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Serious Issues With My Father

Discussion in 'Family, Friends, and Relationships' started by ExExGay, Jun 25, 2014.

  1. ExExGay

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    Hello everyone! I appreciate any thoughtful responses to my post. Unfortunately, my relationship with my father has become almost irreversibly effected, partly due to my homosexuality, so I felt that this was the best place to come.

    Growing up, I was very close with my father. We talked all the time about things that interested us, and shared a zeal for Christ. He raised me to believe that homosexuality is, of course, abhorrent and unnatural, and that affected me, leading me to do the "pray the gay away" thing. Years ago, I gave one of my teachers strong indications that I was severely depressed, so she advised my parents to send me to a therapist. The therapist they chose for me introduced me to Exodus International, which, for those who don't know, was an "ex-gay" organization which taught that those "struggling" with same-sex attraction should pray to God for guidance. After researching it, I became intensely invested in praying any gay desire away for the next couple of years. At some points it even led to self-harm, because, obviously, I could never succeed in removing the thoughts and that made me hate myself. A year-and-a-half ago, however, I started doubting my religion, and this inevitably led to me accepting my sexuality, but I still have this dormant belief that it's wrong. I'm afraid that I'll live my entire life insecure about whether I'm sinning or not. My father and I fought on a daily basis for an entire year, until three months ago when I almost went-through with suicide. My father and I had had a huge argument, during which he refused to acknowledge that he had encouraged me to continue psychologically abusing myself. We haven't spoken a word to each other, and I'm not sure if I even love him or not any more. I'm just sick of his bullshit about my sexuality. I've told him that he's not invited to any of my future life events, ever, whether it's my graduation or my wedding. I'm nearly seventeen, and I have no one to talk to about this. No one in my family understands, and my friends see my only function as being a third wheel, so they don't care.

    I should also note that my father has bipolar disorder, and hasn't had a manic episode in three years --- he's just been stuck in a depression. I've been advised to get him some help, but he refuses to take medication and won't get a therapist.

    What should I do about my father? Forgiving him seems impossible, because the trauma he inflicted upon me has stuck and will continue to. I can never feel confident in my sexuality because of him. But I feel like I'm supposed to be the saint and forgive him anyway, but seeing him and hearing his voice especially just brings back all that pain again. He wants to move out and leave my mother and me to fend for ourselves, but my mother doubts that he could ever become self-sufficient.

    My father is in denial because he's not the one that told me to pray the gay away, he just told that it was good idea and he applauded the fact that I had reached the conclusion myself, thanks to my conservative surroundings always talking about how wrong being a faggot is.

    I just feel completely lost and isolated. My family feels separate from me, and I'm just a back-up friend to the few friends I have anyway. This place is all I have because I'm desperate. :icon_sad:
     
  2. Chip

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    Hi, and welcome to EC.

    There's a bunch of separate issues going on here, none of which are easy to address.

    First, let's look at your being gay and dealing with the conflict between that and your religious beliefs. I recommend you search out Matthew Vines on Youtube, watch his one-hour video, and perhaps get his book God and the Gay Christian. Vines has made a very thoughtful, detailed, and scholarly study of the Bible passages that relate to being gay, and his work has changed a lot of minds, including a lot of people high up in the various Christian denominations. I also suggest watching the movie "Prayers for Bobby", which is based on a true story. Bobby's mother, Mary Griffith, is still active in PFLAG.

    Now... as for your dad... that's tough. Forgiving is more about you than it is about him. If you can forgive him, you can release the anger, disappointment, and hurt you're holding associated with what he did. But that's a tall order.

    One of the best ways to get to that point is remember the mantra "He's doing the best he can with what he has." In other words... it was not his intent to hurt, disrespect, or judge you... it's a byproduct of his own upbringing, experiences, and losses. If you can find the compassion in your heart to truly grasp this, then you can also realize that he simply wasn't capable of doing any better, because he certainly didn't intend to harm his child.

    I also want to point out that the idea you'll never be confident in your sexuality likely feels very real, but isn't. The confidence and belief in yourself is something you can and will develop if you put your mind to it.

    Finally, as far as his moving out... he's an adult. It is not your or your mother's place to take care of him if that's what he wants to do. Your mother can point him in the direction of resources he can use to help himself, but it is his journey to walk, not your mother's or yours. It may be hard for your mother to grasp that concept, because it's a common, somewhat codependent behavior. But it's the truth.
     
  3. Clay

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    I'm here to say that it does get better. There are times when you feel lost and completely alone, like everything's just going to get much worse, but it really does get better. I got to some scarily low points in my life but now, a few years later, I realise that it would've been a mistake to do something drastic.

    As for your father, I strongly disagree with Chip. He's an adult, you're his son, and he can't even accept responsibility for choosing a fake therapist that would send you to a 'Pray the gay away' camp. "He's doing the best he can with what he has"? No he's not. A parents job is to raise their children to adulthood and hope they've built a good enough relationship with them that they don't walk out that door at 18 and never look back. An adult that is arguing with a 17 year old almost every day, right up to the extent where they just stop talking to them for months after their suicide attempt, all because their plan to change them into something they weren't didn't work? That's not doing the best he can with what he has. If he was doing his best then he wouldn't remotely be acting like that. He was capable of doing better. He's not a child, he's an adult.

    You forgive people who are truly sorry or remorseful for their actions. You don't forgive those that refuse to accept responsibility for their actions.

    Finaly, on a different note, becoming confident with your sexuality will happen over time if you let it. It's a healing process, but there's nothing wrong with being gay. It'll take time to fully accept that, especially with what you've been through, but it too does get better.
     
  4. Damien

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    Hi ExExGay,

    I'm glad you have survived. It could not have been easy, the abuse you have been through. The lack of acceptance of your sexuality, an intimate and personal aspect of yourself, by those closest to you.

    No you don't have to forgive your father, in order to heal from this. You can heal whether you ever forgive him or not, and whether he is ever sorry for what he has done, or not. I know this because, my mother really hurt me while I was growing up, and recently rejected me again, and I am having to emotionally cut her off from my life, literally, just to take care of myself I have to do this. With people who reject us emotionally, as your father has rejected you by not accepting you as you are, and judging you for being gay, it can be necessary, sadly, to 'cut the ties that bind', to just cut these people out of one's life for good. I am doing that with my abusive mother, and you might need to do the same with the people who have (emotionally) abused you, including any religious folk who have shamed you by falsely teaching you that homosexuality is wrong.

    I can tell you that, even if the Bible were true and not just another religion out of hundreds of others, all merely different responses by different cultures to try to explain the mysteries of existence, that you have to look pretty hard to find homophobic stuff in it. There is that famous line from Leviticus, but then according to that incredibly outdated book, we should also be stoning anyone who works on a Saturday. So if Christians are going to quote that anti-gay line from Leviticus, they should follow the whole darn thing, since they claim it to be the word of God, and submit themselves to being stoned to death for working on a Saturday. Which, of course, they won't do, because it is just plain silly and outdated, just as the idea that there is anything at all 'wrong' with same-sex attraction is outdated and silly.

    Regarding that lingering feeling of it somehow being wrong, well I had that. Maybe I still do. It is so hard to get rid of all traces of it. When the religious folk get to you while you are young, the ideas they implant can get deeply ingrained, I mean I have not even believed in Christianity since I was a teenager, yet the guilt and shame regarding same-sex attraction has taken a long time to uproot, because they have struck us on a deeper level than just rationality, they have struck us on the level of emotion. So I guess we will have to heal ourselves on that level, too. Since our journeys are somewhat similar, I hope you can regard me, and others here also, as a friend, because really you are not alone with this, truly.

    I suspect it will take time to fully heal. I hope you have gotten yourself a proper counsellor now, in other words a non-religious, secular one who will help you to accept yourself as you are. It is important to have a professional to talk through stuff with. I'm seeing mine tomorrow, in fact, and I am looking forward to it, cos I've been through a bit of emotional hell myself lately, with my family rejecting me yet again. So once again, I so much know how you feel, please rest assured that you are perfectly ok the way you are, there is absolutely nothing 'wrong' with same-sex attraction, I mean there are plenty of folks who, before they were taught anything at all about it, already felt it at a very young age - they already 'knew' they were gay when they were really little, and so were not 'lured' into it in any way - in other words, they were just born that way. In other words, it is natural for them. Not something added on, but rather, as integral as having an arm or a leg, part of who they are. And I would bet my life on the fact that even if god did exist, he / she / it would not be such an a*hole as to create someone as having these feelings, then insist they never fulfill them, threatening to punish them if they ever did. I hope you can see this as the outdated nonsense it is. Up to you, of course, but I remind you once more, the judeo-christian religion is not the only religion out there, there are hundreds, all claiming to be 'the truth'. Truly, either all of them are, or none of them are. And the latter seems to be a more logical option. Truth is something we all have to find within our hearts, over the course of a lifetime, but it certainly isn't found in outdated, dusty, hateful old books. Sorry to be so blunt about it.

    Actually, I find there is much wisdom to be found in certain spiritual teachings, but the ones I am interested in, such as Buddhism and Taoism, are not homophobic at all, not in the least. So I am not rejecting *all* spirituality, just the organized religions that spout nonsense that is hurtful and harmful. Just to be clear. And even with those quite useful and interesting paths, I don't let them define me; I define myself. I take what is useful from them, and leave what is not. I'm making my own way home.

    may you be well (*hug*)
    Damien

    ---------- Post added 26th Jun 2014 at 11:40 PM ----------

    Hey exexgay, regarding this:

    It's not your job to get him help, he is supposed to be the parent here, not you! This is not your responsibility. You are not obliged to take on this burden.
     
    #4 Damien, Jun 26, 2014
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2014