Hello members of Empty Closets! This is my first post on here....its actually my first forum post anywhere. Ive never been into online forums but I stumbled across this site while reading up on Internalized Homophobia. I started reading everyones stories and got inspired that maybe this is the step i need to take to continue loving myself. Well, i dont know exactly how to start all this, but here goes. Im having a really rough time lately accepting myself and it seems to be all i can think about. Its like i just woke up one morning and realized that im interested in men. I have always been attracted sexually to men. like ever since i started jerking it when i was like 11 or 12 i have been looking at gay porn online. But every once in a while i get a wild hair up my but and straight porn turns me on. But rarely and only very specific porn. Anyways, because of this i always just told myself it was a phase or i could ignore it and just lead a straight life. I never pictured myself with anything other than a wife and kids and little white picket fence around my normal, american life. But sometime in the last few months i woke up and just realized that none of that is ever gunna happen. I finally realized that i was gunna have to deal with my feelings at some point. Unfortunatly, i have had alot of drug abuse in my life in the last 2 years and im starting to figure out that its just covering up my real feelings so i dont have to deal with them. It was two years ago when i moved out of my parents (kicked out, for un related reasons) and i had already been experimenting smoking pot. then i moved in with some good friends who also like drugs and next thing u know ive abused oxycontin, ecstasy, coke, molly, meth (on accident lol), mushrooms, salvia, and a shit ton of other pain killers like norcos, vicodin, codine. Well within the last few months i slowed down, WAY down. I pretty much only smoke a more moderate amount of pot now. So because im suddenly more sober than in a while, im realizing how unhappy i am with myself, and how much i hate the fact that im gay. Ive been doing a ton of research on internalized homophobia and have decided i have a pretty intense case. Im afraid of the direction i was heading, and may head down again if i dont talk to someone and work out my problems. I dont want to only be able to be comfortable if i have a drug to keep my mind off the fact that no one really knows me. Well with that huge backstory...i guess where ive ended up is here...i think that if maybe i come out to one of my really good friends, i can talk about this more openly and it might make life a little easier, and maybe make me wanna be sober a little more often. I have two friends im really close to that i know i want to tell as my first people to tell..i just am afraid to change things. I know they would be supportive...or at least im pretty sure. They are a couple, a guy and girl, the girl is actually a pretty big name in straight porn, so i know that nothing sexually about it will wierd her out. same with her boyfriend. they are a very experimental couple and very open to other sexual preferences and stuff....but every time i tell myself that. i am always afraid that it would change the friendship. i feel like i wouldnt fit in. id be awkward. theyd be awkward. i feel like i have nothing i can say that would help them relate to my situation so i feel like i would just look like an out cast or something. idk. the more i think i about it the more i come up with reasons not to. and then the more i think about it the more i turn to doing a line and smoking a bowl so that i can hang out with everyone and not feel awkward. i dont know why suddenly im feeling so uncomfortable with myself i dont know if that means its a good time to confide in a friend or if it means i should just keep quiet and figure it out in my head first. :/ any advice to this long ridiculous post would be awesome. sorry its all over the place!
im not sure i can really offer any advice but your story sounds kind of similar to mine. ive always pictured the perfect family and carrying on the family name etc but recently i too have realised that my drug abuse over the past 10yrs is all about trying to cover up these thoughts and to try fit in and feel normal for a while. more and more i realise the pot does nothing but delay the thinking and sometimes will intensify the thought...but go nowhere with it cause im too high to think. but being in my mid 20's im now finding that the perfect life isnt happening and that due to my phobia of being gay and how it will change me in the eyes of others i could be missing out on truely living my life, finding true comfort around my friends and if they dont accept me finding REAL friends. im missing out on finding someone who will love me for who i really am and what could be the best years of my life. it sounds like the friends you have in mind would be a great start to come out to. for as straight couples go they could be the most open to other sexualities and may already know a lot of other gay men that could help you. with any decision in life you may upset people but be true to yourself and if you loose people close to you now than they will be replaced by even closer people who accept you as you are. best of luck
@young87 Wow, yah that situation sounds pretty damn similar. And thats what im trying to avoid, i dont want to be addicted to drugs for the next 10 years just to get by. I started getting similar thoughts like 2 months ago, about not living my life to the fullest. I cant help but think every one else will look at their youth and talk about all their summer flings, and past girlfriends, and so on, and all i can look at is how ive been hiding for 21 years. last night i was hanging out with those friends, and was put in like a perfect situation to bring it up. With her doing porn, theres alot of good conversation segways into me coming out to them, they are always talking about something sexual that i could chime in on and express how i feel. but thats one of the other reasons i dont want to say anything. They talk about straight sex ALOT and i feel like once i say im gay, itll b awkward. like they will stop talking about these things comfortably around me. idk. i was put in a really good situation to do it, and i could feel my heart racing cuz i was thinking about what would happen if i just said it and blurtted it out. but i didnt....and then i felt like shit the rest of the night and got stoned as hell. i just want the courage to be myself
