Well, over the past few weeks ive begun to embrace being gay and have strarted going to gay places with some of the new friends i have made at a support group, i even came out to a close friend who was supportive but has left the country and overall was beginning to settle with everything. Still havent come out to family or close friends but today has been different. Ive just wanted to tell other people i am close to but even when i think about it i get this overwhelming fear in my stomach that takes over!! and its making me feel so tired of everything. I just want to go to sleep and for everything to disappear. Although i know this is not going to help how i feel. I dont even know what i am SO fearful of. I think its fear of acceptence but some part of me says that my close friends who i want to tell will be fine with it. i dont know what to do. sorry if stuff doesnt make a whole lotta sense, i sorta just put down stuff as it came to me!!
Well, I guess you need to find a way to quiet your fear. The hardest but most immediate way would be to tell them, because then you'll find out right then and there how they feel. Obviously, this would be hard to do. However, do you know your friends' views on homosexuality? Do they have other friends that are homosexual? Do they make remarks or jokes that bash gays?
The female friends i have made on my counselling psychology course are not homophobic at all. However i do know they dont have any openly gay friends (well apart from me??!!) I guess my fear comes out of the fact that i have had intimate conversations where they have opened up to me as a friend and we have shared stuff about relationships and things like that. Now at this point i have always maintained myself being straight so have discussed my realtionships in terms of being with a woman. I guess i dont wnat them to feel like i was lying through my teeth to them while they were being so brave and sharing their stories.
I completely empathise I have that same feeling of anxiety in my stomach whenever I get close to telling someone. I told one person too and it didn't help, that was months ago and I'm still as scared as hell about someone else finding out. I think you're right about your friends opening up to you. Most of my friends aren't homophobic but they have opened up to me, and like I'm pretty insecure about a lot of things but my friendships are generally strong and I'm so scared about the one thing that seems good in my life changing with just 3 words. My advice is if you really want to tell people, then do if they're not homophobic, they'll respect you for it at the very least. If you are at a stage of internalized homophobia where "you don't even know what you're feeling" (Which I must say I am too) thn maybe wait a little longer until you feel more comfortable in your own skin. You're lucky, you have support. Even though it (may) feels like your friend who you trusted has deserted you after you told them, it's just probably because to them it's not a big deal, of course they care it just hasn't changed how they feel about you. It has changed you more then them, if that makes sense. I will wait it out until I feel more confident in myself but you, just do what you want to do. Don't feel pressured, just take a deep breath because everything is going to be okay ~Hugh
Just decide that you're not going to tell anyone else for a while. And then there isn't this constant anxiety every time you're with someone as to whether you should tell them now... or now... or now...! Revisit the situation in a couple of months, and you might find that you're much more at ease with the idea. This isn't a race. Good luck!
Thanks for the replies! i understand about telling myself to wait, but its getting to a stage where its interfereing with my studies and as im entering the final year of a doctoral course i need to have a clear head and this realisation of being gay has placed itself right in the centre of it all. (I know there will never be a good time for this but if it had happened next year when id finished, well that would have been better!!). Plus even today my friend was telling me about her relationship with her boyfriend and how marriage is fitting into this and then asking my advice and how i would be. (Me and her boyfriend are same ethnic origins), and then asking about my relationships. Again i suppose i felt like i lied directly to her and so if i told her i was gay, then maybe it would be clearer in my head, and also the burden of keeping the secret may lift so that i can have a sorta clearer head to focus on my final year too. i dont really know if any of this will actually work, but right now i am just walking around feeling dazed!!:icon_sad:
