Looking for advice: dealing with unsupportive parents

Hi there. I just wanted to first of all thank you for taking the time to read about my situation.

I thought I would start off with a little background information about myself in hopes to possibly help you get a better sense of who I am. My name is Zacry (Zac for short), I was born and raised in Hawaii. I'm the oldest child and only son in my family. I grew up in a household where my mother stayed at home to take care of the kids and my father would work and support our family financially. My mom is very caring and loving person whereas my father is a very strict and harsh tough loving kind of guy. My mother was 20 years old and my father was 21 years old when they had given birth to me. While growing up my dad was very angry and verbally abusive always never pleased with anything that we ever did. (chores, house work, physical fitness drills) We would get yelled at cursed at and degraded including my mother. I know a lot of this anger and frustration he unloaded upon us was due to the fact that he had to work so much (his full time job and side part time jobs) to support his family. I believe in his eyes he saw his family as a burden, as a leech, as good for nothing but an entity that took all his hard earned money and gave him nothing in return. Well I know this is the case because as I grew up and got older and got into arguments with my father, he would bring up things such as he would be able to live happily and well above his financial means if he didn't have to support 4 kids and a wife. Any I apologize for digressing away from my the point: my mother is the parent in which I have a closer relationship versus my father who I have little to no relationship with.

Here's my situation. After coming out to my parents, they were both extremely upset and did not take it well at all. Let's just say the after math of that day I was me getting kicked out and my father wanting nothing to do with me. It will be 3 years in August (2015) since I came out to my parents. It took them about a month to try to get me to come back home but only if I went to church with them to pray the gay away. I decided that I did not want to talk to them ever for treating me the way that they did. It took me about a year to come around and start talking to them again. But its still not a comfortable situation every time I come around to my parents house for family gatherings, I try to avoid conversations with my father because it always ends up turning into a debate about "being gay is a choice" and "the bible says its wrong". Most recent example had happened the other day. My father out of nowhere called me (I missed the call) then sent me a text for me to call him back. (I thought something was wrong like someone got hurt or something) So I called him back, he just wanted to let me know that he was thinking about me and how its been while since I been home to talk with him about stuff and how he wanted to rebuild and have a better relationship with his son. I was hopeful so I said sure why not I'll come over for dinner and try to see if we can start rebuilding a better relationship. But the conversation once again ended up in him telling me that "you being gay is a choice and you are more then welcome to come over here in my house as long as you leave the gay out and if you feel that is unfair then that is your choice to not be apart of this family"

So my question is why is it rooted in me that I feel like I have to please my father and the fact that I am disappointing him makes me ashamed, confused, upset, as if everything is my fault. I really do love my parents, but it's just so hard and so frustrating that they can't look to what is right in front of them, a hurt physical real human being of a son that is longing for their acceptance and instead they look to a belief of an entity that based on writing will grant them everlasting life and happiness after they die as long as they follow this rule of not accepting not loving not someone who loves another person of the same gender.

Thank you again for reading my post and I am looking for any advice and suggestions on how to cope with these feelings.

 

Although I am not denying that it was an unfortunate experience to have to go through that type of reaction from my parents, I have to say that coming out to them has taken a huge emotional and mental burden off my shoulders as to not be afraid if any other person were to out me to them. I've always had this idea in my head that I wanted my parents to find out that I was gay by me and not by anyone else and sure they were not going to find out since I was not going out on dates or trying to find a boyfriend. But the pain of suppressing my feelings were just too great to contain so I told myself that I either can continue living with this pain or build up the courage to tell them and start living a life where I'm not emotionally miserable. Even though their response had definitely hurt the relationship with my parents and my family, it has also made me a free and independent person, which above all else has made me a better person. Stimpacks, thanks man for reading about my situation I appreciate that.

Thank you Zane7 for reading about my situation. It is also unfortunate that due to the correlation between my parents' position towards me being gay and their religious beliefs it has definitely pushed me away from being a religious person and having faith in God. It especially it hurtful and upsets me when they tell me things such as if I believe that God will still love you and care about you if you continue on with this sin then you are wrong and just filling your head with lies. This makes me so frustrated and mad. I appreciate all your words of encouragement and trying to help me in restoring faith in God. Your prayers are most welcomed. I'll try my best to not give up on my parents and to not give up on faith and hope that they'll come around. I'm also glad to know that I have a friendly person to turn to if I need to talk. Thank you so much.

 

Thanks Chiroptera, Clay and Runner5. I appreciate your words of encouragement. I really needed to hear it from others that I am not to blame for the way my parents are acting. Hopefully my parents will come around to accepting me and supporting me with unconditional love, but until that time I will just keep on being who I am and won't let them make me feel any lesser of a human being.