There is also the story of my sister, who came out, stepped back in, came out and stepped back in repeatedly. She was so conflicted. The “religous abuse” we suffered as children was something she just could never get over. I think if she has ever been able to come to terms with her sexuality she would have better been able to deal with the mental illness that she eventually developed, or might have at least been willing to accept help for it. Instead she commited suicide.
This is why I feel so good whenever someone comes out. I have known too many people who struggled with their sexuality that have been suicidal or actually commit suicide. The rate of suicide among gay teens, particularly is really high. Everytime someone comes out, that is one more message that it is OK to be gay and to LIVE gay. ( As opposed to too many old movies and novels where the gay person inivetably died by his own hand.)
Thank you for coming out. All of you who have. If my sister was alive and in her right mind, she would thank you too.
no, i meant excrete. Like squishing out of their pores, as if someone was pressing the handle on a playdoh fun factory, filled with homosexuality playdoh. Heh.
My deepest condolences. I can certainly understand what she felt. I was raised Pentecostal Fundamentalist and believed like my Mom does. I didn’t come out until I was 30 years old. I couldn’t even admit it to myself until I was about 28 - long after I was married and had a kid. It was difficult and I became deeply depressed, even considering suicide, before getting help from a headshrinker.
I’ve battled with depression myself exensively.(Long before Anige died, and, obviously, after as well) I was raised Southern baptist. When I was 15 I spent some time 3 monthes at a psychiatric institute ( I turned 16 there. Yay!) It would have been a great time to start to deal with my internalized homophobia where it not for the fact that one of the counselors (at a supposedly NON-religous instituion) was Creflo Dollar!! (now a money-grubbing televangilist, and, at least at the time, as VERY outspoken homophobe.- he was a part-time minister when he worked a Brawner.)
How about you, chaoticdonkey? Was internalized homophobia an issue for you? you said
I have a good coming out story. (Not my own, I’m straight.) My ex-housemate T was visiting me and she was with a loud (gay) group of friends. We all went out to one of my favorite burgers and fries restaurants and everyone was having conversations around me. But all I could focus on was that T had not finished her fries and I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted them. I was deciding whether she was done with them and I could ask to have them, when I heard something like “our big dyke T” and then all conversation stopped and everyone looked at me. Not quite able to tear my eyes from the fries I looked up and said, “Oh, ok. Got a girlfriend?” She said no and I said, “OK. Can I finish your fries?” She looked at me strangely but gave me her fries and we moved on.
A few years later I was recalling the experience with her and I said, “You know, I feel like I owe you an apology b/c I don’t think I was very supportive.” She admitted that while mine was the strangest response to her coming out, she thought it was perfect. She knew how much I really liked the fries at that restaurant.
The fallout was amusing, though. I came out to my mom in the early nineties, when she was working at a hospital. For about three years, I got regular mail from her: folders full of articles on how to avoid getting AIDS.
Hmm, religious objections? My father is not very religious, whereas my mom is moderately christian. I know she despises the fact that I’m agnostic, and regularly tries to convert me. She doesn’t accept the fact that I don’t have to share her beliefs because I’m her child.
As for what I said, both of my parents aren’t exactly homophobic, but they both regularly make comments like: “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? Gay people aren’t important.” “Look at that guy! Doesn’t he look like a f*in queer?” I don’ t think that they would mind that much, but they just don’t seem very accepting. My father in general, is a bigot. Racist. Every kind of -ist. If you’re not a heterosexual, masculine white male with little to average education, then he’s got some objection to you.
First, congratulations. I hope you’ll find that living honestly and openly is rewarding and advantageous.
But…it sounds like you could be opening yourself to some problems if you come out to your parents. Obviously you know your situation way better than I possibly could but I’m going to advise caution anyway about the idea of coming out to them. He could very well be one of those who while not liking to see homosexuality in others can handle it grudgingly in his kid, but my money would be against it. Your first responsibility is to your own safety and well-being and if coming out would put that at risk then it’s not worth it.
That sounds a lot like me stepfather, other than the fact that he tries to explain his bigotry in religious terms. Sometimes, as ** Otto **said, it is better to not come out to ones parents right away. I can still remember my stepfathers reaction verbatim “I believe in the doctrine of once saved, always saved, and I know that you have made a confession of faith, which I believe was sincere, but if you do not change your evil ways, you will suffer Divine Retribution on this earth”. (Sound familiar Homebrew? - and yes, it was that long of a run on sentence)
How old are you BTW? Also, how much do you depend on your parents for material support? I think that I remember you saying you were in college in another thread. If you depend upon them for material support, and you are seriously worried about their reaction, it may not be a good time to come out, at least until you are more sure of the waters. Just remember if and when you do come out to them that it took you this long to come to terms with it enough to tell them. You can not realistically expect them to come to terms with it overnight. It’s really nice when that happens, but it just doesn’t always work out that way.
Well, I depend on them for food and lodging. Everything else, I’m expected to pay for. No, I’m not in college, (will be going there next year) but they will (hopefully) contribute some of the money I’ll need. My dad has basically told me, however, that I’m on my own once it comes college-time, and he’s never reneged on any of his financial promises like that.
Ah, yes, good ol’ Southern Baptists. A family friend is one of those. When her son came out to her in the early 80s, she told him she’d rather he were dead. :eek:
Her son began a downward slide into drugs and has never really recovered.
She carried so much hatred inside as a result of that damned church. I honestly think it’s one of the reasons she ended up with breast cancer. All those nasty emotions have to go somewhere.
Years later, during a fight, the son ‘outed’ this woman’s beloved daughter to her as well. All the sudden, she started to change–started going to PFLAG meetings, became a Democrat, volunteers as an AIDS hospice worker. She’s now a way more “godly” person, in my estimation, than she’d ever been before.
Sometimes, people really can surprise you. In an enormously pleasant way.
I can relate. Once, a long time before I was even really out to myself, I asked my stepfather what he would do if me or Angie told him we were gay, after he had made a comment after turning off “Donahue” (which was on just because the TV had been left on by my MOM after her soaps were over). He said, in a low, voice, totally devoid of emotion “I’d kill you.” [/q]
Yeah, my granmother has been really cool, even though she was raised “hard shell” baptist, and converted to Southern Baptist after moving to Georgia. She had to go to a Southern Baptist church because there weren’t any Hard Shell Baptist churches around. She was disapointed because the Southern Baptist’s were way too liberal. :eek:
She’s totally came around, however. She still sees it as a sin, but not any worse than dancing or swearing or drinking. She told me she knows her other grandchildren do all of that an worse, and she isn’t about to judge me any worse than them.
Sorry if I am sharing too much in you thread chaoticdonkey, I guess this thread just touched a nerve real. (obviously)
I expected a lot more of a fight than I got. My father’s been a monk since I was in high school (a rather homophobic high school; had I seen the signs then, I dunno if I’d be alive now) and my mother at one point wanted to be a priest.
I figured of all my immediate family members she was the one I could most count on not to think I was going straight to hell.
None of them ended up thinking that, though IMO the jury’s still out on my sister, who in her infinite wisdom informed me that the bible says all homosexual acts are depraved. My father doesn’t give two shits, and my brother’s only concern is actually more mine - I’m not sure he’d be able to handle standing up for me if he heard someone spewing bigoted stuff in school and stood up for me in my absence. Other sister’s still dealing with the fact that I was once a horny teenager (I’d stay up watching Undressed, which was basically soft-core porn. She told me not to watch it, pleaded with me because it was a sin. At that point, if I was still Christian it was in name only).
Some of my extended family know because they were told by my mother. I have yet to specifically tell any of fizzy’s family save her liberal sister’s family. Her dad might well know for all I know, but I doubt it. Her mother just thinks I’m one of those liberals. They’ll find out once I figure it’s safe to tell them.
Hmm, catalyst? I guess I realized that I couldn’t really go on letting everyone think I was straight, and that the longer I put it off, the weirder the backlash would be. “out to myself”? I’ve known that I wasn’t straight since about 8th grade (senior now). However, it took me until early my junior year to realize that I really don’t find females attractive. Pretty, maybe. Attractive, maybe, but not attracting.
