My story, my dreams, my hopes, my fears, my escape...

Hello everyone,

I would like to introduce myself to you and tell you my story, which is rather long and I'm somehow afraid that you may find it uninteresting and stop reading it after the first sentence. I would greatly appreciate somebody's effort to get through the boring part and understand what I have to say, because I feel somehow misunderstood by the people around me (common problem, especially these days, I think...) and I have maybe 1 or 2 close friends, whom I can tell the truth about myself and what bothers me. It's a very sad reflection, that these days (in the age of the Internet, I mean) you can be more understood by people on the other side of the world while writing to them in a foreign language, than by your closest relatives in your home town. Thank you in advance for your time spent here. :help:

I'm a 17 year old homosexual boy living in a small town in Poland. (Yeah, it's gonna be another touching “Smalltown Boy-like” story, mostly... But don't quit, it's yet the beginning ) As you may know (or not), there's a common stereotype about Poles' homophobia. Stereotypes are usually plain BS, but this one is not. Poles are well educated people in terms of science, history, language and so on, but not in terms of homosexuality. Moreover, many Poles strongly believe in the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Bible. So the majority of Polish people considers homosexuality to be something “unnatural” (I think I could write a whole book about what mad things, behaviours and phenomenons people usually consider to be “natural”, especially in Poland, but I don't wish to turn this topic into a socio-philosophical dispute, at least not now.) and a large part of them condemn gay people and treat them in a very disrespectful and harmful way (I mean verbal and psychical violence and so on). And so do my parents. They are very conservative people, nationalists, devoted Catholics and so on. And, as you can guess, I'm exactly the opposite. What amazes me is that being a very good Biology teacher doesn't prevent my mum from being a complete ignorant about the in-born nature of homosexuality. :bang: Despite being highly educated, my parents seem to believe in a bunch of completely irrational beliefs on the subject of sexuality. And many other Poles do. Coming out to mum and dad seems to be completely pointless, as it would only turn my family life into hell. There's no chance they will understand me. They have always been emotionally cold and I've never felt their love. For me it's painful enough, when they have absolutely no idea of who I am... Some of you probably know how it feels, when you hear your own father cursing at “fags” (when the gay parade in Warsaw is shown in the news), having no idea that he's cursing at his own son... It's been hurting me since I was 12, when I realized that I was gay, and the pain is growing as the years go by, as I've been realizing, that there's no return from such path as it has been written in my genetics. I've attempted creating a heterosexual relationship twice. Obviously, both attempts were failures. They were strong fascinations towards a person with a personality different from mine. They were not connected with any sort of physical attraction, because girls don't turn me on at all. I've always accepted my homosexuality, but it took me some time to realize, that being gay is the only path I can follow.

As I've said before, I've never been unhappy because of the fact of being gay itself. I've been depressed because of the way societies all around the world treat people that are somehow different. I've been very sensitive towards the cruelty that happens all around the world since I've felt people's hatred on my own skin for the first time. I've found some relief from this pain in philosophy, irreligious spirituality and popular science. But it's not enough. I feel the urge to live my life in accordance to my own moral principles and my sexuality. I need to be able to tell the people around me the truth about myself. I need to be loved and respected and create a relationship with a guy. Therefore, I need to escape secretly, as I can't fulfil myself neither emotionally, morally, nor sexually in my homeland. And I don't want to be in any sort of contact with my family, so escape seems to be the only possibility. I have 2 years to plan everything, save some money and study harder in order to pass my exams well. I've been thinking about Sweden for a long time, as it's a gay-friendly country with open-minded people, friendly for foreigners. And it's just overseas. :icon_wink Everyone speaks English there and Swedish is beautiful and rather easy to learn. I really love Scandinavian culture and languages and I've been dreaming about studying them in Stockholm or Gothenburg or somewhere else. I'm lazy and I don't know if it will ever happen, but nevertheless, I would like to live there. Or somewhere else, if you perhaps have any other ideas on where I can move to.

From time to time, I have some internal moral disputes on whether it is right or wrong to leave parents this way. :rolle: They aren't angels, but they aren't monsters either. I've never been beaten or anything like that. I don't wish a revange on them. Maybe I should leave a note explaining it all, or something. I still have a lot of time, but I should think about it and start saving money, as it can't be a spontaneous decision that I may regret. Please, share your oppinion and experience on doing such crazy things. :help:

Excuse me for my eventual mistakes, especially those in punctuation. :icon_redf I've never been taught the proper English punctuation, thus I write dots and commas intuitively, like I would do when writing Polish.

Best regards

 

Thanks everyone.

Thank you @zeratul. For me, it's very heart-lifting to hear such encouraging words. It's a powerful motivation to do something in order to fulfil my dreams. It means a lot to me, especially as I'm a lazy coward, who is basically unable to do anything without a proper encouragement. Therefore, I'm glad that somebody runs this forum.

Actually, what I'm intending (or not, I'm not sure) to do is to cut these ties forever. It's cruel, I know... But, as I've said, I'm not sure if that's what I want. Studying in the U.S. while staying in touch with my parents might be an option, but studying there is expensive and I would have to earn money not only in order to survive, but to pay for my studies as well. It would be even more difficult than my "Swedish escape plan", as studying in Sweden is completely free for all EU citizens. My parents can afford occasional trips to the U.S., but they can't afford paying for my studies there, and honestly, I don't think I'm able to earn enough money on my own. My parents know about my plans to study in Sweden and they are ready to support them. But Sweden is so close... About 400 km from where I live, so they would want to visit me quite often. :rolle:

Haha, I guess after meeting them you're able to say the K-word without any trace of American accent. :icon_wink That's true, young Poles are open-minded, mostly. My friends are tolerant people. Many people in my school have critical attitude towards homosexuality, but there are few real homophobes. Nevertheless, young people are not those who are in charge of this country. And they are not those by whom the public life here is dominated. Wanna see who is the most powerful socio-political force in this country? Here ya go: :lol:

Thanks, I haven't written English for a while and it looks like I'm not as bad as I thought. Languages are probably my only talent. If I were a religious person, I would thank God every day for the only gift I've got from him. (Well, maybe not the only one, after all I could be born by a starving mother in Africa instead of homophobic, but rather wealthy Poland...)

It might be an option, but I'm not ready to do it yet. First of all, I have to come out to my closest friends, and I'm gonna do it before the end of the month. I don't have any problems with saying "I'm gay", but... I'm a procrastinator, so it might be difficult though :lol:

 

I'm aware of how ignorance is born. I actually used to follow their footsteps, for a short time. Kids often tend to repeat what they parents say at home about politics, social issues etc., and I wasn't different. But then I've started thinking on my own. Many people haven't reached this stage and they are still mindlessly repeating what they used to hear from the people around them in their early age.

 

Cześć

Haha, it looks like everyone in America has Polish friends and knows some Polish words. It's not surprising though, there are about 10 million people of Polish heritage living in the U.S. and Polish diaspora in Canada is huge as well. I guess many of these people have to be the worst homophobes on the western hemisphere, because Polish-American people are known in Poland for being very conservative, religious and nationalistic. Many of these people have voting rights and their influence on who wins the election is always noticeable. As for the Polish authorities, there's a project to introduce registered gay/lesbian partnership in Poland and some major anti-discrimination laws. It has been prepared by some left-wing politicians and it's now being discussed in the Parliment. I'm sure it won't get through though, as majority of MPs seems to be against it. Some people simply won't allow it to happen. Majority of people living in the big cities seems to support the idea, but vast majority of those living in small towns and villages is opposed to this project.

BTW, is Poland commonly associated with kiełbasa (Polish sausage) throughout the US, or does this phenomenon occur only in Florida? :lol: Kiełbasa seems to be sold everywhere there. Moreover, when I was there two years ago, at least two people mentioned something about the Polish cuisine after they had heard me speaking Polish to my family. :icon_wink

As for the Poles' attitude to homosexuality that @zerogravity and @silvousplait have mentioned about. True homophobia and severe critisism towards gay people are features of the majority of Poles aged, I'd say, 30 to 99. There are also lots of young radicals (nationalists, even fascists) aged <30, but the majority of very young people doesn't even critisize homosexuality. But the problem is their mentality. Even very intelligent young people in Poland suffer from small town mentality. I mean, they claim that they're tolerant and they aware that it is not a matter of choice to be gay, but they often speak about homosexuals like if they didn't exist. And when they suspect somebody of being homosexual, they rumour about it like if it was something surprising to them that these people really do exist. They are completely unaware that what they often say may hurt other people. Moreover, vast majority of people in Poland never associates homosexuality with love, feelings and personal life in the first place, but with - guess what - ANAL SEX. :bang:

That you could only have heard from a young person. An older person, no matter how much he may hate gays, would not say anything like that. 5 million people, including Jews, Poles, Gypsies and homosexuals, were killed this way in my homeland between 1939 and 1945 by Nazis. For Poles raised in the times of communism, who are very aware of what sort of drama Holocaust was (because they were told about it at school and at home by people who have survived the WW2) it is absolutly unacceptable to claim that "sb deserves to be put in a gas chamber". If I said something like that, it would be a great dishonour towards myself.

You know what? There's one guy, who dislikes gay people very much. I like him though and he's a good classmate. I know I can easily change his attitude by embarrassing him, so I think I won't be afraid to come out to him. One day, while he'll be saying something disrespectful about LGBT people, I will confront him and tell him the truth. I can imagine his facial expression. :icon_bigg I'm sure he will be emarrassed. I want him to feel sorry for everything he has ever said to me about gays. :icon_wink

I haven't gave up on them yet. But I haven't noticed any change in their attitude as they're getting older. I'm expecting the worst possible reaction, so if I'll ever come out to them, I'll do it when I'll be ready to leave their house.

Great man, he was. Probably one of the best that have ever walked on this planet. His philosophy has radically changed my way of thinking. Thanks to him I'm not as depressed as I used to be.

The only situation I'm afraid of is my parents' reaction to my coming out or my departure.

Bardzo Wam wszystkim dziękuję. (&&&)
(Thank you all very much)

 

The anti-Jewish sentiment seems to be back in certain environments in Poland after many, many years. I can't find any reasonable explanation for that. Antisemitism was huge in Poland before the WW2, but when the war came, thousands of Poles, who were previously known bo be nationalists etc., sacrificed their lives in order to save these people. Nowadays, there are young Jews and young Poles who have forgotten about the respect these nations gained towards each other during these horrible times. In Poland there are strong groups of young nationalists, who are throwing eggs at gay parades, painting antisemitic signs on the walls (even though there are no real Jews in Poland, just many people of Jewish heritage!) etc. This is sick!

 

I've been thinking about my parents for a while. This train of thought was triggered by my dad's return from work. In order to understand why do I want to leave my parents for good, you have to understand what sort of person my father is. He's a person with very negative attitude towards many aspects of this world. He thinks he's always right and doesn't allow anybody to convience him that it's not true. He's always been caring about our family in material aspects. He's always been working very hard to provide our family with good quality of life. He always seems to be unsatisfied by his own achievments though - it's not surprising, all people who pay too much attention to material values are ultimately frustrated and unhappy. Family is the most important thing for him, but he doesn't understand, that caring about family doesn't mean caring about how wealthy the family is. This is why I've never felt my parents' love. My father's returns from work are often very unpleasurable experiences. He's very frustrated and his frustration affects me, my mother and my younger brother. My dad seems to suffer from unfulfiled ambitions of being someone big. He attacks us verbally for being "ungrateful" for what he does for us and accuses us of not supporting his hard work. This is not true! I appreciate his hard work and I've been doing my best in order to help him and my mother at home. He also doesn't seem to like certain features of me. These are some fundamental parts of my personality. He accuses me of having my head in the clouds and he says that with my attitude I won't get far in my professional life. Wild ambitions, frustration, low self-estimation are features that are completely foreign to my personality in its essence, but I have been somehow "infected" with them by my father. Now I'm free of them, mostly, but it took me a lot of time to understand where do these things come from and to realise, that I want to be free of them. That I don't want to be like my father, I mean. This man destroys my internal peace with what he says and how he behaves. His attitude towards his family is pathetic. I would be dead right know, if I haven't understood certain things about human personality, the way we think and act etc. (psychological and philosophical aspects, in general), because there was a time, about a year ago, when I felt so unfulfiled with every part of my life that I really wanted to kill myself, instead of fighting for my happiness and building internal harmony. Now this severe stage of depression is gone and I have enough courage to live and be a different man than my father. As for my mother, she is strongly influenced by my father's behaviour, just as I used to be. So... Don't you think that escaping my parents' house, leaving them a note explaining it all and then visiting them after some time would be a lesson for my father? Would he learn to appreciate, love and respect his own son? At worst, they would consider it to be the return of a "progidal son". :rolle: But their attitude may never change. I mean, I may me able to convince my mother to change her view on homosexuality, but convincing my father to anything seems to be absolutely impossible. I would be blamed and critisised for being who I am for the rest of my life.