can all pretend they doesn't exist. I came very close to cutting myself completely off from my family. As in, I had made up my mind that I was making my last visit home. I was literally on my way out the door when my mother asked if they were ever going to see me again. At which point she got told that if she wanted to be a part of my life, I wasn't going to accommodate her anymore by editing out the parts she didn't like. (hat tip to Torch Song Trilogy). It wasn't much, but it was like pulling out a brick from the wall that had been built up between us by the silence I had to keep to remain a part of the family. Things are better now. I'm fortunate that my family adores my partner, who they consider a "brother at heart". So there are degrees of acceptance. I have zero expectation that they'll ever consider our relationship equal to their marriages, or my partner as the equivalent of a son-in-law or brother-in-law. Just not going to happen. My mother doesn't embrace our relationship, but in her own words, she "forgives" it. Which makes me want to roll my eyes, but whatever. I don't expect it to change, and I accept that she's entitled to her wrong-headed point of view. I've also had friends who left home in their teens to "escape". I came very close to doing the same at one point, but I stuck it out, despite my family's condemnation by silence. I'm glad that I have a better relationship with them now, but it doesn't mean I don't resent the past. Some wounds never heal. I've tried to forgive, but have found it to be an exercise in futility. My family has no idea how close I came to giving up on them completely, and if things go south I won't hesitate to cut ties if it becomes necessary.
Glad you find the topic so interesting ;-P It became much easier when the computer became a common tool for writing and saving school assignments. Most of my school work going back to highschool is organized by year and class in a folder in "my documents", so it's not exactly difficult to move and keep them. Besides that, my mother still has much of my school work even going back to preschool. That said, yes I'm aware that if I'm young enough to have used a computer in my senior year, I'm not nearly as old as you, so you can keep that badge of honor . My high school life is something I don't often like to think back on, and it was long enough ago that it's difficult for me to remember. I wasn't exactly the popular jock that remembers the good old days, for me it was mostly just figuring out how to avoid people. Extracurricular activities were somewhat difficult as well... most of my cousins were in boy scouts, but I think we can agree for obvious reasons that I didn't feel very welcome in the boy scouts. Testosterone driven sports are often filled with boys flinging around homophobic slurs. What social and extracurricular activities I did, I often did with as much seclusion as possible, as I didn't know who to trust... I was afraid people could see the gay in me. Ultimately nobody figured it out until I told them, I was just known as socially awkward and shy, I never hung out with friends, my life just consisted of me going back and forth between class and home. My social awkwardness is something that continues to this day and I fight with. It's that fear that I would be outed that also led me to the internet, where I would chat with and even meet strangers... strangers my age, and nothing sexual. But perhaps you can understand how this pressure to stay hidden can also lead to the development of underground and prominent gay lifestyles... it leads them to identify as gay, and to congregate with other gay people. You want to know why gay people make such a big deal out of being gay, when you think that the only difference between the two is how they have sex. That's why. It starts when they are young and they feel ostracized from society, due to their own fears that they won't be accepted by the general population.
yup, I'm older than you. So are you saying you liked how you wore your hair??? I'm sure most can understand the fear or trepidation one feels if they honestly believe they would be ostracized for revealing a particular thing about themselves. But, that simply means you had the wrong set of friends. As much as you may poo poo how I look at gay folk as it being sex you should really appreciate it. You aren't diseased or cursed and it's not contagious. You zig left and I zag right. If you like fishing, great, grab your rob and come along. If you like SEC football (best conference by the way) then let's watch a game. If you love drag racing then let's go. If you like drinking excessively then find someone else, I'll stay home thank you. You are no different than me or anyone else other than when you shut your bedroom door; that's it.
And that's the reality of "coming out" that I don't think many understand. Most of us don't want to shove it in anyone's faces, most of us don't WANT it to be a big deal. But for many of us it becomes such a source of tension that it builds walls between our family and society in general. Most of my extended family won't even acknowledge or mention it, like yours. I know they all know now, but my partner is never invited to family events or gatherings. I've never been invited to meet his extended family, and it wasn't until 5 years into our relationship that I met his parents. For what should be a real, yet insignificant part of our lives, our sexuality has profound impacts on our relationships with our family, with our classmates and coworkers, with the law, with how we socialize, how we grew up, and how we feel accepted and integrated. I don't think many can appreciate it unless they've gone through it or seen others who have.
It's funny you mention finding new friends, as that's exactly what we do, and exactly what you often complain about... the set of friends we often find are other gay people, because know we can trust them. This is, again, why we make a "gay lifestyle" that you and others often complain about. I also what you to imagine, if your fear is that your PARENTS will find out you are gay, how is it that you can find ANY friends to trust? You are afraid to be honest with ANYONE for fear that that person might tell your parents, or that the rumor would spread. There is nobody you can trust because you never know who will accidentally or intentionally let the cat out of the bag, you fear honesty with anyone and everyone. It's not just a matter of finding the right people to accept you, it's a matter of finding the right friends that you feel you can trust your life to... such a friend is vary rare to find, so finding the "right friends" as a young middle school student... easier said than done. When I finally "came out", and once my mother finally came to terms with it, and after several months of therapy with my mother and I, two things happened. One, I applied and entered Community College High School. The goal here was to get me around a more mature group of peers and adult environment (I spent my senior year at college instead of a traditional high school). Secondly, I was sent to a "gay youth group" in town where I did make some friends that I have to this day, and where we all got to discuss our own stories and struggles with others in a support group. So yes, ultimately this did happen, I did find new friends, but it took years for me to reach that point and ultimately it just integrated me more into the "gay lifestyle" that you love so much, where I found my acceptance with other gay people, and we like to make a big old deal about being gay. I have straight friends as well, but it's often much more difficult to reach that level of trust with them... which is why I have disproportionately more gay friends than straight friends. It's that process of finding the right friends that you speak of is what results in the gay lifestyles. Easy enough to say in hind sight, but remember, we're not talking about adults (not always). We're talking about young adolescents, adolescents who can usually go to their family for guidance, have their mother tell them "well, just find some better friends". When you're talking about an issue such as this, where you're afraid even your mother will hate you, where you're a young kid who can't always see everything in perspective and you don't have anyone to talk to to help you put it in perspective, it can feel like the world crashing in on you. Maybe one day it will be that simple and insignificant as the difference between having blue or green eyes. It should be that simple, but I think you can appreciate the struggle, particularly as a young child who has nobody to help guide them, nobody to tell them to get new friends or show them how, nobody to help them put things in perspective or help protect and comfort them. This is a very different story when you imagine it as a child going at it alone.
Quoted for truth. And despite the similarities in coming out experiences, the differences that also exist within them create a diversity in how people experience being gay that a lot of people don't recognize. A lot of gay stereotypes have nothing at all to do with how I live my life, but with some people the moment the word 'gay' enters the conversation, every bad stereotype gets applied as if it were true of all gay people, when in fact it's often a minority within the minority. Wow, five years in is a long time. I've met my partner's extended family; we get together with one set of his cousins every year for the Christmas holiday. Then there's his brother's family - they avoid us as much as possible, stemming from an incident where they wrote my partner a rather ridiculous letter asking him not to bring me to their daughter's graduation party, as they thought the two of us being their together would somehow overshadow their daughter on her big day. It's not like we planned to make some big announcement to their guests about the two of us being a couple, or to otherwise draw attention to the fact. But somehow they got it into their heads that we were going to make their daughter's graduation about us; which is kinda funny, because they're the ones who made it about us. I told my partner to just go without me, but he wouldn't hear of it. So he wrote them back to say neither of us would be there. I figured it was their prerogative to control the guest list for an event they were hosting, but it was a big slap in the face nonetheless. We can't be bothered to avoid them, and are polite when we do chance to encounter them. I figure if they want to complicate their lives by avoiding us, I won't waste any time missing them. They key point I think being just how pervasive this is. Take my example above concerning my partner's brother & his family. Well, they're one set of people, and it's not so unusual for this relative not to get along with that one, etc. But when the issue that causes this to arise is one's orientation or being part of a same-sex couple, and you multiply that times the level of rejection and condemnation that exists around this in society... It can get overwhelming. Something as simple as grocery shopping can become a source of anxiety. Do we just ignore the stares and barely whispered comments from strangers? Do we just not go anywhere together in public, out of fear for our safety? It may sound overly dramatic, but when you personally know people who have been killed, beaten to the point of having permanent brain damage, and other assaults - not so much. We can't always predict what will set someone off. What I really hate is when strangers come knocking on our door. I'm always afraid they'll figure out that our house is occupied by two men, put 2+2 together, and we'll end up with our house being vandalized or arsonized. That pretty much sums it up - we can't even feel safe in our own homes. I have to say I feel a lot less safe now that gay issues are getting more attention in the media; it's a double-edged sword.
Quoted for truth. It gets somewhat less difficult when you're an adult and are more in control of your own life, but it never becomes easy. I wish I had a dollar for every person I've encountered who seemd perfectly nice until the subject of homosexuality comes up. When they don't know you're gay, people are unguarded on their opinions about it. I thus always find it laughable when someone tries to give me the "nobody really cares" schtick. Oh, they care all right - enough to say some pretty (*)(*)(*)(*)ty things they would never have said if they knew they were in the presence of an actual gay person. When it happens, it's "shields up" for me, I pretty much shut right down, and I start looking for ways escape the situation or conversation without giving any indication of how I really feel. Sometimes having nothing to say in those situations gives you away just as quickly.
Yes, I consider it a problem mostly for youth, which is part of why I had almost forgotten it and appreciated being able to look back and read my old work. As adults, we've gotten "over the hump" so to speak. It may have taken us longer than our typical peers, but by the time we've reached adulthood, most of us have found our close circle of friends, we've become open and honest with at least some of our family... we have a support network. As you've said, with adulthood comes greater degrees of control over our lives, allowing you to find, pick and choose your friends more carefully and without worry about rumors spreading around school and to your family. There's still struggles and bits of drama we face as adults, but it's nothing compared to the isolation you feel as a child. Everybody has struggles, but not many know what it means to go through it alone with 0 social support as a gay child does. We still have struggles as adults, of course, but the biggest difference is that the struggles you go through you no longer go through alone. I can talk to my mother, my friends, my partner. It's the youth that needs the most support, and it's the youth that are least able and likely to get it, with the greatest portion of the population fighting against providing that support in the name of protecting children from the gay menace. I rarely hear the subject come up, but then again I'm not that social to be put in a situation where it would . The thing that gets me the most is the use of words like "gay" and "homo" as slurs. I never know quite what to say when someone says "that's gay" or "stop being such a homo". I'm glad this has become less and less common as I've aged... this is again primarily a problem among youth.
what was there to come to terms with for your mother? Did you murder someone or steal military secrets? The only thing she really "loses" is grandchildren and a daughter in law. Not every parent will get grandchildren as not all kids have babies and we know the divorce rate so the loss of a daughter in law is moot. Heck, gimme more men around because they can help with the projects around the house. Do you have any idea how tiring it is to carry bundles of shingles up a ladder when you are re-roofing? Those bundles get heavy after climbing up and down the ladder. So what did she really lose or have to get over. You're the same baby to whom she gave birth and held at all hours of the night.
