Please, I need some help here. I finally had to come out to my family. I could not take the lying anymore. My sisters, they were very accepting of it it. My father has been quiet. Really the only thing that he has said is that he loves me and that will never change. And my mom.... Well ill be honest, she had a complete breakdown. She cried as if I had just died, and just kept hugging me and telling me that I am confused. Over and over again she said this. When I told her that I wasn't confused, she asked me how I knew. I explained to her my feelings, told them all everything that I have gone through over the past ten years of my life, just everything that I could think of. I answered every question they asked me, but even after all of that my mother still said she didn't believe it. She just said that she would love me no matter what, but that there was something evil at work here and that she wasn't going to lose her son to this. I tried to explain to her that she would never lose me, and that I had no feelings of resentment or anger towards my family at all. To be honest, I was less concerned with my own well being, I just wanted to make them happy. But she has fixated on the idea that I can be "fixed" or "cured." She found numerous religious and non religious sights that to be honest had an obvious agenda against gay people, but she nevertheless used them to point out all the "bad aspects" of what could happen to a gay person and the life they "could" lead. I say it this way because these sights literally gave no room for other very possible reality's, it was just awful. I tried to point this out to her, but she insisted that I should read "the facts" and realize that no person in their sane mind would choose this lifestyle.........But I Do. Next she found a website called people can change.com and told me that I had to research and look into it. I personally found it to be very unhelpful to my situation. The entire sight is based on the premise that you are there and seeking change in your homosexual feelings because you are unhappy with them, or they are unwanted and harming your life. I may have felt that way when i very first started having these feelings, but it would be a lie to say I am unhappy or reject my feelings now. I am fine with being gay, the lifestyle does not scare me one bit, and for once I can actually feel true emotions of desire and attachment towards another person instead of pretending to like I would with a girl. My mother however, has made it obvious that while she will always love me, she does not approve of the life and has told me that if I can see even the smallest way out of it that I should take it. I see no such avenue however, as i truly deep down don't feel like I need to change or that there is something wrong with me. But after my mom told me how my sisters were both crying and my father and herself are upset not because they are mad or hate and reject me, but because of the life they had pictured I would grow up to have. To them, they said it was like somebody really has died. They are scared for me, they fear for my health and they fear for my safety in society. Sorry this is really long. The advice that I need right now is on this. I love my family, but they want me to go to group counseling, possibly even attend this peoplecanchange.com journey into manhood deal. Literally they want me to exhaust every possible "cure" solution to being gay, before I begin to live a gay life. I told them that I would do whatever would make them happy, but ec......I am happy with being gay. I WANT to be gay! I just hate to see my family in pain, and I don't want them to think that I am being closed minded by not at least trying to entertain their hopes but........ I already fought with this stuff for so long. I know fully in my heart that I am gay, and that the only thing these camps and counselors would manage to do is suppress the real me...... What do I do?
Mylo, first of all, congratulations! You have taken a wonderful step. It may not seem like it right now, but coming out to your family should make things better for you in the long run. I will tell you that I don't have a lot of experience in this area - dealing with very unaccepting homophobic parents. Please keep that in mind when I offer my advice. I hope others chime in to give you some as well, because I think you need a breadth of advice on this matter. I took a look at some of your other posts, and I would have to say that it sure seemed like your mom was worried you might be gay even before you came out to her. So, your actual coming out basically confirmed her worst fears. Because your mom is so unaccepting, she is actually going through a grief process right now. The vision of the son she thought she had is now gone. She is going through shock and denial right now about you. You need to gradually help her to understand that she has a new son now. One that is physically the same, but whose life will be a little different than she envisioned. You need to help her through this grief process so that she can come out on the other side of acceptance of her new life - one in which she has a gay son and does not have a straight son. I would tell her that you will look at the websites that she wants you to, but in exchange she should agree to look at some information from positive affirming gay websites, such as PFLAG. You need to give her information to show her that the fact you are gay is something that is just part of who you are, no different from how tall you are, or the color of your hair. It would be great if you could actually get her to go to a PFLAG meeting, but I have a feeling that is a long way off. I do not think you should attend any counseling or therapy to "cure" yourself. There is no point to that as you have stated you would only be doing it to appease her. You already understand that you are not going to change. I would look for information for her that these therapies have extremely high failure rates and actually do damage to some people who go through them. Have her watch the movie "Prayers for Bobby" to have her understand what can come of trying to "cure" someone who is gay. Lastly you might even look around EC and other places on the internet for stories of people who have tried to live the straight life even though they knew they were gay (myself included in that). By marrying a woman, you will not only ruin your life, you will ruin the life of an innocent woman as well. It will only end in disaster for all involved. I'll be thinking of you as you go through what is going to be a very long process for you. Your mom will not change her mind overnight. I was glad to hear her say that she will love you no matter what. That is a good start. Keep us posted.
Hey Mylo360, Adam1212 gave you excellent advice, the internet is great as a source of information but it is also an echo-chamber for personal biases and prejudices. She is looking for confirmation of her beliefs, not for information that will refute these beliefs. Simply put, she has a bias in favour of what she wants. Nevertheless, if you can get your hands on a paper pamphlet from PFLAG (print one if you can) and leave it lying around (leave several as she will undoubtedly tear a few up) it might help. I would emphasize Adam's point about avoiding these gay-cure sessions like the plague, you can look up states that have banned this damaging practice, again, your fight is about the facts, arm yourself with them.
Thank you Adam1212 and greatwhale, I was really stressed about the whole counseling cure myself and just was not sure where to go with that predicament. A few questions to ask to well i guess anybody who has an answer. I just got off a phone call with my mom, I found out she bought me self help books to read over the holiday break, and the whole time we talked she was just crying and crying. I need help with how I can help make this easier for her. She is so convinced that she can "save" me and that makes it hard for me to be around her, but how can I help her deal with this?
The only thing you can do right now is give her time and hope that she considers different points of view. You yourself need to remain firm. The guilt tactics and the tears are going to be used against you, all I can say is, see these methods for what they are: guilt-traps that, if you cave, will make you do things you will regret. Do not accept, consider or even half-promise that you will ever go to conversion therapy. Part of the problem that often happens is your concern that you would hurt feelings and so you may utter phrases like I think I'm gay, rather than I AM gay, leave no room for doubt, give no false hope: you are what you are. Arm yourself with the facts, teach her that this "therapy" crap does more harm than good, much more harm. You have nothing to feel guilty about, nothing to feel ashamed about, you are gay, plain and simple (not easy, but pretty simple).
Mylo, greatwhale's advice is spot on. It is going to take a lot of time for her to come around. And it will be very hard to listen to the crying and guilt trips. But the worst thing you could do now is back track or give in to her. Don't say "Well, I'm really bi" just to stop the crying or to give her hope. That would be lying. One thing you might say to her when you think the time is right - and now might not be that time - is to ask her this question: If one of her daughters came home one day and said she had this really great new boyfriend and he might be the one, oh and by the way, he used to be gay but went through gay conversion therapy to become straight, how would that make her feel?
Mylo360 - I think you've received some really good advice, but I just want to jump in an add some stuff... That's a really bad idea. Your family, and your mother in particular, is in denial. By giving them this type of false hope you're only prolonging that denial, and making it worse for everyone involved. If your coming to terms with being gay was anything like mine, it also began with denial. I had hopes that I could change into being straight if I just prayed and willed it hard enough. It didn't happen. Your experience with realizing you were gay may have been similar. Now that they know that you're gay, they're having the exact same reaction. It's going to begin with denial: "You can change! You just have to try!" Then it's going to shift into anger: "You're not even trying! You could change if you want to, but you don't even want to try!" Then it's going to shift into bargaining: "If you really love us, then you'd at least try to change." Then it's going to shift into depression: "I give up. I thought you loved us... I had such good hopes and dreams about your future..." And finally, in the end, they'll reach acceptance. Those are the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In many ways, they're right - it is like someone dying. Except, it isn't a person that died, it's all their false expectations and dreams that they had built up. They built those false expectations and dreams around you being straight - which isn't reality. Now they're watching those things shatter, and ultimately - they're going to have to build new expectations and dreams around the actual truth: they have a gay son. That's just the reality that they're going to have to learn to face. Giving them any sense of false hope, which may make them feel better in the short term, is only going to confuse them and make it harder on everyone - including yourself - in the long term. I can't really give you specifics on how to best deal with the situation on a personal basis, but I can say that a good tactic to use is to listen to them and attempt to empathize with what they're feeling by relating how you've felt in the past and your struggles toward acceptance. Do your best not to loose your cool and lash out at them, even if they're lashing out at you. (Though obviously take all the necessary precautions for your emotional and physical safety.) Ultimately, this is just going to be something that will take time. There are promising signs in that they want to emphasize that they love you and that will never change. Another piece of advice I'd give would be to try very hard to separate in your mind the person that you are now, and the false mental image of you as a straight person that was built up over time. They're mourning the loss of that false image. You can empathize with them by realizing that you went through a very similar process. I hope this helped.
I second the motion to get your mother in front of a TV screen and sit with her while she watches every minute of "Prayers for Bobby". Then tell her that you know that you are gay, and that your life is going to be more difficult than others because of people trying to tell you that you are wrong, that you are broken, and need to be fixed, when you do not feel wrong or broken or in need of being fixed. That you do not want to submit yourself to people who are going to try to change you into something you know you are not as their business model. That these kind of programs have been found to be abusive and shut down in many states after causing real problems for gay people like you. And finally, that you do not want to end up like Bobby, feeling ashamed, and attacked, and depressed and unloved because of what you were born to be, by people who want you to pretend to be someone else for their own comfort, and most of all, to not be perpetually harassed by your own family in the same manner for the same reason. Then tell her that you will be happy to go to some PFLAG meetings with her, to help her understand what it means to be a parent of a gay child, and to learn how to deal with the various problems that come up so that they can help you instead of causing you the kind of discomfort and stress you are feeling around them right now. That you know your life will be different than she imagined, and in some ways more difficult than if you had been born straight, but that if she will accept the reality of your being gay and thus become a source of help for you instead of another problem to have to deal with, your life will be easier and hers will too. If you have any additional family members, maybe an aunt or uncle, who is more rational, try to solicit their help as well. People tend to pay more attention to people their own age with whom they have more common experiences than they do to "kids", which is what you are to her, a confused kid who doesn't know what he is getting into by making "a wrong choice". If they can convince her it is not a "choice", then she can move on to acceptance of the reality that you are a healthy gay man instead of a "broken straight man".
It depends on the kind of person you already were. If you were responsible and not self-destructive, it's absurd of her to think that by coming out, you'll suddenly head down that path. If you were a drug fiend and so on, maybe she should be worried. However, she's not helping by being so hysterical. Rejection from family can be harmful, and even though she may add "i love you still" every now and then, shoving books at you and saying it's evil is a form of rejection. You may want to speak up that she's harming you in this way. You've a right to defend yourself.
All excellent advice Mylo. I think the important things to know are to stay strong and not let anyone tell you that you are someone you are not, or that you should try to be someone you are not. And you are going to need to lovingly help your mother get through this. It will take a while. Best of luck to you.
