Hey everyone, long time (Male, gay) After your support many months ago things were looking up, i'm feeling much more confident in myself now but still havn't come out to anyone :bang: My family are very supportive and open minded and i'm 99.9% sure they will accept me when I do eventually break the news, and my friends pretty much the same, two of which have very strong suspisions which I keep denying and can't seem to stop doing so :eusa_doh: The problem I have now is I just can't bring myself to tell ANYONE, I have accepted my self a long time ago, i'm sure my family and friends will accept and even suspect, yet I still deny and even thinking of comming out gives me butterflies. My parents are supporting me now im unemplyed and no longer a student, and I can not seem to motivate myself to do anything from this point, I WANT to go to college, I WANT to get a job, I just have no umph to go out and get the ball rolling and instead I sit at home wasting away... My parents are constantly encouraging me to do something but they do not know the real reason and I can not tell them, its getting frustrating :bang: What I would like to know if anyone else has ever hit this invisible barrier against moving on with your life, and how did you pass it? I think I allready know the answer and any advice on building my courage to fix it is very welcome Things even seem a little clearer after writing this down, but every time I try and think my way through this it comes back to one thing... Most people say to come out when the time feels right, well its not getting any better or worse for me than current time, im just a coward...:help:
Maybe you're depressed from being in the closet all your life and that is the reason you have no "umph" to get out and go to school, get a job, and do the other things you want to do in your life. If you don't feel you can tell your good friends or your family you're gay -- tell someone that you don't care if they deny/accept you. Just a friend but not a best friend. That's what I did. I told a new friend (girl) that I had just met and it made it that much easier to then tell my better friends. I also am someone who puts coming off indefinitely. In order to actually come out and do it I need: 1) a plan -- how will you do it? Letter? Phone? In person? 2) What will you say? 3) When will you say it? Day/time Once you have those it is much easier to come out...because otherwise you just keep telling yourself "I want to be out already!!" But you can't take a HUGE LEAP of just randomly doing it, but rather take steps that I showed above to get you to that final destination of telling someone "I'm gay".
There ARE good and bad times to come out. (During Uncle Joe's funeral? Bad time.) But if you ask people who came out at a bad time, or had a bad time of it, guess what? Some time later, they don't regret the coming out. Oh, they might regret HOW it happened, but they don't regret that it DID happen. It's just a "well, that could've gone better" sort of thing. "Coming out" is basically something to get beyond. Something you can get to the other side of, so you don't have to deal with the "who knows" factor anymore. And it sounds like you're stuck on the wrong side, waiting for the right moment. Which, as you're finding out, never comes. Stop waiting. Pick one person you feel most comfortable with. Don't overthink it. Don't start drawing up a flowchart of "X must know before Y, and Z really shouldn't be left out..." Just pick somebody. "I feel comfortable with Bob/Sarah/Mom." And tell them. If the words get stuck, write a short note and hand it to them. If even that sounds too scary, whip out your texting device, press the keys that spell out "I'M GAY " and hit send before you second guess yourself. And promise yourself you won't back away. You won't pretend to be kidding. You'll take that as a first step to coming clean with that person. It'll be nerve-wracking. But it'll be liberating. Lex
Let's talk about positive and negative cycles. You're in a negative cycle right now. You haven't come out because you haven't found your motivation yet, the thing that gets you over the hump. So you're feeling down about it. Which is removing even more of your motivation to do anything about it... And now it's starting to affect other parts of your life. Not good. Now let's say that you were able to find whatever motivation, courage, etc. you need to get this done once and for all. You bite the bullet, suck it in, and force yourself to get over the hump. There - it's done. Now you feel great! And you realize that you do have courage, and you do have motivation... So now you start taking action on the other parts of your life... and this now becomes a positive reinforcement cycle! I know what it's like to be sitting right on the edge, ready to come out in every way but one - getting over that final hump, where you open your mouth and the words finally come out. I also know how it feels once that's over and done with - tremendous relief and the start of the positive cycle. That was only a month ago, and since then I've made other important changes in my life because I'm now in the driver's seat. It's a great feeling that everyone should have! You're long past being ready - you're ready. So now it's all down to making it happen. I'm a fan of making a plan. Make a plan and stick to it. Decide when, where and how you'll do it. The details really don't matter, so don't get hung up on them. Pick a route, and get it done. You'll feel like a bucket of squirmy worms beforehand, but the payoff is huge!!
