Fraud

How would you make it easier?

 

You might want to consider professional therapy with a Social Worker who is experienced in LGBT matters. You might want to join a support group. You might want to go to Meetup.com and join groups in things that you might like to do, including those which are with LGBT members and see if that meshes with your comfort zone.
In other words, action speak louder than words. You must make things happen for you and silence the voices in your head, that make you doubt yourself.

 

Once you've become frustrated with living in the closet it means you're closer to coming out, which really is freeing.

 

I think we're often our own worst enemies in this whole process. We hold ourselves to standards we'd never impose on anyone else, and set timelines in our heads that really aren't based on our own reality--just what we THINK it should be.

I can't tell you how many times in the last year and a half or so I've felt like I wasn't doing what I should be doing to come out, be public, move on and so on. I perceive everyone's coming out process as moving faster than mine and being more complete and successful. Every time I hesitate for a second before posting something gay-friendly on Facebook, or go home to my wife and family instead of to a place of my own, I feel, as you say, like a fraud. Why am I still not out to my small town? Why is it that I haven't changed my profile to "Interested in Men"? Why have I not done something, ANYTHING, to get into my own place regardless of our finances? Why haven't I told this person or that person? Why don't I just move on to my new life? Am I just a big fraud of a supposedly "out" gay man?

The answer is pretty simple. It's my journey out of the closet, and I have to do it at my own speed, the way that is going to make me happy and comfortable and in keeping with who I am. There are things that I see others doing which really aren't part of my personality, and yet I'm judging myself by their standards. I look at the lives of other people and pick out the one or two things that I think are missing from mine, but totally ignore everything else that might not be so positive. The person moving into his own place is doing so because his wife wanted him out of the family's existence as soon as possible. I grit my teeth about my wife's slow acceptance, but she goes out of her way to keep me involved in the family and in my children's lives. My community is gradually becoming aware that I'm gay, but I'm strong and secure enough to be excited about it instead of anxious, and if my "outing" had happened 6 or 9 or 12 months ago, I might have been devastated. I can look on the timeline of the last year and a half and see huge progress from high level. It's usually little things that bring me down.

You're not a fraud. You are learning how to be yourself with respect to your sexuality, but you are being true to yourself in the way you do it. That's a positive thing, not a negative one, even though it often doesn't feel that way. Keep doing what you're doing, Crossroad. And don't judge yourself by the standards of others, or use their experience to define yours. It will work out, and you'll be glad you did it your own way.

Wow, post #1000 on EC. A lot of change has happened since post #1. Even if I don't always feel that way myself.

 

I know exactly how you feel. Most days I'm happy, but then other days, I feel like I'm living a lie. My ex-husband and I are roommates, which I hate, but we have a plan to do it until our 15 yo graduates high school, and I'm counting down the days, almost literally, about 23 months and 2 weeks to go!! But because we live in the same place if we have to do something with the kids together everyone assumes we are still together and no one corrects them, and all i really want to do is say no we're separated and roommates, we are not married because I am gay. Or every time some guy is flirting with me or even when I go to work because no one knows there. I have begun to refer to my ex as ex-husband rather husband at work and I thought if anyone really wants to know what happened, I'll tell them, and every time I tell someone at work he's now my ex I'm hoping they'll probe so I can say why. I think this means I'm preparing to come out at work I guess I want everyone to know, but don't want have to constantly be telling people. The only place I don't feel like a fraud is at school, so I try to keep contact with my cohort so I can have times I don't feel like a fraud.
You're not a fraud, you are going through the process of coming out, and some days are a lot more difficult and frustrating than others.

 

Coming out is such a long journey. At times I feel like a fraud. Here I sit, my one child grown and out in the world, I own my own home and live alone, I have a great job in a gay friendly place, yet...I have not fully come out, started dating...I also live a few minutes from an Indian Casino! Open 24/7, a great meeting place (so I heard)...So WTF am I waiting for??? Im 54 years old! I'll tell you why...I am not ready. Not yet. I have some fears, some doubts, some residual feelings and attractions to women in my past. I get lonely and I seek out friends. I talk...I think..I read...I visit EC...it helps. Coming out is such an individual journey. One can't set a time line, although we want instant results. I think of it this way...It's not really a closet, but a house. The longer you have lived in the house, the more "things" you accumulate. In every room, in every closet, in the garage, in the attic..Oh! That f'ing ATTIC! There is CRAPOLA...It took a lifetime filling this house up with unwanted and unneeded STUFF. Does it not stand to reason that it may take a lifetime to clean it out?

 

Calamus1960, you hit on a metaphor that's been swirling around in my head for months! I've often felt that my homosexuality was some beloved piece of furniture that I had growing up, which I felt just was never going to match the house that I wanted, so I hid it in the attic. I felt like I couldn't use it, but there was no way I could part with it. As time went by, more and more junk got piled up in front of it, until I only vaguely remembered it was even there, and couldn't access it or remember anything significant about it. Then several things came together that caused the pile of junk to shift and tumble enough that I could see it and reach it, not easily, but I finally remembered it was there, and how much I missed it.

Moving that junk away and getting at what we've hidden is a lot of work, and it can take a long time. But the effort is worth it in the end, and in the process, you can get rid of an awful lot of emotional junk that does nothing positive--just takes up space and creates clutter in your life.

 

Well said my friend..well said...Thank you for your posts...

 

Wow!!!!!(&&&):eusa_clap

 

Choirboy, you named an important truth for me. I would never treat someone the way I have treated myself all my life. Never. So why did I judge myself so harshly? I think it was grasping for power when I felt powerless. If I could preempt any attack from someone else- then what they said could not hurt me. In the end, all I did was hurt myself.
It is a struggle to learn to love myself and to forgive myself. That is where I am today.
Bless you all!

 

Thanks to each of you for your comments. Gives me lots to think about.

 

Thanks so much for this thread. I came to this site a month or so ago looking for some support and answers, and quit after I read some pretty harsh comments to another member. I appreciate all the kind words offered here.

 

Hi crossroad

I'm in a similar position to yourself. I get buffeted around by states of mind, sometimes joyful, sometimes sad, sometimes lonely...an important thing to realize is that all of these different states of mind come, remain for a while, then they depart. Thus, they are not really 'ours', they are more like visitors to a house. They drop by, stay for a cuppa, then they go again.

This means that, you are not really a 'fraud', either. That feeling of being so, also arises, and passes again, does it not? Just another transient state of mind.

The mind, perhaps, could be compared to water, clear and colourless. The water takes on a certain dye, and it appears that 'this is red water' or 'this is blue water', but really the water has no colour at all; it's just taken on the colour of the dye.

Easier said than done to not identify with states of mind, I know, but I just thought I would share something I've learned over the years. I'm actually having a bit of a battle right now with a depressed state of mind. My perception is "I'm depressed" but actually, I know full well that most probably I'm going to feel much better even in a few hours. I'm falsely identifying with the 'depressed mind' as though it is 'me', as though it is 'mine'. So when the bad feelings come, just know that they are impermanent. They come, and they go, but they never last forever. That is their nature. Try to just put your mind onto something nurturing or uplifting, do something that is caring towards yourself. That way, you are no longer being buffeted around by mind-states, instead you are taking charge and proactively shifting your attention to something better.

Ok now I have to go and take my own advice. I hope all of this made sense and was not confusing.

Damien.