Bringing out the Gay Self while in 12-step recovery

In the past few months I finally admitted to my innermost self that I'm gay. I'm in my mid-30s and have never had a relationship. I've had very little sexual experience: none with men, almost none with women. Yet I'm quite obviously gay. I feel like I have not really existed up to this point, and all aspects of my life are undeveloped. If I deny being gay I don't become straight, I just stop functioning.

As I don't really have an outlet to talk about the gay feelings I'm now trying to accept, and which have always made me so very anxious, I'd like to do so in this thread.

I actually came out to my family and friends in my early twenties, and everybody was just fine about it. I've won the parent lottery in all manner of ways. When I came out they both hugged me and said they loved me and that I was still their son. But I blotted out the thought that I was gay for the next dozen years through destructive behaviour. Fortunately I never touched hard drugs or became addicted to alcohol. A few addictions came and went, but my main problem has always been a fierce binge eating disorder.

Although it's commonly thought that predisposition to addiction is genetic, it makes most sense for me to see my eating disorder as a violent refusal of one part of my brain to accept my being gay. I was in a sugar stupor all the time so could blot out sexual feelings, and turned instead to food to meet all my emotional needs. I made myself overweight and neglected my appearance so that people wouldn't find me attractive, so I could deny that I had a body, and make sure nobody ever touched me.

I've been in twelve-step recovery for the past three years. I started off in SLAA and SAA, identifying as a sexual anorexic. I then moved on to Overeaters Anonymous meetings, which I attend almost every day. I haven't yet stopped binging, but understand that's quite common. Abstinence will come if I keep working at it. I know what I need to do to defeat my eating disorder: continue practising steps 10, 11 and 12 on a daily basis; take inventory, turn towards God rather than my illness; stay connected to my higher power; and give service. Abstinence for me means no sugar, refined flour, caffeine, alcohol or drugs; any amount of any one of these is a gateway to all the others, and into self-destruction.

It was through working the steps with a sponsor and examining my past behaviour that I was able to identify my massive dependence on and attraction to unavailable straight men throughout my life, and so to come out to myself. Another factor was returning to office work, and unlocking a whole arousal template around smart, well-groomed guys with good cheekbones, smart suits, nice shoes, etc, which I had not allowed myself to notice for so many years. I see these men, and feel attracted to them, and that I want to develop my own capacity to look like that, too.

Since coming out to myself, my relationships with women have been miraculously healed. Before, in the closet, I couldn't talk to them, I had so much shame and anxiety around young/attractive women as I couldn't accept or forgive myself for being gay. Now I can speak easily to the women I meet in recovery, and find we have a natural connection and sympathy.

I also can experience every time I meet a man how fascinating I find it. Even when I get talking to guy in a shop. But I need to learn how to allow myself to feel this attraction to men without it making me anxious and being a binge trigger. I don't intend to become sexually active or in contact with gay men outside recovery until I am in control of my eating disorder. However I can continue with the small steps I've been taking, such as:

* I saw a gay stand-up comedian
* I went to see a male acrobatics performance
* I saw a theatre piece about a gay performer
* I went swimming at a pool with a busy communal shower/changing room (I would like to do this regularly - it's very good for me - but it really triggers my anxiety)
* I'm watching Cucumber and Banana on Channel 4.
* I'm making a point of listening to the music that makes my gay soul soar - for example 'I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy' by Antony & the Jonsons; and 'You Can Have Him' by Nina Simone'.

Thanks for reading this far, and sorry if this has been a bit disjointed. Glad to have found this forum.

 

At certain times I feel my 'gay brain' is there; at other times it's not yet fully emerged, or I've blotted it out with food binges. I don't like how my binges stop me from seeing who I am, what kind of work I should be doing, what kind of people I should be friends with.

A few gay feelings yesterday:

I see a young guy with shades and short blonde hair leaning against the wall, looking down the train platform towards me. I feel attracted to him. However I chose to turn around and read my book. I'm aware of this whole exciting world of making eye contact with attractive men I see around the city, smiling, starting conversations. I have spent so many years talking to straight guys when in the closet, I hardly think I'd get into trouble picking the wrong person as I can easily act the friendly straight. I don't really feel ready to get into this now, but perhaps some low level experimentation might help me.

On the train home, there were a group of young, obviously straight guys in suits talking loudly. I felt vulnerable and threatened by them. I turned round so I didn't have to see them. Acknowledging that I'm gay, and a bottom, makes me feel scared of men who would have no interest in me but might mock me.

At the same time I thought 'Wouldn't it be nice to know some guys who I knew liked men, and might like me, too?' I think it's progress for me to start to think I might actually want the company of gay men.

I looked to see what gay Meetup events there are in my city. There are a lot! But I couldn't yet imagine going to any. Maybe it's just I find that site a bit naff, maybe I'm just still uncomfortable with the idea of seeking out the company of gay men. I think it's a mixture of snobbery and fear. Any guy I'd want wouldn't need to use a site like that.

 

Thanks for all your feedback, guys.

I want to memorize the 'Acceptance prayer' for whenever I feel regret at not being able to come out/become myself sooner:

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.

Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."

 

I need the Acceptance Prayer to help me stay abstinent. Otherwise I will turn memories of the past into reasons to continue bingeing. It's actually quite a nice feeling to see how my 'gay brain' was always there, it was just muffled. I can now look back at previously baffling ways I interacted with people and for the first time understand why events happened as they did.

In town today I found I was connected with my true thoughts and tastes in a way I was never capable of until coming out to myself. I actually have to stop myself from talking too much, as it feels like I just learned how. When a shop assistant was talking to the customer ahead of me, I had to keep quiet when I wanted to babble.

I'm quite fortunate in that I look better in my mid-30s than I did in my early 20s. I've evolved from cute into handsome. I need to undo the damage of years of compulsive self-neglect, however. I go to a very good hairdresser, I've bought expensive classic shoes. I bought Tom Ford aftershave. I don't often remember to clean and moisturise my face, however, and I rarely look in the mirror - I'm only able to do it on days when I'm not in food binges. And I need to lose a lot of weight, for which I need to work my 12-step programme around food. I also need to accept that I actually do want men to find me attractive; I want to maximise my attractiveness, not blot it out!

I noticed a young, preppy, good looking couple of guys walking down the street holding hands. I liked the look of them. I don't yet feel like I could get to meet guys like that, but I'm capable of becoming so. I look forward to becoming more that person each day, so long as I keep working a spiritual programme, helping others, and connecting to a God of my understanding.

 

302 days since my last post! So, an update.

In that time I haven't touched another human being, beyond a hug. I still don't look in the mirror, or buy clothes. I haven't talked to a gay man, identifying myself as a gay man, outside of 12-step rooms.

The most useful thing I did this year was EMDR therapy. This was remarkably effective in removing the gap between my conscious and unconscious minds, untied many mental knots that had been with me for decades, and revealed to me my true feelings about people and events that had been blocked for so long.

At the end of the EMDR, I felt my 'gay mind' more unlocked than ever. It felt like progress, to begin to feel like a gay man with a binge eating disorder, rather than just an almighty confused mess.

I have started to feel the emptiness of a lifetime of being alone, now that all the false comforts I sought instead (straight guy friends, boyish girls, etc), have been revealed as the diversions that they actually were.

I notice that I am annoyed, and annoying, when I am in the company of the straight man who has been my best friend these past ten years. I see that, in the closet, he was my ideal man, embodying all the qualities I would want in a gay partner, very smart, with a strong aesthetic sense; often available; very committed to me; and though he was straight, he kept his girlfriends completely separate and hidden from his friends, as if they didn't exist. I never consciously had a feeling of attraction towards him; yet now, if I'm with him, I'm noticing it, and I'm also feeling my projected resentment.

I have made great progress in changing my career, and finding something I can be successful at, that can give me the professional recognition that I have lacked in adult life. I have been able to do this while being only half-engaged in it.

I am feeling my visual aesthetic sense unlocking, while in denial I had denied myself a perspective with which to appreciate art. I now find myself able to enjoy classical music and opera, which I often heard in childhood but denied myself in the closet. I feel a desperate pull towards great works of art to give me spiritual comfort.

I have been periodically bingeing on poppers. I'm trying to condition myself away from looking at images of girls, and into being able to watch and enjoy gay porn. That's going fairly successfully - I find that I have an aesthetic appreciation of the most extraordinarily beautiful women, but there aren't sex-acts I would want to do with them, and my aesthetic sense is at its most heightened when they are clothed, and the film has strong artistic values. So looking at women becomes less and less about sex. Then insofar as I am able to watch gay porn, I find myself appreciating smart, suited, masculine guys - Michael Lucas, for example.

I am still in my binge eating disorder, still in my sugar and flour addiction. I don't have the focus I might like. I can't read a book or watch a movie. I have stopped attending 12-step meetings, so am not engaging with the gay men I used to meet there. I need to return to 'the rooms' because my E.D. is the original barrier I constructed to avoid being in my gay brain.

Over summer I did go for coffee a couple of times with a gay man from the eating disorder meetings. I also had telephone conversations with another man who has very strong recovery indeed. I ought to speak to them both again.

I need to sort out my domestic situation. I currently have lodgers who are girls in their early 20s. I used to always live with straight guys, but of course now realize how incredibly unhealthy that was, since I would unconsciously fixate on them, or fight with them, seeing them as invaders. I did show round a few gay men, but I would never want to live with one who "wasn't my type"; and it would be bad to live with one who was! I have no interest in living with ordinary, average-looking adult women. The only people I really feel I can safely, enjoyably live with are very smart and beautiful girls in their early 20s with conservative habits; but even then, I fixate on them a little. Really I should live alone, but it will be Autumn before that might be possible financially.

I identify myself as gay to these women. I went through a period of a week or two of having ****** installed on my phone, though didn't speak to anyone. A couple of times I scrolled through profiles with one of the attractive girls I live with, pointing out who the hot guys were.

But I need God more than I need ******. I am thinking to take a course of introduction to the Catholic faith. I was baptized but not confirmed. I have been walking in to a church at lunchtime some days recently, though not attending any services. I know that I need a faith in God to get me well from my eating disorder. I need spiritual recovery before I could consider any social situations in which I might meet any gay men.

So, some progress, but much still to be done.