I have been gay for as long as I can remember, but I've spent the majority of my life telling myself I'm not. I remember that there was a certain point in grade school where I could finally put my feelings to a name. Being a faggot, gaywad, cocksucker, whatever the kids wanted to call it, I knew I wanted no part of it, I couldn't. So I spent the rest of my school years telling myself that I wasn't gay, I remember being in middle school and standing in the shower and looking at the ceiling, mind completely devoid of thought. And for one small split-second, a fraction of a thought, it said to me, "You're gay." I remember I was consumed with so much self-hatred I got dizzy and slipped, and I just laid there wanting to cry, but I knew I couldn't. Crying would affirm my deepest, darkest, most well-kept secret. So I then vowed never to cry again, and for the next 6 years, I didn't. Going into High School was rough. I had already developed self-hate and depression and the starting of my now life-consuming BDD. I met a girl in 9th grade biology, the second day of school. I asked her to go out with me, she admitted to me she was going to ask me as well, and we did. We spent the rest of the year making out after school, obviously I never showed any interest in going over to her house or going any further. I was too "body conscious." Which wasn't a lie, I flat out hate myself. She broke up with me that summer, little did I know when 10th grade rolled around she had become wholesomely obsessed with me. Memorizing my schedule and skipping class to follow me around and beg me to have sex with her for the next 3 years, wanting to get back with me. In the ending months of senior year, I was at my all time low. I broke, I had a meltdown. I took scissors to my hair and just started chopping, I took sharpie and wrote all across my floor horrible things about myself, I was gone. I finally cried, when I woke up the next morning, I could finally admit out loud to myself, "I'm fuckin' gay." I didn't come out in high school, after school ended I told the girl that was obsessed I was gay, I apologized whole-heartedly. She was so delusional that she started calling me a liar, and making up ridiculous reason why I couldn't be gay. She would show me pictures she had taken and point to my eyes, telling me she could tell by them that I still loved her, she got so upset and angry she started screaming at me, this only fueled my self-hate to such a degree I thought suicide started looking a bit more glamorous than usual. I told a friend of a friend who had come out a year prior, thinking he'd understand. But he prefers to not talk to me about it, saying it's too awkward. I told one other girl, just an acquaintance. That's it, 3 people know. It's strange really, I just wanna' come out altogether and get it over with, but I just can't. All my best friends are guys, and I don't see them as desirable in that way. Yet, I value our close friendship so much that I feel as if I can't come out. This may be the internalized homophobia talking but when people find out someone is gay, I feel that it changes the entirety of the perception of that person. Coming out to them would almost seem emasculating and only drawing a caricature of myself for them to poke fun at. I become less brother, more novelty. It's not so much that they dislike gay people, but the way they talk about the other gay guy in the group when he's not around. It's not slanderous, but it's just matter-o'-fact. I'd just be a faggot to them, a cartoon, an anecdote. I want to tell my grandmother, the closest person to me throughout my entire childhood, but with her extreme Pentecostal religious background, including the fact her youngest brother was gay and died of AIDS in the 80's.....I just can't do it. I don't feel the need to tell my parents, it'd be gross. Besides an awkward but cute middle school bus romance, an embarrassing cyber session with an internet friend, and a back massage, I've never had solid interaction with another guy, and I want to.....I REALLY want to. I don't know where to go, the BDD, suicidal ideation, and extreme depression have left me faceless in the year book, absent from my graduation ceremony, locked in my house, hating myself for my looks, my life, my being. What do I do?
Hi there, Well done for coming out to three people, that's great! You're not alone, a lot of people, myself included, find it really hard to come out fully and be open about who they are. I also worry about people's perceptions of me changing if I say I'm bi. Personally I am taking it one step at a time. I've come out to four people and am now considering who I'm going to come out to next, at a semi-leisurely pace. You say that you 'can't' come out. I totally know the feeling, I feel the same way, and many times I've been screaming the words in my head but have been unable to say them. But then the few times I did say them, I thought, "this is going to feel impossible whenever I do it, so I might as well do it now." You say you're really depressed though - if you're not already, please get some help for this. Staying in the closet does make you feel down, I think, but there's more to life than our sexuality and if you're depressed you can also think about other things you can do that make you feel happier, like hobbies. Good luck
Hey fella First things first your not alone, everything you have described has been experienced by thousands of gay people around the world. While being gay has become less of a taboo these days the coming out process is still as hard as ever. I and others know exactly how you feel, you want the people you love to know and accept you as you really are. The tiniest hint of rejection (or the fear of it) stops you from going through with it so you have a stark choice to make my friend. Continue to live in tormented hell or join the rest of the human race and make the best of your existence. I have sat and talked for hours, days, weeks, months, with people like yourself and no matter how you dress it up, how terrible your life is, how lonely and isolated you feel, you will always be faced with the same 2 options. You didn't choose who you are but the choice you do have is what your going to do about it. Your friends may have already guessed and when you tell them they'll probably be relieved that you did. Staying in the closet becomes a pantomime in the end that only you are starring in because everyone else has got bored and gone home. By that i mean you don't have to actually tell people your gay these days most people can work it out for themselves. I also grew up in an ultra religious family with 3 brothers but when i finally told my parents they were more upset at the fact i thought they would be ashamed of me than the fact that i was gay. My mum simply said all any parent should want for their child is for them to be happy and i would always be her son no matter what. It is difficult yes, but the longer you torment yourself buddy the harder it becomes. Live your life, don't let ONE aspect of your personality prevent you from being happy.
