Hard Time

[Anonymous]

I'm still having a really hard time accepting myself as a gay man, I feel I don't have a future, I can't handle the thought of people harrassing me, I've been in the closet for 20 yrs, how do you accept it I don't know how. I'm posting anonymously because I'm embarrased by the fact that most people on EC have already accepted themselves even at such young ages. How do you do it? and get on with life, I guess it doesn't help that I've been having nervouse breakdowns for years and am afraid of having another. I've also have experienced phychotic episodes, non violent, but scarey and I'm afriad getting involved with someone will be to stressful and push me over the edge.

I afraid how my life will change when everbody knows I'm gay. I don't want to do anything anymore, just watch TV.

[Anonymous]

you are who you are, despite the ignorant slander proclaimed from "traditional" groups.

It just feels like the right thing to do to defend your self and identity. be proud, be happy, and be yourself; that is all.

[InaRut]

Have you tried getting gay friends?
Perhaps all this negativety around homosexuality is because you haven't seen the good side of it? The side that I need to see too! Haha

If you get some gay friends...or just talk with gay people (as a straight guy) you might not see it as bad.

Go visit San Fransisco!

[joeyconnick]

Wow... that sounds like it really sucks.

Part of the reason people can be out at such early ages these days is that it really is a lot easier, in terms of how society conceives of being gay. Or at least it is in some countries for people in certain socioeconomic circumstances.

I think in a lot of ways what allows people to come out is a very sorta dogged individualistic determination, too... essentially "I don't give a shit what you think" that is possibly more prevalent now then say 20 years ago or 40 years ago. Not that it's always completely genuine because deep down it seems like most of us want to be loved and accepted/respected, but I don't think the fear of losing traditional social bonds is as strong as it used to be; sorta like a positive flip side of the loss of social cohesion in the modern or post-modern world.

(I'm totally unanonymising this because everyone will know it's me just from what I'm saying. *grin*)

As for your breakdowns, well I would guess a big part of what underlies you having had them is having had to deny your nature for 2 decades. The huge psychological toll of suppressing homosexuality is pretty well-documented; it probably didn't help with psychosis, either. I'm not saying being in the closet necessarily is 100% responsible for your mental struggles but it certainly can't have helped. Psychosis is pretty much a break from reality, right? That seems to me a pretty apt description of pretending to be straight if you're not.

So yes, not having any kind of psychology background, my very layperson take would be that somehow you (and everyone, really) has to find a way to handle the stress of other people rejecting them, whether for their sexuality or any other trait. How it works for me, which I know is probably making it sound incredibly easy given that I don't seem to be prone *knock on wood* to any serious mental issues, is that I really try to remind myself that ultimately there are ALWAYS going to be people who reject me, and if it's not for my sexuality, then it will be for the way I look, how I dress, what I sound like, what my politics are, how I live, who I hang out with, what I value, etc. It sounds pat but I think most people have experienced rejection before in their lives and you need to find a way of dealing with a certain amount of it to live in the world. Obviously that's harder for some than for others but that seems to me the central issue. We need to shut out the naysaying voices (external and internalised) and find a core of self-worth that we can nurture and build and recognise and kinda... grow it from there.

The other thing we all do is catastrophise into the future, which sounds like what you're doing with respect to feeling like you won't be able to handle the stress of being involved with someone. First steps first... you don't have to get involved with someone unless you want to, so you can take things slow. You don't have to go from "in the closet" to "successful homosexual" in 1 month flat. Or even 1 year flat. In fact, from the sound of your past struggles, it would be foolish to try.

InaRut's suggestion about finding some gay friends sounds like a really good one to me... that's what I would recommend to anyone struggling to come out, no matter what age and what stage of their life. Another standard but good one is working on the whole sexuality issue with a therapist/psychologist/psychiatrist/counsellor, because then you won't have to listen to pop psychology from someone like me who doesn't have first-hand experience of dealing with clinical-level mental stress.

I'd also recommend reading some gay-focused self-help books... for certain people alone time with new ideas and ways of looking at the world really helps them out because it allows them to process things at their own pace. Heck just reading gay stories is useful, I find, because so many of my thoughts and feelings are reflected in the characters' lives.

One of the best things to realise, I think, is that you don't need to beat yourself up because "everyone" seems ahead of you in sorting themselves out. It might be true that lots of people seem to have their lives more sorted out than you do but often that isn't as true as it appears to be and even if it actually were true, we process and cope and deal with the shit life throws us vastly different ways and in vastly different ways, so adding the guilt of being "behind" to the things you have to deal with is pretty counterproductive. If everyone in the world could tear themselves away from chastising themselves for what they haven't accomplished and expend even 10% of that time and effort on figuring out how to accomplish what they do want to get done, we'd probably have those no-emission flying cars by now. And have eliminated hunger and poverty. :)

[Anonymous]

^^ Wow - What Joey said! :eusa_clap