About 2 1/2 weeks ago my father had to have an emergency triple heart bypass. For the first week after the surgery there were severe complications and my family and I didn't know if he was going to live or die. Needless to say, I rushed across the state to their home to be there. That was my first time visiting my family since coming out to myself and my friends and while I was a little apprehensive, I didn't expect how conflicted I would feel. The thought that my father could die left me feeling almost more relieved than sad. I know that is a terrible way to feel, but I just couldn't shake the thought that if my father died I would finally not feel afraid anymore. Growing up my parents, mainly spearheaded by my father, did many things to try and change me from being to "sensitive" as they liked to called it. I won't go into to much details of what that entailed, but the end result was that I went from being a child who always smiled and wanted to be in school plays singing and dancing on stage without a single bit of stage fright to someone that was so repressed and shy, I could be in a room with only the few friends I had and be afraid to speak my opinion on anything I didn't know if they would like or not. Added to this is the fact that while I'm sure that my sisters and mom would accept me, I know that my father will disown me, bar me from ever coming home, and maybe even attack me if I were in the same room when he found out. My father can't walk past openly gay men without muttering about what a disgrace they are, and whenever the news reports on a pride festival he mentions about how its a shame that you can't go out and teach a gay man a lesson for "flaunting himself in public" like he and his friends used to. He finds it a funny story that once when someone offended his sense of pride at a bar when he was young, he beat the guy over the head multiple times with a metal baseball bat and left him in an alley not caring if he was dead or alive. When I was 16 and I had a girlfriend, even though it never went beyond a little kissing, he told me that the happiest day of his life was him deciding that I wasn't gay. As horrible as my father can be, I still love him and feel that he tried to raise me as he felt was best. It just wasn't best for me and left me bitter about my childhood and messed up mentally in a lot of ways. It has only been in the last two years, since moving out and going to college, that I have been able to begin to feel safe to express myself. All of these conflicting emotions and old memories surfacing during such a stressful time made it so hard to be there. The moment he woke up and the doctors said he wasn't going to die I made up an excuse about rent and school starting soon so that I could return to my home even though he is still in the hospital. I feel guilty about leaving my mom and little sister as the only two really able to be with him while he is in the hospital and take care of him when he eventually gets out, but I just couldn't be around them with all of these thoughts in my head. I'm not really sure what I'm expecting from posting this. Maybe I just needed a place to vent these thoughts so that they wouldn't keep cluttering my head. I guess I'm just wondering if anyone here has dealt with thoughts like these and if there is a way to eventually get over them enough to visit home and pretend everything is fine until such time that I finish with college and don't need their financial support?
Well, you have come to the right place to let loose your worries. If it is truly that dangerous for you to come out, then, do not. It is perfectly fine to distant yourself from your father, because you are doing that to ensure your own well being. However, if you have no choice but to return, and putting yourself in such situation, then there is a way to deal with it: forgiveness. What he did was horrible to you, but he did it because he cares about you. It might sounds cheesy like a line from a sappy movie, but it is what it is - a father wish to make his child into a "good person" by his definition. You might not agree with his decisions, or his attitude toward gay people, but it is already in the past, and your father don't have much time. Let it go, everything. What matters is what you do from now. You are his son, and if you prove to him that you are still his son, no matter that you are gay, and no matter how he hates you being gay, he will have to face the fact that being gay doesn't change who you really are. I reccomend trying to come out to your mother and sister first, and if they understand, then they can be poweful allies that will help you and your father through this. Whatever you do, I would reccomend you to not "pretend everything is fine". It is called living a lie. You would have to force yourself a persona to repress your true feelings. You will have to watch everything you do and see how people are thinking about you. You will have to give false impression, give fake hints and details and evidences that support your persona's credibility. It is a horrible life to do that every waking moment, I know that by experience. So, try not to do it, unless there is nothing else you can do, and it is the only way to be with your father. Best of luck.
Hi, and welcome to EC. First, I'm sorry you had to deal with such a difficult and traumatic situation. It's not surprising that almost losing your father -- whether you get along with him or not -- would cause these feelings to come up, and I think you handled the situation the best way you could under the circumstances. Second, let me give you an alternate viewpoint. It is possible -- perhaps likely -- that your dad has known, deep down, that you're gay for a very, very long time. And many men, particularly straight men, have difficulty with their emotions so they attempt to cover them with anger or very macho responses. So it's quite possible that the comments he's made over the many years were his (inept) attempts to desperately convince himself that you aren't gay, and to send the message for you to not be gay (not that this would work, of course, but logic rarely plays into these sorts of things.) My guess is that if you were to come out to him, the response would be pretty different than you think. Yes, he might be really angry for a few days or a week or even a month ... but I suspect that he has already worked through this scenario in his mind, knows it's a possibility, and, once he knows it's the case and there's nothing he can do about it, he'd be OK with it. I'm not suggesting that you just tell him right now... but I do think that after he recovers from his surgery, you might think about writing him a letter or something (assuming that you aren' t financially dependent on him.) I agree with RainDreamer that simply trying to stuff it all down and pretend everything is fine probably won't be helpful either to you or the rest of the family.
I truly believe may perphaps they tried to beat the gay in me and on the other hand beat the gayness out of me. My mom knew and stepdad real dad also they didn't care about me so why did itor does it matter puzzles me still to this day
Thanks for the replies everyone. @RainDreamer: I agree that forgiveness is probably for the best. Its just how to actually go about that. I have thought of telling my mom, and probably will after a little bit of time for everything to settle down. she is someone who has always been very open minded and while it might take her a little while to accept the fact that I'm gay, I'm sure she would. The only thing is that she has always been very submissive to my father's demands so I'm not sure how much support she would be able to offer if he reacted as I think he will. @Chip: Me being gay is something that I know my dad worried about while I was growing up. It would be great if he had thought about it and had time to comes to terms with it even a little. I just don't believe that it is something that my father could ever accept. He is a stubborn man and is not one to change his views easily. My financial situation makes me dependent on him for awhile longer, but if I take care to save properly, I should be able to be financially independent by next summer and close enough to done with college that I will be sure to be able to finish. I do agree that living a lie would not be healthy for me and not something I could keep up. I think that was part of what was causing me so much conflict when I was at home. Before when I visited I was always repressed with myself, but now that I'm not it was very hard to go back to being that way. I should note that a part of the problem is that I've always leaned more to the feminine than masculine and a big part of why I felt I had to come out to my friends around me was so I could explore that side of me that was repressed along with all thoughts of being gay. So going home actually required me to step backwards to how my personality and mannerisms have been changing.
