When your Mom accepts homosexuals as long as they are not part of the family? Who has gay friends but told you over dinner that your friend who came out a lesbian is wasting her life away? Never mind that her relationship with her girlfriend is her first and only meaningful one. Remembering how much you swallowed your own tears, begging yourself not to cry. When your Aunt thinks gay people are unnatural and retarded? Who can't believe how good your co-worker is with his job considering how gay he is. Or how about that time she told you that you have no right not to get married because you are an only child? When your Uncle is a huge Bible thumper? He's nothing but a bully forcing his own beliefs on other people. Remembering all those times he quoted the Bible, and you just know that he LOVED hearing his own voice. You're pretty sure he's one of the reasons why people hate Christians. And you love and look up to everyone of them. Even with their faults, they are amazing people, you can't bear the idea of them being disappointed in you. So you hide yourself away. Pretend not to be attracted to anyone. Grin when a friend says you must be Asexual, knowing that you are doing a good job - you are not giving anything away. Feel awkward when you're out with your straight female friends and they are all touchy-feely with each other. Panic when another friend says that you are her new crush because you were so cute in that Music Video project you made. Then it all starts to feel so confusing and your emotions are all over the place. You sometimes cry in the middle of the night hoping and praying nobody will hear. Sometimes sliding into depression, have thoughts of suicide. Asking yourself would everything better if you just come out? But you are much of a chicken, and you love playing it safe... --------- Thanks for listening. It's my first time here, I apologize for being a bit depressing. But something happened to me today. A new friend who is also a co-worker asked me outright if I'm gay. And after a few minutes of fidgeting, I came out to him. We got to talking (with a few tears shed from me), he was really sweet about it.
I'm VERY happy you found someone you could come out to! There are people filled with love, dear; never forget that. Also ROFL uhm yeah, your mom sounds like a total closeted homophobe. 'ONO I DONT HATE GAYS EXCEPT WHEN THERE'S ONE IN MY FAMILY. nope. we can't have that. those silly gays can take themselves elsewhere.' uh yeah, that's absolutely homophobic behavior. sounds like your mom needs to reflect on herself. your uncle's an idiot. his opinion has no grounds. disregard him forever. don't you ever let yourself believe that your existence is a form of sin or punishment. that's just stupid and baseless anyways. darling, you need to learn to love yourself. love yourself for being gay and realize that being LGBT is pretty fun if you allow it to be. realize that nothing is wrong with you. realize it, understand it, and emotionally connect with it. good luck! also, please realize that any family that has no love for you never deserves your love back. you are not obligated to do anything for your family if they cannot look at you as a human being.
Welcome to EC. So, I think it's pretty obvious from what you've written that your family is not a good choice to come out to anytime soon. I know you said you just came out to a co-worker today, but what about other people... friends, perhaps? There's nothing that says because one person won't accept you that they all won't and that it's not worth coming out at all. By building up a support network through coming out to people you know will accept you (i.e. good friends), you might end up gathering the confidence to come out to your family. Or maybe you won't. Point is, if your family isn't a good candidate right now, put them aside for a bit. Is there someone else you can think of who'd be worth coming out to?
