For the past year and a half, I've been "with" someone. We've been best friends since seventh grade, and now we're both seniors in high school, so it's not like my parents don't know who she is. I wouldn't be surprised if they practically considered her part of the family, and I'm hoping they will do that one day. She's always hanging out here, but my parents never really seemed to catch on to anything until about a week ago. I'll spare the boring details. (On the other hand, she came out to her parents months ago. They don't act like anything is different at all, which is awesome.) We'd been thinking about coming out to them soon, some time after New Year's, but now... It's sort of an "as soon as possible" thing. I almost had a nervous breakdown on Wednesday when we tried to. I kept trying to push it off, "later... in a few minutes... after we eat" and so on, 'til she said that I was too uncomfortable and we should wait. It's kinda embarrassing. Actually, it's incredibly embarrassing. I never looked at her and said, "Woah, she's hot." Never said, "I'd hit that." The emotional connection was always there, and the physical followed. By 'emotional connection', I mean that four letter word. I don't tell my parents that I love them more than once or twice a day, but it falls out of my mouth every other minute when I'm with her. It's not like I'm confused about anything. I know who I am, I know who I love, and I accept all of that. Most of my close friends know, and it's blatantly obvious to everyone in school. I just don't know how to initiate a conversation about it with my parents, or how to find the guts to do so. :bang: (Oh, wow. I usually hate smilies, but that one has to be the exception.) ...Heh. I apologize for rambling so much. I'm not sure if I'm asking for advice or ranting or doing some bizarre combination of the two, but I will absolutely not blame it on the fact that it's nearly 2 AM. I swear.
Uhhh... Ohh! Are you male or female? I assumed male (who knows why) and then I was confused because you had an 'emotional connection' and physical involvement with a female, yet you suggested that you were homosexual. Though... I'm guessing that you are female and that's the situation. Sorry! I guess I'm a little slow! I'm not good at dispensing advice... you'll know when you're ready to come out to your parents. I think it's good that you have your (girl)friend there to help you. Only you can know how your parents will react to what you tell them... It's nice that you are going to tell your parents. I can relate a little: me and my bf discussed possibly coming out together to the school and talked about whether it would be okay to come out to our parents and admit that we're going out. Basically, I think I would like that... but my boyfriend is very much against it. Also, this one girl who found out about the two of us may have told people... and now these two guys have started 'hitting on' my bf. He's confused and angry and I'm very afraid that the girl (who is friends with these two guys) has told them. Also, the one guy (after hitting on my bf) asked my bf for my number. But, I digress (sorry for that!!)... it's just on my mind. Well, thanks for sharing your story. Please tell us more if you want. To get into the conversation may be hard... however, just this morning my mom got talking about homosexuality and how she "knows enough" about it to know that it's not a choice. That would've been a great opportunity for me to admit about myself... and possibly, from there, about my bf. I'm surprised how often a conversation in which coming out is applicable occurs; I'm just not quite ready yet. But, if you find that an opportunity doesn't come up, you can, ever so gently, steer the conversation in the right direction. Overall, I don't think there's a need to rush it, though. Take your time and do it when you're able to. Good luck!
The best advice i can give is to not worry about rushing it. In fact, you aught to be ready to tell when you realize you are comfortable, which may take a little time. Holidays are always stressful, and there's no way it'll help you out too much, so dont worry if it takes you another month to be comfortable enough to tell them.
There's really no trick or easy way to tell your parents. You just kinda have to do it. I find if you keep as relaxed about it as you can, it usually goes better. Obviously you can't (and don't want to) be completely casual about it but yeah, you just sort of have to pretend it's not something quite as major as it is. It's also good to have a minor exit strategy planned: that is, if things get really tense, it's good to have a friend waiting in the wings who you can go hang out with and give your parents some space and time to absorb the news. One thing that's easy to overlook is that by the time you tell them, you've had a lot longer to deal with it than they have. So it helps to be patient with them because chances are when you tell them, it's the first time they'll have had to face it so if they act in unpredictable or inappropriate ways, it can often be attributed to shock rather than any serious problems they might have with you. It's a big deal for parents because they've raised you for years and they have all these assumptions and expectations and very rarely do those include their child being non-heterosexual. And then there's the fact that they have the same background homophobia that most of us raised in "mainstream" society do. So as best you can, give them some space/leeway. That can be really hard because as children we are used to depending on our parents for unconditional support and this is a case when sometimes they can't give that for a while as they're processing. It's not that they love you any less; it's just a pretty big thing to them, as it often is to their children, but for some very different reasons. So having some supportive friends or a partner or even other accepting parents (say at PFLAG) to turn to is a real blessing. Apart from all that, remember to breathe. There are worse things in this world than having to tell your parents you're queer, even if that seems unimaginable right now. I'm not saying that to devalue your understandable anxiety--I've just found it always helps me to try to think beyond whatever I'm stressing out about because it's so easy to forget that life will keep rolling on past my own private fears. I fight pretty hard with myself to keep stuff in perspective because I have a tendency to become overwhelmed by certain things, so I find reminders to look for the forest as well as the damn big trees in front of me are always welcome.
