I'm new to this forum. This is actually my first post. My life is so god-damn complicated right now and I don't even know where to begin with this post. Basically, mentally, I'm too much of a mess to have a conversation with anyone in person about the shit that's happening in my life right now. It's kind of a long story but I hope you'll find it interesting or something that you can relate to. So, here goes... I'm a 20 year old guy (almost 21). I've known that I was gay since I was in high school but was in such denial that I never really thought about it much. It wasn't until I started going to college that it really began to take a toll on me. It's weird, because, I have come to terms with the fact that I am gay, but, to the outside world, I am completely closeted. I do not want anyone to know, aside from close friends who I know will accept me for who I am or who I suspect are gay themselves. I know that my parents would be completely understanding, but part of me doesn't trust them. I feel like they are keeping a lot of secrets from me and I may have some unresolved issues stemming from my childhood. Quite frankly, I don't remember a lot of my childhood and I don't even know how my parents met or why they got divorced. I suspect that my dad is gay and married my mom to cover up his secret. He is a loner, a drug addict/alcoholic, and doesn't seem interested in getting remarried or seeing women. Other than that, I had a pretty normal upbringing, though I was bullied quite a bit when I was younger, mainly because I used to be too nice and wouldn't stand up for myself. Anyway, I started smoking weed regularly by my third year of high school. It became the foundation of my social life. I've basically been stoned all day, every day for the last 4 years of my life. Before school, at lunch, after school, at night, and of course heavily on the weekends... It never ended really... Around the same time, I started dabbling with psychedelics and MDMA, as well as various opiates and, of course, alcohol. I'm sad to say that these were some of the best times of my life thus far (which says a lot, because my life has been neutral up until high school, and now, it is absolute hell). I love adventure and drugs provided me with that. Surprisingly, I managed to graduate at the top of my class and get into one of the best public universities in the world. I think that I started using drugs to fit in with the cool crowd because I had been a nerd with hardly any friends up until high school started. But later, it became a crutch to deal with problems and feelings stemming from not really knowing who I was and denial associated with my sexual orientation. College has been a fucking emotional roller-coaster. I love college itself, but the whole I-have-to-hide-from-everyone-because-I'm-too-afraid-to-come-out-of-the-closet thing has absolutely ruined me. Basically, I got heavy into the party scene from day one. It allowed me to escape my problems and be social at the same time. I thought everything was fine because my GPA was fine. I've been hardwired to care that much about grades. Fuckin a... But basically, everything seemed great. I was making more friends than I had ever imagined having, and was having the time of my life. But last year, things started to get a little too heavy. I started digressing from the harmless partying and moving into the psychotic lifestyle of an addict. I no longer hung out with normal college students but rather mentally unstable closeted gays and MISERABLE, socially awkward addicts. I'm talking people, who, by the grace of god, aren't in jail or dead... But mainly, I isolated myself from everyone. People invited me to do things but I was too scared to accept the invite because I knew I would probably make a bad first impression by getting too drunk or fiending over drugs in front of strangers. I started to stay home alone. I studied my ass off, became really interested in learning and making music, read a lot. But in my free time I took opiates or smoked myself retarded. The only social situations I put myself in involved alcohol. I've always been a depressed person, and drugs and alcohol provided me with an easy way to run away from everything and feel happy. But nothing was going right. Everything was getting worse and I couldn't control it. At this point I was hopelessly addicted to many different drugs and a full-on alcoholic. I stopped going to class and got high and slept all day. One night, after dropping my wasted friend off at his house, I was pulled over and sent to jail for being blacked out behind the wheel. I also had pot and other illegal things in the car. I went to jail and was put on probation. Even after I was put on probation, I continued to use pretty much every recreational drug known to man. I was dropping heavy doses of acid weekly and smoking pot like a fiend. I didn't care. I wanted to die. Drugs were literally the only thing keeping me from killing myself at that time. No one wanted to be around me anymore because all I wanted to do was get fucked up beyond all reason and do stupid things. I, to this day, don't really have any friends because of my addictions and fucked up personality type. I'm antisocial and awkward and drugs and alcohol relieved that and used to turn me into a fun person (unless I got too intoxicated, of course). Recently, I fucked up again and violated my probation. I should be in jail, but they gave me one more chance. I'm in debt from paying all of the fees and being ordered by the court to do a bunch of bullshit that is ruining my life and making me miserable. It's the epitome of a vicious cycle and I feel like no one else is dealing with this. All of my friends got really lucky and never got in trouble, but I can't even THINK of a life without drugs and alcohol right now. That's how fucked up my brain/cognitive process is. I'm trying to get sober, but so depressed and I want to use drugs and alcohol again so bad. And I mean, really bad. My problems with addiction have just gotten worse and worse. I haven't been sober for a long time. I only have one friend who actually wants to hang out to spend time with me, as opposed to getting fucked up. All of the friends I continued to hang around with over the last two years are still, to this day, full blown addicts and alcoholics. I tricked myself into thinking they were my friends. Looking back, they used me and didn't actually care about friendship. The only thing that brought us together was the alcohol, or the pot. And we used to get fucked up and do some really reckless things. I mean, I don't know how I'm not dead. I cannot tell you the number of times that I have driven a car while on some kind of psychedelic drug or drunk out of my mind. I'm a really fucked up person, you guys. I put a lot of lives in danger, including myself. My friends and I should honestly all be dead. Some of these "friends" will likely die from overdose or chirrosis of the liver in the near future. I honestly don't even feel that I would have felt the need to abuse drugs as much as I did had I just been straight. Obviously, that will never happen, but I can't move forward. I just feel so fucking stuck in life. I can envision myself settling down with a guy and living a happy, independent life in the not too distant future, but when I think about sex, I get weirded out. I want it so bad but when I really think about doing it, I shudder and wish I could just die instead. I used to be pretty ugly, but as I grew up a bit, I became fairly attractive and girls and guys have recently started showing an interest in me. I feel that I am persistently really discrete about turning girls down, and I'm not into feminine gay guys. I like this other guy at my college, but I don't know if he likes me back, or even if he's gay. I think he is, and that he is also in denial/closeted. We were good friends for a while, but I think once the feelings developed, it ruined everything. He acts too weird around me now. We used to talk a lot and were close friends but things got weird. But it tears me up inside because I'm too scared to talk to him. He calls me but I'm too afraid to answer the phone. And I don't want him to think that i'm rejecting him but I'm too miserable and anxious to talk to anyone. I'm literally thinking about checking into a mental hospital. The damage that I've done by taking acid as much as I did is irreversible. I feel dissociated from my surroundings and feel like I'm mildly tripping everyday. Conversations with normal human beings are really awkward and I trip over my words. I think too much and every day is living hell. I wonder how I can have so many nice things and be so fucking miserable. My family is pretty normal, for the most part. I have a nice place to live and a lot of material things. But I feel like something is missing. I'm not human anymore. I'm an emotionless zombie. So basically, I came home from college this summer, and I got a job, but my mom is making me do some bullshit therapy. I'm willing to go through with it, but I don't feel like it's going to solve anything. I KNOW what's wrong. I don't need a therapist. I'm gay but I'm too afraid to come out of the closet. But how am I going to get anything accomplished if I don't want to admit it to my therapist. Is my mom trying to corner me into coming out of the closet by forcing me into therapy? I come off as extremely straight, and girls hit on me all of the time. I don't know if my parents know that I'm gay. They must suspect it unless their heads are that far up their asses. I just hate it. I don't want to be gay. Everyone says accept yourself for who you are. It's not really easy when there are so many homophobic people in the world. And the fact that most openly gay guys are feminine creates this whole stereotype... A lot of my straight guy friends that I made in college act like they still like me, but I can tell that our relationship has changed. It feels more artificial, like they "have" to hang out with me because they don't want to hurt my feelings. But I think they know that I'm gay and don't really want to hang out with me. I think they know because I'm good-looking and I have not been visibly interested in girls. I have not had any interest in pretending like I am because I don't want to turn out to be a complete closet case. As a result, I have isolated myself from my friends because I don't want people to see the real me. Sorry for the long rant. I have kept all of this bottled up for a couple of years now. I have no one to talk to. I'm turning 21 in a month and can't go out and drink with my old friends because if I do, I'll go to jail for months. All anyone my age wants to do is get fucked up and drink. On top of it, I'm musically gifted and, instead of going to art school, I decided to go to some pretentious public university where everyone is stuck up and too intelligent for their own good. But these days, I'm not even inspired. I don't like making music. I'm literally just working to survive/not go to jail. My life consists of working, going to alcohol treatment, meeting with my probation and community corrections officer, sleeping, and wishing I was dead. All I want to do is get high and sleep. I guess I'm just in a rut. I have no friends. I think of suicide every day but would never act on it. What the hell am I supposed to do
hi, and welcome to EC! Well, this pretty much sounds like the way mine was, only that I'm through depression now. Understanding that I was gay came up somewhat ten years ago and I went into denial. Long story short it drove me into depression. I wasn't even able to read a short article in a newspaper and tell someone what I had just read or even look for an information in a recipe, read the very information and execute. Regarding that I was studying at one of the worlds top universities this was horror for me as I didn't know if something was going wrong with my brain. Luckily I managed to agree with myself that my sexuality isn't something I can freely choose but that I can choose to become happy the way I am. I started to recover and some weeks or months later (I don't really remember) I started coming out to my friends. Not all at once but still, I was being myself for the first time in my life... and it felt good. I don't want to say you have to come out to anyone, but you need to sort out for yourself how you can and will become happy. If you want to have a boyfriend you can find one if you accept your sexuality no matter how you do it. Once you did you'll feel better and more self confident to go on any further steps in life. I'm not the guy whom anyone would think to be gay but hey, here I am and I am gay. Somehow you need to get new friends, real friends, friends that won't bring you into jail... And as it comes to alcohol and drugs: they don't solve or dissolve any problems, only delay and make them worse. Quitting is a thing you can be proud of. I really hope you can find a way to accept youself and find good friends who give you the support you need. all the best shy
First of all, you aren't alone. I know several people, including one who is very dear to me, that have gotten heavily involved in drug and alcohol abuse, and who have gotten in trouble with the law as a result. According to my friends who are involved in mental health outreach, a majority of people with chemical addiction became addicted as a result of trying to self-medicate a pre-existing mental illness. When that is the case, treatment becomes more difficult, as both the drug addiction and the underlying problem must be dealt with together. I don't know whether this is the case for you, but it seems likely based on your statement that you have "always been a depressed person." You said, Mental health treatment, outpatient or inpatient, psychology or psychiatry, is the way to treat drug addiction. As such, going to a therapist is a very good idea. The point of therapy isn't just to discover what's wrong with the client, but to train the client into better thought and behavior patterns that will solve the problem. While there are a few people who can overcome mental illness and drug addiction without help, this number is vanishingly small. Having you go to a therapist is not a means of forcing you out of the closet. Therapists are bound by confidentiality requirements that allow reporting only to the authorities (certainly not to parents after the age of 18), and that only when their client presents a clear and immediate risk to himself or others.
I've debated how to respond to you, m3ss9. I want to be as caring and as compassionate as possible, but in all honesty I feel that you simply need to hear some hard and blunt truths. 1. Your view of the world is clearly distorted. I'm rather confident that your mother demanding that you seek therapy has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you are gay. She sees your life imploding, she is terrified for you, and basically has no idea how to help you. She is forcing you to do the only thing she can think of - forcing you to seek help. And let me be blunt, you desperately need help. Your friends, do they suspect that you are gay? Unlikely. They are probably acting the way that they are because whenever they've seen you - you've been high. Now what are they supposed to expect from you? 2. As bad as things are now; it can actually get worse. And unless you get some serious help - it will. You can't fight your addiction alone, and the likelihood of you relapsing, violating your probation, and going to prison is extremely high. You need help, and you need it now. 3. I think a lot of people can identify with what you're going through. I certainly can. I can relate to roughly 80% of what you've written; although I didn't go down the route of drugs and addiction, I took a destructive path all on my own. Addiction is highly common in LGBT people, as is depression and suicide. You know why this is because you're living through it right now. 4. You're about to turn twenty-one. I'm about to turn thirty. I'm in the process of turning my life around; if you start turning your life around now - today - you'll still be ahead of me. You are young and have lots of time. You can either spend some of that time trying to turn your life around now, or you can spend it in prison. I don't want to see you go to prison - you have tons of potential, and there is no need to squander it. There is still time to turn things around, but you have to be prepared to fight like hell to do it. 5. You said you are thinking about checking into a mental hospital. Do it. Contact your probation officer and let him know what is going down. Tell him you're going to the mental hospital and check yourself in... and remain there for as long as you need to be there. You seriously need immediate help, and once a week therapy isn't going to cut it - not yet. You're feeling suicidal. The risk of you relapsing into your addiction is extremely high. You need 24/7 support. This might be a terrifying thing to do, but it might just be the first step you take toward retaking your life. You need to do this; for yourself. No one can save you from yourself, only you can do that. 6. Once you leave the mental hospital you need to be prepared to enter into some type of long term rehab program. Preferably you'll find some residential rehab program that you can be a part of for a time, then some half-way program, and eventually transition yourself back into a semi-normal life. 7. Forget about your addict friends. They can't help you, and they don't care about you. They care about the drugs, not you. Getting involved with them will simply pull you back in - cut them out of your life to save yourself. 8. If at any point you start having suicidal thoughts you need to call this number: 1-866-488-7386. That's the number to the Trevor Project. In fact, it might be wise if you call them now. You are the only one who can turn things around. You have to be willing to take the first step, which is always the most frightening and the hardest. If you don't take control of this, and I'm speaking from my personal experiences; it's going to take control of you. You know it, and I know it. Take action now. There is still time to turn your life around. Also, remember that you aren't alone. There is an entire community here at EC that is prepared to stand behind you, and support you all the way.
Hi, Welcome to Empty Closets! First of all, come out to your therapist. A therapist's job is not mostly diagnosis--telling you what's wrong--it's mostly helping you deal with it. You are thinking about checking yourself into a mental hospital (and if you are really suicidal, you should). But you can also take advantage of the mental health care that you are already receiving. A therapist can help you with self-acceptance, so that you won't feel so self-destructive. I assure you, you most certainly do need a therapist. The reason all your relationships feel artificial is probably not anything that the other people are actually doing. Rather, you are hiding and suppressing big parts of who you are from them, and you therefore feel like they don't care about the person that you really are. This is probably the case both for your high school friends and the guy at college that you like. If your friends from high school really didn't want to hang out with you any more, they just wouldn't. A lot of people don't hang out with their friends from high school, they just move on. The feeling that your friendships with them are artificial is coming from you, not from them. You are the one who is not being honest. They probably have no idea that you are gay--and if they do, they don't care. The only person so far who really seems to have a problem with you being gay is you. You have internalized the idea from society that there is something wrong with it, and that is why you are so depressed and self destructive. You mom may or may not have an idea that you are gay. But that is not why she sent you to the therapist. She sent you to the therapist because you are obviously in a spiral of self-destructive behavior and depression, and she is your mother and she loves you and wants you to be well and happy. Don't worry about coming out to the whole world right now. Just start by dealing with these issues with your therapist. If its too difficult to say it out loud, print out this thread and take it with you to your appointment. Your therapist can help you get past the fear. That is what therapists do. Even though it seems obvious to you, it is likely that most people have no idea that you are gay. I say this because you say you "seem straight" to people. People tend not to think people are gay when we don't fit in to stereotypes. If people are acting differently around you, it's probably because of all the self-destructive behavior you've been involved in, rather than because you are gay, which they don't know. (They may attribute your inability to find a girlfriend to this, too.) Anyway, my best advice is to talk to your therapist. If you are feeling suicidal, and need to talk to someone urgently, you can also call the Trevor Lifeline, 1 866 488 7368, as Aldrick suggested. And, you can keep coming back here to Empty Closets. It can be very helpful in accepting your sexuality. Eventually, you might want to seek out a real life community of gay people (ones who are not drug addicts). But in the mean time, we're here to support you as much as we can.
I don't think that I have any advice that wasn't already given, but I just wanted to say welcome to EC. I also wanted to congratulate you on taking such a difficult step in coming here to ask for help. I know a lot of people wouldn't have had the guts to post what you just did. It is a step in the right direction, and hopefully you can keep your momentum as you continue forward. I wish you the best of luck and hope you will keep us up to date on your progress.
The insight given so far seems like good advice. I'm relieved to hear you say you'd never act on the suicidal feelings. Please take full advantage of the therapy. Be honest so you & your therapist can both address the issues that are really bothering you. Congratulations on going to meetings and staying out of jail. That is huge. My thoughts and prayers are with you. Good luck & so glad you've found this site.
I agree that you have probably heard it before in previous posts, but I saw a lot of myself in what you wrote. I admit I never got into the "harder" drugs, but in college weed and alcohol became my driving force. Grades were always a huge deal for me, I was always at the top of the class despite all of the time that I devoted to getting twisted. I do understand addiction. Every morning I woke up pissed that I let myself get that messed up, and every night I did the same damn thing... and the cycle continued. Your statement that you don't even feel you would have felt the need to use had you just been straight really struck me. That is exactly the way that I felt, that if only I had been "normal," I wouldn't have all of these problems. And it doesn't help that I come off straight either. There was also the idea of sex that you brought up. I have very similar feelings; I very much want it, but the thought of actually engaging in the act scares the hell out of me. I've realized it relates back to me trying so hard to be straight, but never really being attracted to women. Unfortunately, those thoughts have carried over to being with men as well, though it is much easier to envision when I'm actually attracted to the person... I feel each day I get a bit closer, but it is a learning process. As for anxiety and depression, I can relate. When in college, I started out nervous around people, but able to socialize. Slowly but surely, things got worse. I became severely agoraphobic. The thought of leaving my apartment scared the hell out of me. The only way I could cope with going to class was putting in ear buds and listening to music, otherwise I needed at least a half hour to work up the courage to get the mail. Knocks at the door sent me into a panic attack. Although I never actually attempted it, suicide was very much on he forefront of my mind. There are several events where I remember considering (and coming very close to) committing the act (PLEASE feel free to ask me about this by the way, I will answer any question or reveal anything about my own experience if you ask). I have always been a thinker. I always consider every possible outcome before I do anything. I feel my mind is working a mile a minute at all times, which has proven to be a blessing and a curse. For the longest time, I thought therapy was a load of BS. But that was before I learned there were different types of therapy. I found fantastic success in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It is less about Freudian psychoanalysis but more identifying the problem, to a lesser extent identifying its roots, but most importantly looking for ways now to cope with negative emotions. I definitely know how it feels to want to answer the phone when that certain someone calls, but are too freaking afraid to answer. It's eerie how well you described my own feeling... Though meeting people is still a bit anxiety provoking, I can now do it. And I'm getting good at it. Like you, I'm pretty good with music, and I now have the ability to fully study and appreciate it. Though in your own mind anxiety, depression and homosexuality are related, that is definitely not necessarily the case with those that observe you. It sounds more like you are projecting your own insecurities onto others (I did and do the same damn thing...) After coming out, I told my dad that I felt uncomfortable bringing a boyfriend home to meet the family, that I didn't want to "impose" my sexuality on anyone. Keep in mind, this is the man I was scared to death to tell, that I thought he would reject me completely (we are actually closer now than we have ever been since I came out). And he gave me an answer I never expected: he smirked and shook his head, and looked me straight in the eye and said "you f*ckin' think too much. Just do what makes you happy." And I think that's our problem. we f*ckin' think too much. We live to please others and forget to live to please ourselves. We both turned to substances because that was the only way we could seemingly please others while being able to live with ourselves. But the problem is we made others' opinions more important than our own. You know what you want, and you KNOW what is healthy. You just need to choose to pursue it. PLEASE contact me in any way if you want to chat. I'm not perfect in any way, but I do have an idea where you're coming from. Good luck. -Nick
I really want to double up on what Nick wrote since he's had such a similar experience. Like I said in my post I can identify with 80% of what you're going through. I entered therapy for the third time in my life earlier this year. I am also doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and I can tell you honestly - it's working for me. The anxiety I used to suffer - which was constant - has become much more manageable. It still continues to improve. My life is seriously turning around for the first time... perhaps ever. I feel like I finally am starting to gain control over my life instead of having things constantly spiral out of control. So, if you think therapy is a bunch of shit - you're wrong. I can back Nick's experiences up with my own. You really, really, need some help m3ss9. You can't do this on your own. Your suicidal thoughts are how it starts, because I can tell you - as someone whose attempted suicide - that those thoughts eventually lead to action. You've probably sat down and said, "I'll only act if..." But eventually, carrying all the emotional weight is going to feel crushing, it's going to feel like there is no hope - no other choices. You are going to feel suffocated and boxed in... When you are of healthy mind you realize that things aren't as bad as they seem, but when you're in that state of mind - you're not thinking clearly. The emotions are so strong that you can hardly breathe, and they cloud out all of your rational judgement. You are in serious danger, m3ss9. This is not something you can put off - you really need help, and you needed it a long time ago. Do not waste time in getting it now.
