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Why do I grieve for my teenage self?

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by AmiBee, Aug 23, 2013.

  1. AmiBee

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    I am a 42 year old lesbian who has been out of the closet for a long time. I was drawn to post here because I have been spending quite a bit of time thinking about and grieving the closeted teenage version of myself. I was wondering if anyone else who is completely/mostly out of the closet feels the same way about their closeted years?

    First, I’ll give you a little background. At age 12, I started to suspect that I was a lesbian for all of the usual reasons: no interest in the boys and a crush on one of the girls. By the time I was 16, I felt confident that I was a lesbian and it was who I was meant to be. That isn’t to say that I didn’t hold out some hope that a guy would come along that would change my feelings. It was the 1980s so I didn’t see any GLBT characters on TV and there was no internet to help me figure things out. The only GLBT information that I really heard about were gay men getting AIDS. I had an on-going mission to find any information I could at the public library and chain bookstores that I had access to. I remember keeping a bibliography on a piece of note book paper tucked into my wallet with a list of books to look for.

    In high school, I came across as shy and focused most of my energies on academics. I went on a few dates with some safe-seeming, nerdy boys who asked me out. Otherwise, I spent my energies crushing on one of my close female friends. Inside, I felt angry, voiceless and depressed. I walked around feeling like I was hiding my true self. I hated it but didn’t feel like I had much choice at the time. I certainly didn’t have any role models to help me. By senior year, I was aching to go to college and get on with my life. I imagined meeting the woman who I would make a life with there.

    After high school, I went about 500 miles away from home to a very gay friendly women’s college. By the end of first semester, I started to come out to a few college friends. During sophomore year, I dated a couple of women and also fell in love with a woman who would later become my wife. We got together the fall of our junior year and have been together ever since. We are legally married and have a 9 year old son. We are out to our families, in the community and at work. The vision for my life that I had back in high school has been fulfilled.

    So .... back to the original question. Why do I still feel sorrow and some bitterness when I look back at my teenage years? Why do I grieve for my 12-18 year old self who didn’t get to experience what my straight peers were able to? A few weeks ago, I visited my parents and looked at some old photo albums. The pictures of me as a teenager showed an angry and depressed person. I felt sad for her (me). Maybe it’s because I teach 13-14 year olds. I see first-hand how hard being a teenager can be. One legacy of my teenage years is that I still have some trouble communicating my feelings. I think it’s because I wasn’t able to voice anything real about myself during my teens.

    I’m heartened when I see even young teenagers able to come out in my liberal corner of the US. From what I’ve seen, they face some harassment from classmates, but they also get a lot of support from many of their friends. When I read the stories from those of you who are struggling to come out at a later age after decades of the closet, I feel very lucky. But also very concerned for all of you who are struggling. I send you all hugs, good thoughts and the strength to make it through. It is better on the other side.
     
  2. Amerigo

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    i only think it's natural to wish we could turn back time, but what's done is done, and the fact alone that now you have a loving family should help you let go of any regrets. perhaps any wishes you had for yourself, you can now provide for your son.

    it is an unfortunate thought, i often compare myself to my heterosexual siblings who have a future, a future where they'll be happily integrated into the family, while i'll always be treated different. sometimes i wish i never let depression and anxiety get a hold of me during my teenage years, i'm dealing with the remnants right now in fact - for instance, my weight issues. but our hardships only make us stronger. by all means, mourn, lament, but take it as a good thing, something you had to go through to get where you are right now.

    all the best :slight_smile:
     
  3. Californiacoast

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    I certainly relate to lost teenage years not being out. However, I try to turn it around and look at it from another view point. My teens were in the 80s and frankly I might not be alive if I had been fully out, I was such a horn dog, lol. There is a blessing there somewhere, you just have to look for it. One younger boyfriend lamented for me saying I never really lived, yet I found out later his version of living a gay life was a meth addiction. I am glad I missed out on that and kicked him to the curve! I played sports in my teen years, didn't do drugs, and had guy crushes. I wasn't out, but hell, I was in Mississippi, not very gay friendly. I guess I could lament I didn't grow up out and in San Francisco, but guess what? I am now!
     
  4. bdman

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    I grieve for my teen years all the time. I'm only partially out, but it doesn't really matter. I think the reason I long for that time back is that that is the only realistic way I could have changed the direction of my life. After a couple of years of trying to make a life for myself as a gay man, I discovered that there is very little opportunity for the future that I want. So I grieve for the time when it would have made the difference. Of course with the environment I grew up with in the late 80's, it probably wouldn't have made a difference. I need to be a teenager now in 2013 and go from there. Generally speaking I believe gay teens today will have (on average) lifestyles that are similar to straights by the time they are middle aged (marriage/family, etc). Today, middle aged gay men do not have similar lifestyles (on average) and it continues to feed the anti-gay right wing. It's unfortunate, but I understand why they don't. Different times.
     
  5. enigmeow

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    I really wish I had figured this out at 12 or 13...
     
  6. etiggy

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    I miss not being a teenager in love. And I mean real, requited love, not the secret crush on the football star I had. I could never had that experience and it feels I had become a lesser person is some way because of it.
     
  7. Straight ally

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    it is more common than you could believe, and it doesnt happen to lgtb people only. I'm 23 years old straight guy, yet i understand what you are talking about, i have been very shy and socially awkard, i have never had a girlfriend, neither i have kissed or done anything phisicaly intimate with a woman. i still have many years but im already regretting my lost teenage years, and i'm still shy and awkard so i fear to lose my 20 to 40.

    Today i saw some photo of some guy i know, in a pool with 2 hot ladies and i felt some sort of anger-envy.

    But at least you are having great life right now, maybe the "lost teenage years" can help you appreciate more what you have now but didn't have before, you can see the contrast throught your life.

    make sure to give good use to your current years, so you can look back and see what a good adulhood you had. :goodluck: :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:ride: i'm happy for you :slight_smile:
     
  8. AmiBee

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    Thanks for all of the support shown to my original post. I'm glad I'm not alone in thinking my teenage years were lacking.. Some good things did come out of that time. My focus on academics allowed me to get into a good college and my art provided an oulet and escape.
     
  9. LionsAndShadows

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    Hi AmiBee,

    Your post resonates with me in all sorts of ways. If there is a time in my life I ‘grieve’ for its age eighteen to my mid-twenties. By eighteen I’d completely accepted my homosexuality and knew it was simply part of who I am (and always have been). If you like, I’d come out to myself. And I was no longer a kid. I was an adult and my challenge was to fit my sexual orientation into my wider identity as a person. I thought of myself as a ‘gay man’ but had no clue about what that really meant. Did it simply provide a more convenient terminology for my gender and sexual orientation? Or did being gay have wider implications for my identity? Having accepted that I was a ‘gay man’ was I supposed to act, dress, think, behave, talk, have my hair cut in a particular way? How should I ‘be gay’?

    This is where the complete lack of role models back in the 1980’s (and before, of course) was such a challenge for gays and lesbians of all ages. Beyond the derogatory media stereotypes we didn’t have people who expressed the breadth of what it is to be gay/lesbian. For me, that was the biggest challenge. It wasn’t my sexuality per se – that had been obvious to me since puberty, if not way before then. It was finding out what it meant to me to be a gay man.

    I think this was also the challenge for the rest of society. I was a gay guy confused by what being gay meant. Straight people must have been even more confused!

    This caused me to delay coming out to the wider world until my mid-twenties. I only cleared up the confusion when I met the man who became my first boyfriend. It was then that I realised I’d been wasting my time trying to figure out what was in fact so obvious. Being ‘gay’ really didn’t matter at all. What mattered was finding someone with whom I could share in a loving, caring, tender and intimate relationship. Nothing more, nothing less.

    I eventually found that person in 2002… still going strong.
     
  10. Pocky

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    Definitely not alone in feeling that way AmiBee (*hug*)

    I'm in the same boat that somehow there was all this amazing stuff I missed out on. I think the main thing is that idea of being able to experiment in deciding who I want to be with relatively few consequences.

    I actually obsess over it a lot. I do things like compare my life to those younger than me and get obsessed over people's age and what they've "done" with their lives.

    I think you've come a huge way and should be admired as someone who has achieved all of society's accepted goals; career, marriage, children.

    The hurt doesn't go away and perhaps you need to feel the grieving process in full to make it less painful, but the fact you got on with life regardless is definitely something to be very proud of :icon_bigg
     
  11. ivy552

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    AmiBee, your post really resonates with me. I'm a 57 year old gay man, but I still miss the experience of being a gay teenager. I started coming out in my 20s (a long process) and in many ways it's been positive since then.

    But I do miss what might have been, if I'd been able to come out while in my teens, or even to know there were other gay people around. Growing up in "Catholic Ireland" in the 60s and 70s, gay role models didn't exist, and indeed homosexuality was still a criminal offence - not great conditions for a young teen to seek affirmation for who they are.

    Some might say it's time to get over it, and your life now sounds very positive, but I suspect that, like me, there will always be a part of you wondering "what if" if you'd been able to be more open as a teenager.
     
  12. Electra

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    AmiBee - yes i definitely grieve my younger self....for a longer period of time ...as I have only just come out to everyone. I am 50! Indeed its an odd mix of relief and excitement of at last being able to be my authentic self and regretting all those years of lost opportunities, of shame and guilt and doubt that blocked in so many ways me growing into my true potential.
    I have been lucky enough to attend some life changing workshops for gay men in the last few years - where I have been encouraged to share this 'grief' with other gay men. I think it is important for all of us, however late or early we came out, to not run away from the impact being gay had on our earlier closeted years. i was surprised in the workshop that even apparently content, settled gay men (who had been out for years) shared with me the same 'hang ups' and traits that could be traced back to being aware of being 'different' as a child and of having to hide a (shameful?) secret from the straight world all around us. I know that many straight people also feel similar shame at being different in a wide range of different ways (not connected with sexual orientation) but LGBT people have a special 'take' on this feeling of shame. For me being honest about this impact of shame on all aspects of my life was a vital step in finding my true self today. Many behaviours we develop as a teenager become habits in our adult years (whether we are out or not) and by recognising them we can grow faster and be more at peace. Grief is an important emotion - whether grief over a lost friend or relative or grief over a lost former self. In both cases its a vital part of healing and moving on..
    I know many ECers know this and many conversations on EC revolve around accepting not just who we are today - but how and who we were yesterday and how those old (and now redundant) feelings and behaviours can hold us back. Its also wonderful to see 'coins dropping' left right and centre in these posts as we realise this and are liberated to move forward. I know my own 'coming out' will always be a journey - but it is one I do not regret embarking on - however late I started. Good wishes to AmiBee and all of you on your own journeys..