My Coming Out Letter to My Parents: Need a Critique!

Hi every/anyone,

I'm a 24 year old male who has just recently come to terms with his sexuality on a personal level. As in, the past couple of months I have finally realized that I am never going to change from liking men to liking women and that I cannot go on pretending that I will for much longer. I feel like I am perhaps ready to begin the difficult process of coming out and I have been drafting coming out letters to my parents as a sort of therapeutic outlet in preparation for the big day. I spent some time last night writing this one and I would so appreciate any feedback from it.

It's sort-of characteristic of me to be rather long-winded, and what I feel is such an important letter is certainly no exception, but if truly it is, I welcome that opinion.

Give it a read, if you'd be so kind, and let me know what you think.

Thanks!

-Mike


Dear Mom and Dad,

Without a shadow of a doubt, I can say that dealing with the issue of my sexuality has been, by a mile and a half, the single most awful thing I've had to endure and live with in my life. It's been ugly, it has been sad and it has been a long time. From my childhood, to my adolescence, to 6 years of adulthood, my physical feelings and attractions have in many ways tormented me and molded me into a much lesser person than I should be. It's been my deepest, darkest secret. It's been locked away in the dimmest, most fearful and guarded part of me for nearly all my life. And it has remained, until today, a totally unaddressable problem without solution. It's something I would not, and could not ever allow myself to ever think about talking about, admitting or solving because of a puzzling, yet terrifying kind of fear that all closeted gay men harbor. So by mostly my own standards, it remained a horribly embarrassing secret that I had convinced myself never to let surface.

But the fact has always remained hat I have always been attracted to the same gender and have been unable to change that reality. I've always known. Probably since I was 5 or 6 years old. I've always known that I've been a bit different in some way. I'm hoping you have known me well enough to sense it as well. It's been a part of me from the beginning, and no matter how hard I have hoped over the years, it has never left me and never will. No amount of wishing, crying, praying, pretending or ignoring has changed me though for many years, though I held out that somehow some combination of those things would "fix me" enough to finally be normal. I have never and will never be magically changed by some miracle as I have long held out hope for.

So after a long time, I've come to realize that given the hand I was dealt, there are two paths to take. One path begins horrifically and ends happily and one begins happily and ends horribly.

It's the point where every gay individual gets to choose: To come out and be live in truth as who you are- a gay man and to be the person who you are meant to be and end the grand lie and shed the guilt and the shame, or to continue and develop and grow that lie.

To continue that lie is much easier at first. I know for a fact that I could keep it all shut away if I had to. I could meet and marry a woman that I might even genuinely care about or even love. I might even give that woman children. But at some point down that road, the lies and guilt would become inundated not only in my own untruthful life, but now also in the life of an innocent person who I would be lying to and convincing that I cared about and loved them. Not to mention any poor children who would be drug through it all. The idea of growing such a lie of that kind of terrible scale, of immense selfishness and cowardice is absolutely criminal. It's not fair to anyone. It's a recipe for disaster and heartbreak and misery for a whole lot of people. Just because one individual is unhappy and conflicted in their sexuality, doubling down on that lie is simply unconquerable misery. A life of consuming depression and immense guilt. For what? To make who happy? Certainly not me, certainly not that woman or the children you pretend to love with your whole heart. The truth is that you simply can't be a lier and love with your whole heart. Your heart will always be bitterly locked in shame and fear and blame and resentment. And so who would I be making happy? The answer to that is rather complicated and part of the dark psychology that plays out in the fear-plagued minds of closeted individuals.

For whatever reason, it becomes more important to make happy these certain imaginary monsters that have developed over the years within the mind. I know that's what I have had to deal with. Situations and people (most likely imagined and unreal) which I have convinced myself would provide such a terrifying reaction to my identity that it immediately kills any chance of coming out. It's like fearing some kind of massive explosion of terrible humiliation that would be so bad that I might die or something. The world would end, I would be so miserable that I would be begging to go back into the closet and just live with the lie instead. I know, totally ridiculous, but that is really how I have felt. It would make me sick to my stomach to think about. To think and convince myself that that would ever happen was terrifying to me to me in the worst way, and it would never ever be worth it to risk such a fate. To be known as the gay guy, the faggot, the butt of everyone's jokes, the different, the unnatural, the mistake. What a terrible thing! And so, naturally that result was just never an option for me. It has instead been locked away to hide in a dark place and never be spoken of. Who knows... maybe it would go away some day.

At some point, however, you realize that it won't go away. You grow up a little, you get a little braver and go through a little shit in life and you get a little tougher. For me, that honestly never happened until this past year. I was still a cowardly little twelve year old in my core until probably a year ago when I truly began dealing with some adversity in the real world. Dealing with problems, crying about it initially like a child and then learning to deal with it. I don't know that I ever had to do that before this year. After enough times doing it, you start to build up a lot of courage and feel like an adult. The anxiety starts to subside and soon enough you begin reevaluating and taking a second look at the "big dark secret" through a bit more courageous lens. And finally, the possibility of finally addressing it doesn't seem so infeasible anymore. Suddenly you feel like it might even be a possibility. Maybe I can be fully happy instead of partially happy.

At this moment you realize that you can go back again and stare down 2 different passages- both leading through hell- and can choose between them. One of the hell tunnels is quite short...with terrifying flames right off the bat but clear skies on the other side. The other tunnel is the one you were just in and managed to back out of. It's the one that starts off nice and lightly but slowly dims and roasts you even slower until you are just a burned out carcass. That's the one I just backed out of after noticing that it was getting quite dark and that I was starting to become a little burned.

And so starting at the two tunnels, it seems easy to choose the first tunnel, but damn it's hard! It's hard like jumping into a cold lake is hard, even though you know it's the only way you're going to have fun and go swimming. It's hard like admitting you cheated on a test to your classmates who worked hard and studied but the only way you are not going to be kicked out of school. It's hard like telling your trusted teammates that you've been stealing money from their lockers for years and years but telling them so is the only way you have a chance to regain that all important trust. To come out- especially later in life rather than sooner- is to expose a compounded and ever-growing lie to people you care about. Being a lier is horrible and shameful , but is is also justified as necessary to most closeted individuals for at least some amount of time. And so a brutal network of fear is maintained. Fear of coming out for multiple dimensions and reasons. Fear of rejection from friends and family, fear of disappointing and embarrassing family, fear of changing or losing important relationships, fear of exposing the fact that you have lied to people who trust and care about you but to whom you simply couldn't reciprocate that honesty and trust. Fear of ruining your family's lives. Fear of religious consequences, fear of loneliness and of what people might now be able to use to laugh at or ridicule or belittle you or your family because you are the family with the gay guy in it. The family that produced the gay guy and made a mistake. The abnormal, the disgraceful.

Pretty damn terrible and dramatic, isn't it? But it's true. It's what has been playing on repeat through my mind for the last 15 years. All of those fears have just totally governed my life and until recently were set to be in place for the rest of it as well. Luckily, as I mentioned, the past year has put me through a wonderfully rude-awakening before that fate was sealed. I've been fortunate enough to have directed through a kind of gauntlet that we call the real world and the end result has been fortunate for me. I've been able to take some time to live in the raw, so to speak, and fight some tough battles and grow up, I feel. For whatever reason, some lucky glimmer of blessing within me has stayed with me and directed me toward the truth and to courage and the correct choice. The choice of truth and freedom. I have seen too many wonderful things and met too many wonderful people in this life to accept a continued life of glorified personal hell. It's taken a while- too long in fact, but in the end it was only a matter of time. Thank God. I'm lucky to have lead such a broad life and to currently live in a diverse and open community like Madison and have been even luckier to be surrounded by amazing friends and family who I know will be accepting to me when I come out to them. These things- which have presented themselves throughout my life from childhood on- have always been hidden weapons, slowly combating and empowering me to be who I should be or anyone should be. They fought hard against those terrible dark fears which I mentioned before and for good riddance. I don't want that fact to be confused with the idea that somehow my childhood or time when you raised me was responsible for creating hell for me or that I had to escape from you guys so that it could free me and that it turned me gay or something. That's not true at all. There have been enumerable factors throughout my life and in all places and times that have both helped and hindered me from reaching this point. Some of those came in college, some of those came in high school or childhood and some of them much later. Both helpful and unhelpful. All of them have presented many choices and things to either encourage and discourage my personal journey to this point. I don't blame any one thing, person or place for the bad parts of the journey and I absolutely don't blame you as my parents who have been nothing but exceptional, loving and supportive. This is the most important thing you can take from this message.

And so I have finally found that I cannot harbor the fight anymore. I cannot continue it and I am ready to end it in the right way. To be totally honest I would be lying if I said I never at least gave some thought to the "other way" of ending it, but I have always known that i love life far too much to ever consider the alternative and so that leaves this one option: to end the silly game and come out. I am gay and I always have been. I have never, and will never be physically attracted to women and have absolutely, positively been physically attracted to men from day 1. From the day i was born. I don't know why or how but it is absolutely a fact. If proof is required, I can provide it!

Nothing happened to me or occurred at any point to turn me gay. No treatment or circumstance propelled me or shaped me into "a gay". No one did anything wrong. Not me not my friends and certainly not you, my wonderful, caring parents. I absolutely did not choose to go through 24 years of lies and fear just as no one chooses to be born with Downs Syndrome or paralysis or any other birthed "abnormality". I will also never be "un-gayified" or cured or healed like it is some kind of fixable disease. It's not. It's something that was written onto my brain and many others' brains before they were born. I know with all my being that one is simply born into their sexuality. Whether that favors being heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or asexual- or any other kind of sexual- sexuality is absolutely a primal, instinctual, predetermined drive that all of us are born with. Some may see it to be or believe it to be unnatural, and maybe it is. Maybe some think it is wrong and that is fine too. I honestly have no idea why it happens the way it does and why it has throughout history. But the undeniable reality is that it simply is. I know it because I have lived it. It is a thing that happens and it happens to millions of people on this Earth. It's history, it's incurable, it's real and my hope is that I can soon begin to see it as a wonderful and enjoyable part of who I am instead of a shameful and terrible disorder as I have for so long.

I don't really know how to do it or how to live life as a gay man, but I know I will soon have to figure that out and learn. We are all going to have to decide how to handle a bit of a change in our family and friend structure. it's going to be uncomfortable at times, but I am hoping that we can get through it with a silver lining of renewed confidence and trust in the friends and family around us. Dr Seuss once famously wrote: "Be who you were meant to be, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." Believe me, I have been most troubled by this reality, but you have to at some point put this to true test and that time for me is now for my own health and happiness. I am sure to lose a few well-thought acquaintances during the process, but the reality that those who would simply shun me for who I am and who I love will be gone, and that those who stick with me will have newly re-affirmed themselves to me in the most important way is such as wonderful result. I am excited about this and I have been wanting and needing it for too long.

So here is my tough jump into the lake, getting ready for a new and wonderful swim. I'm gay, but I am still and always will be the same person I have always been where it matters. I still love the Badgers and Packers, I still love running outside and keeping a messy room. I still love fishing and eating steaks with lots of mushrooms and onions and A1 sauce. I still love working outdoors, reading books and writing overly long-winded letters. Most importantly, I'm still your son, I still care about and love you both very much and I am forever grateful for everything you have done for me. I have always wanted you to be a part of my life and that is why it kills me to keep such an important part of myself from you any longer. Yes, that's the most important message. I'm still your son, I still want to make you proud and I want you to be in my life. It's just going to be a little more "fabulous" than it was before. Only joking.

Thank you for reading this. It has been therapeutic and liberating. I look forward to your return letter. Let's take the first step together that way, and then decide what comes next.

Much love,

MJ

 

Thanks for the amazing feedback, you are all very kind. I do agree that it is a bit lengthy and I have identified some sections that are repetitive and don't necessarily serve a purpose other than to reiterate or draw out.

There are a couple of other things I'm worried about. Firstly, I feel that the overall sentiment of the message is quite negative. The reason being is because I literally published exactly the way I have been feeling and why I have been feeling that way and it has been pretty negative negative. Is that something that might not be necessary in a coming out letter? Is it important as it seems to expose all the personal laundry and heart ache to parents or does that only serve to make them feel bad and sorry for you? I don't want them to feel terrible because I have felt this way, but for some reason I feel compelled to let it all out maybe as a way of overcompensating for any possible confused or negative reaction that they might have. Is it too much? Is in inappropriate?

 

Would love to do that, unfortunately I have not experienced that aspect of the equation yet as I am fully closeted. No "connection" of any sort has ever been made let alone love and emotion.

Here's to hoping that comes sooner rather than later!