On November 24 2011 18:00 Shaetan wrote: Out of curiousity, why can't you accept being homosexual?
This is probably the question that most needs answering.
Indeed.
I don't think I feel very bad for you.
Why does being gay matter? Are you Christian? Would your daddy disown you? Are you actually married with children?
There could be any number of reasons, broadly speaking there are 2 types of barriers to coming out, perceived threats to your current way of life, and actual threats to you way of life. Take example from my own life, I perceived alot of threats to my way of life, I thought my family would disown me, my friends would belittle me, and that by coming out that I die alone and unhappy. In actuality none of it turned out be true.
I'm lucky, and not everyone is as lucky as me.
Our job should be to guide Roe through the threats perceived and actual, and even if all the threats to his way of life are perceived, I don't think we shouldn't feel sympathy for him.
I agree I should have explained more about why I can't even accept it within myself. This post touched on it.
On November 24 2011 21:45 Kerotan wrote: I've been thinking on how to respond to this for a while, You have to come out, some how and some way. Being in the closet is horrible, everyday happy day is overhung with dread, guilt, shame, etc, and the thing is, you know this. Its how you feel right fucking now, and I know how I felt, you learn to love hating yourself, because that's the only way you can cope. I remember what being in the closet felt like, I felt ashamed, I felt like I had committed murder, and imagine you feel similarly. So re Shaetan and Plexa, what is stopping you coming to terms with being gay?
I actually thought I could change it when I was younger, so I grew the cycle of self hate. I was pretty influenced by christian morals, and the family on my mother's side is fairly conservative. Strangely though, I bought into all of it. I really did believe that I was diseased, that I'm unnatural, that it was objectively wrong to be gay. I was attracted to religious ideas because they asserted they knew the truth from something all powerful and unalterable. How can you argue against that? Further I couldn't stand on my own against their dogma and bullying. I was brainwashed...and I kept it going thinking I could just prolong the acceptance of my sexuality forever. Perhaps I'm just masochistic, or have "self-defeating personality disorder". After some introspection I caught some sense of narcissism wrapping around the masochism, like one is in answer to the other. Maybe this says something about who I really am, and what I need to change in order to accept myself. Either way, I can fight against them now. I can stick up for myself. I just need to not get sidetracked, as the poisoned chalice keeps getting pushed my way. I'll push it back every single time.
I can't express how greatfull I am for all of your replies (I really loved the short poem and marcus aurellius quote as well as the council meeting in particular). I'll read this thread any time I feel like I'm breaking down or losing hope, or even when I catch myself trying to suppress my feelings. Thank you all.
It's not gonna end tonight, it's not gonna end when I get down. It gets better
^ YEAH!! Oh man let me show you this song, I think it is the best... I think you pretty much handled the situation fine... are you still religious (should try to break away if I were you). How old are you? It's easier to come out when you are economicaly independent and can basicaly say "fuck you" to your families w/o worrying about where to live.
Remember you are as happy as your mind is free of guilts, and in your case there is NO reason to feel guilty.
On November 25 2011 10:39 evanthebouncy! wrote: ^ YEAH!! Oh man let me show you this song, I think it is the best... I think you pretty much handled the situation fine... are you still religious (should try to break away if I were you). How old are you? It's easier to come out when you are economicaly independent and can basicaly say "fuck you" to your families w/o worrying about where to live.
Remember you are as happy as your mind is free of guilts, and in your case there is NO reason to feel guilty.
My mother used to go to church quite often, but in recent years she's become more of a spiritualist type. Doesn't really believe in the religions around anymore, but you can always see that believer in her eyes when the conversation somehow gets on to spirituality and god and philosophy(I always try to explain to her that philosophy starts where religion ends). In short she's become more lenient and tried really hard to grow as a person. Her mother(my grandmother) was extremely strict and abused my mother and my uncle a lot. I think this might be the reason she's clanged to faith for so long, she needs to know that somehow she can have another life and another chance at making things right(which I think is ironic, wouldn't you want the person you hated to be gone forever?). But above all I think she wants everything to be forgiven and forgotten, and that there was a meaning or a good-hearted plan behind all my grandmother's wicked and sinister actions. I think she's softened up over the years, in a good way. She's become so different, you can tell she's putting in a lot of effort to change.
At any rate(since I'm not gonna psychoanalyze my mother too much), what's interesting is my father in recent years has been a lot of atheist type stuff. Whenever we get on to the subject I get this weird feeling between the three of us. I don't really remember my dad much in childhood, he was always working. My father's recent words on the subject, along with the talk he gave me along with a box of condoms "you should have sex with someone you care about and love", have given me hope that he's someone I can trust. The family used to be very cold and uncommunicative. Suppressing thoughts and not confronting them was a common technique when any problems occurred. Passive aggressiveness is the disease which still clings to us. My sister hates it there, and she's moving out as soon as she can find a place.
Well anyways, enough of the dark past... Not currently religious though I wonder about the deist argument sometimes. I'm 21 right now. I just installed brood war on my new laptop and the colours are all weird and the screen is like half the size of my computer screen. Gonna enjoy watching DH this weekend
I used to sit in my room, hiding from everybody, trying to blend in and never quite understanding why. Through HUGE (and I mean enormous) amount of work I finally managed to admit to myself that I'm gay, but still there's a huge gap between admitting it and accepting it. I'm also from a conservative family, and I'm still somewhat religious too, so accepting myself for who I was was not an easy task. It took literally years to understand that men are defined by what they do, not by who they do... or something like that.
Anyways, here's the thing. I'm completely okay with who I am now, and here's how it went for me. My parents still don't know, most of my close family still don't know. I actually started by thinking about it myself, then telling my best friend. Baby steps. Don't think coming out of closet has to be all running through campus wrapped in a rainbow flag or anything. One thing is for sure tho. Accepting who I was was the most important thing to improve the quality of my life, my relationships, my friendships, everything I have today. Understanding yourself gives you the confidence of facing all the various opinions people might have about you.
Coming out of the closet starts from you, and you are the most important part in it. Not the people you tell to. If you don't have the confidence to carry out the message, it could turn out bad. Have confidence in yourself!
I wouldn't want to pretend that I have any idea what it's like to be homosexual and in the closet, however it kind of strikes me as if you've gotten used to it. Change is always scary, and from what I've read about your situation at home for example you won't get disowned or anything like that.
To me it sounds like the downsides to staying inside the closet are HUGE, whereas the downsides to coming out are...?
I could imagine some downsides to being gay in a fairly homophobic society, however I would say that the people that would judge you because of that don't matter. I hope you can find the strength to come out, because from what I gather from the other people in this thread that actually do have a clue (Unlike me XD) it will clear up a big source of negative emotions.
EPT
