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Coming out as made me an angry misanthrope. Please help!

Discussion in 'Family, Friends, and Relationships' started by mengazo, May 1, 2013.

  1. mengazo

    Regular Member

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    Gender:
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    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    In advance, I apologize for this long post!

    As of late 2011, I had publicly and proudly announced that my homosexuality was a part of my identity, despite of the possible conflicts between those who know/knew me and I. The result of that announcement has resulted in two ongoing, concurrent experiences; I feel tremendously liberated for having the ability to truthfully express myself, but I am also experiencing a serious state of heartbreak and anger. To further explain my current situation in detail, ever since this announcement was made, although the majority of my relatives have been entirely supportive of my identity, a few have not. The few relatives who have either attempted to disown me or I have ignored, due to discrimination, happened to be, ironically, the people I once felt closest to; my mother as well as my grandmother, both of whom are Christian.

    My mother once invaded my privacy by scrolling through email messages and other data on my smartphone, to see as to whether or not I was "doing something weird," as I did not tell her about my announcement, out of reasonable fear. She had figured that I was hiding something from her, which caused her to seek interest in confirming whatever thought that was on her mind at the time regarding my homosexuality. Upon confirmation, she had attempted to disown me, leading me, for the sake of my safety and sanity, to stay with my uncle's place of residence for a week, before she had asked me to come home via text message. We also have argued over this matter a month afterward, as well, leading her to irrationally contact the police to have me arrested, which, of course, never happened. Before law enforcement had even arrived at the scene, I angrily shouted the following statement to my mother:

    "**** you, **** God, and **** your church!"

    Since these occurrences took place, we've been able to talk to one another about this and we've apologized to one another for the drama that came about, but it still highly angers me to know that, deep within herself, she still feels as though homosexuality is an abomination and, from her perspective, there is something wrong with me, even though I clearly have no sexual or emotional attraction for the opposite sex.

    My grandmother, however, reacted differently from my mother, but still in a manner that deeply offends me to this day. Upon finding out about this announcement, my grandmother has taken the approach to indirectly announce that she did not want me to be around my mentally challenged uncle without supervision, as I can "potentially" turn him into a sinner, such as myself. As a result of that, I had taken to initiative to avoid her entirely, as I will not tolerate discrimination, which has been causing tension within the family.

    Such heartbreaking experiences have led me to not only resent both relatives, but also their religious beliefs. I was once proud to consider myself as a Christian man, but these days, I now consider myself an atheist. I will not follow any religion whose followers state that I'm an abomination. I now passionately despise and resent all religion, but I still hold onto a special grudge towards Christianity.

    Due to social rejection throughout my life for other irrelevant reasons, I have already become accustomed to being an outcast, but these personal experiences as well as other similar, but minor, experiences from acquaintances due to my coming out, however, were simply the last straw for me. I, as a result of rejection, have become a cynical, bitter, distrustful, and angry individual, which has also resulted in social anxiety.

    Feeling absolutely helpless, I have made the mistake of utilizing social media, such as Facebook, to vent, blatantly expressing my frustrations and hatred towards religion, religious people, and, indirectly, about my offending relatives. As a result, many of my other relatives and former acquaintances have discontinued talking to me, which has led to a deeper depression and state of resentment. This continuation of rejection had also led me to become a misanthrope, isolating myself from almost everyone.

    These days, I irrationally believe that everyone is an asshole, and obviously, that is simply not true. I am only holding onto this mindset as a defense mechanism, to protect myself from further rejection and emotional distress.

    I have my dignity. Life is too short to satisfy others for their own selfish reasons. I would never live my life for anyone else. Never.

    At this point, I am unsure as to what I should do. I have built up so much anger, it has now reached a dangerous level, causing me to be excessively aggressive. I do not want to reach a level of aggressiveness where I can potentially become physically abusive, if emotionally hurt from this point forward. That is not like me at all. I want to prevent that entirely.

    All this drama within the past year and a half has been a result of just being true to myself. I don't deserve any of this. What should I do to walk down a path to recovery?
     
  2. I don't know much about reconciling homosexuality with religion/religious family members, but there are plenty of people here who know a bit about that.

    But as far as your anger goes, I feel much that way when I feel I am being prevented from expressing myself. It sounds like that is happening to you also. It's really hard to not be pissed when no one is listening, no one is trying to understand and their ignorance and judgement strongly influences how your life is.

    There are two things I do when this starts to get to me, therapy (so that you can bounce some of this off of another person in a safe space who have no stake in your life other than that you are their client, if you can't do therapy then hanging around here and posting and talking to people often helps as well) and also, I take some times by myself where I get to do whatever I want, be who I want, write or draw or cook by myself and make it so that for a little while, nobody has any way of impinging their garbage on me.

    I highly recommend the former, the latter is personal to me and thus may not be particularly helpful for you. But seriously, stick around, talk to people here, vent when you have to and you'll find people who get it and consider therapy, lots of people don't think it'll help them, but it really does.
     
  3. Bobbybobby99

    Bobbybobby99 Guest

    Might I reccomend that you do not make any attempt to continue contact with those bigots? In any case, I advise that you try to stop being quite so deragotory to religon and angry towards religon if you want to remain social, as the majority of people are religious. Even I believe in my own personal religon, Bobbyism, but it's more a philosophy than anything. Second off, try getting a large punching bag and imagine that it is your relatives. Don't get used to punching them in the face, but it would be a good way to let off steam so that you don't punch people with words, so to speak. Third, become friends with and maintain good general behavior with a select support group of people, while saying that you don't have a Facebook account, possibly deleting said Facebook account of any links to you. Fourth, get on with you life :slight_smile:
     
  4. Eli

    Eli Guest

    How to get over (justifiable) anger at religiously bigoted relatives:
    I wish I knew, my friend.
    I know I will face similar reactions from one side of my family when I eventually comeout to them. As for how to deal with that, the only way to fully avoid being around that kind of hate is to cut them out of your life, which I gather has alread kind of happened.
    As for dealing with the anger, I can only suggest you find something you really enjoy doing-- a hobby, ect-- and pursue it with a great deal of energy. For me, making something productive out of my anger was helpful. I had a lot of anger so I had a lot of energy. Want to write a book about why the Christian church is losing so many members due to their stance on LGBT people? There will never be a better time. Or pick up a hobby you've always wanted to do, like canoeing or something.
    Ultimately, the more time you spend out in the world doing something you enjoy, the more you may discover that not all people are as shitty as your relatives. You don't deserve to have been treated this way and I hope you will find that there are may, many people who will accept and support you being true to yourself in whatever way you express it.