My parents join the club

Hey everybody,

This may be the first and last post I ever make here, but I just want to say that firstly, this is a fantastic resource, everybody here is so positive and willing to share and help each other out, and I may not have done what I did today if this forum didn't exist.

Secondly, I'd like to share with you a coming out experience, in the hope that I can inspire other people to come out to those that matter to you. It's a tough thing to do, but it is unbelievably rewarding, and you feel so much better for having done it.

Here is my story.

A lot of people in my life know that I'm gay now, mostly thanks to the help of my best friend who can't keep his mouth shut (which in the long run I think has done me more good than bad, and I thank him for it). But two people who I've wanted to tell since the beginning have been particularly difficult for me to come out to - my parents.

Ever since I didn't only suspect, but knew, that I was in fact gay, I've wanted to tell them. However I've never been good with all the confronting sort of talks you have with parents... I think I get the coy from my dad. So for the last 6 months or so, it's been on my mind on a fairly regular basis, right down to the degree of having the words "JUST TELL THEM!" pop into my head every time I see them around the house.

Over the last two weeks this nagging became extreme to the degree where I started losing sleep over it. I started to find myself looking up other people's coming out stories on the internet. I've come out to quite a few people by myself, but I think coming out to my parents was so significantly different to everybody else that the act of coming out to them became quite as hard as it was to accept and embrace my homosexuality. I needed that extra support and I found that through reading about other people's experiences.

So here I am, spending 5-6 hours a night, up until 4AM, for two weeks straight, just reading people's stories. Some people have fantastic experiences, other people get kicked out of homes and get abused. But I saw the trend of the relationships with the parents before and after coming out impacting significantly on how the whole thing turned out for different people. More often than not, the already-shakey or abusive family situations turn even more sour, while the open and bonded relationhsips remain - or become even more - strong. Given my relationship with my parents this instilled confidence where there wasn't before. I've always thought they'd react well being the type of people that they are, but reading other people's experiences certainly helped re-affirm that notion.

The other thing that this forum did was help me figure out how I was going to come out to my parents. As I mentioned before, I become very quiet when words like 'sex' and 'gay' enter the conversation, so no matter how hard I tried to force myself, I couldn't spit out the words "I'm Gay". Instead, I came across an apparantly common method of coming out - writing a letter. If I didn't come across somebody's coming out letter, I don't think I would ever have been able to come out to my parents; not for years at least.

So last night I spent about 20 minutes staring at the screen trying to write "Mum and Dad -", followed by 4 slightly more progressive hours resulting in a 3-page letter to my parents telling them that I was gay, how it was not their fault, that I was sure, why I took so long to tell them, who else knew, and that I was still the same person. By the end of writing the letter, not only did I feel that my chances of telling them had skyrocketed, but the whole thing almost felt trivial. At this point I felt strongly that I was almost ready to come out to my parents.

So I woke up the next day with the letter still on my computer screen. I printed it off and lay it on the kitchen table with a note saying "Mum and Dad - Please read together." I was at home for a few hours (my parents were at work) and so I had a shower, washed my clothes, etc. I jumped every time I heard the dogs bark, fearing that my parents had come home from work for some reason and they would stumble across the letter while I was in the house. The part that I think worried me the most about coming out to my parents was the immediate confrontation that would follow the words, "I'm Gay". How would they react? Would they say "so what?" Would they just stand there, stunned? Would they become abusive, break down in tears, or ask me more questions than there are grains of sand on a beach? I don't think it would matter how they reacted, I would have felt awkward, embarassed, and just bad in general. I needed to separate myself from them when they found out, so the letter was the perfect solution for me.

I left the house for work, with the letter sitting in an obvious place upon their return.

I got a text message from my mum while I was at work a while after. It went something like this...

"Hi Snicky-boo ... Love you to bits as always (as if you didn't know). Thanks for your letter ... sorry it seemed to be such a struggle for you to write ... it really needn't have been ... you know that we're both user-friendly ... we both LOVE YOU & are SO PROUD of YOU ... [my full name] ... ALWAYS! ... Love Mum & Dad XXXOOO"

At this stage I didn't know what to think. I'd always expected a reaction like this, but having it come to me in such a non-confrontational manner, having it sitting on my phone, to read in my own time, made all the difference. I read it over and over again. I smiled, I welled up, I laughed, I felt fantastic, I felt drained, and a host of other things all at once. I felt acceptance. I could not have been happier.

About an hour or two afterwards I recieved a phone call from my mum. She asked if I got her text, she said that she'd read my letter, and basically affirmed what she'd said in the text. At one stage she mentioned "I hate to tell you this, but I've known for years!" I found this quite funny, as I'd always wondered if either of my parents had suspected or not - I'm a reasonably "straight-acting" guy - but apparantly my mum has an accurately functioning gaydar. The other reason it was amusing is that I haven't known that long myself; I was never 100% sure that I was gay up until 6 months ago... So my mum in fact suspected that I was gay longer than I did!

I came home later on, gave them a kiss and a big hug, and then it was business as usual. I couldn't ask for more.

I sit here at my computer at 3AM, when I have to get up for work in 4 hours time, but somehow I don't think I'll be sleeping much tonight. I'm excited that they know, and I feel relaxed as if an invisible weight has been lifted. One of the first things I did after I finished talking to my parents was jump on the computer and announce what had just happened on my Facebook page. Most people on my Facebook account probably have no idea, so the reactions should be interesting. But in the end, I don't really care how anybody else reacts, because I've now told the most important people in my life another bit of information about me, and they still love me for who I am. If someone has a problem with it, they can get out of my life as far as I'm concerned. Thankfully I live in a reasonably accepting society, and I haven't had a negative reaction yet.

So that's my story. I hope in the same way that reading other people's stories helped me come out to my parents, other people can read this and have a positive experience in their life weather it be tomorrow, a week, or a year. Thanks for being here EC, thanks for sharing your stories, and thanks for being there for each other.

<edit>

Oh my, I didn't mean for this to end up such a long story... Sorry!

 

Haha how very true... Although in my limited experience I think it's something that can be learnt, too: You just have to know what to look for. I tend to find that eye contact tells a thousand stories.