I came out to my family!

I know I should probably post this in the coming out section but I feel a lot closer to most people here in terms of age and experience so I will put it here instead. (sorry it is gonna be a huge wall of text)

I have mentioned my background in replies to other posts and I will just sum it up here. I am Chinese and grew up with my grandparents. I realized I had feelings for girls when I was 18 and over the years I have come to terms with my orientation (bi but definitely leaning towards girls). My home country wasn't/isn't exactly lgbt friendly and my grandparents grew up in a time when an (straight) affair could land you in jail or worse. So when I first sensed my less than common orientation, I did not even dream of coming out to them.

For the past 10 years I had imagined many scenarios where I would never have to come out: I might fall in love with prince charming one day and all will be fine; I might get hit by a car or die of alcohol poisoning; I might be so overworked that I end up with a brain aneurysm, etc etc. Apparently none of those happened. In the meantime, I had also experienced many rejections (mostly from girls and once from a guy) and was somewhat convinced that no one would ever love me romantically. So I kept telling myself there would be no benefit at all to come out without a girlfriend.

As for my family, ever since I turned 22, my grandma had been bugging me to get a boyfriend. I made up a bunch of excuses, most of which intentionally misled her into thinking that I only liked white guys (I have been in the states for 6+ years). My very childish reasoning was that since they probably hated the idea of an inter-racial marriage, they would stop bugging me about my personal life. But for the last couple years, I felt more and more miserable each day. I already had a lot of work related stress and living in a lie was further pulling me down. My excuses had stopped working and my family was one step away from entering me into some dating show where 'gentlemen of all ethnicities' would be available.

I started to make serious effort to reach out to the lgbt community about 3-4 months ago. At this point, all my close friends already knew and I have fully accepted it myself too. I still planned to hide it until I 'get someone'. As shown in some of my other EC posts, I kept telling others and most importantly myself there was no point to come out to family unless you had someone.

This morning I woke up feeling a little weepy. I brushed it off and did my routine stuff. In the afternoon I was riding my bike to the animal shelter I volunteer at and all of a sudden the weepiness came back and I cried a little. I was fine at the shelter but cried on the way back home again. Then I had this brilliant idea to come out to my family today. It has been a weepy day anyway so a little more tears wouldn't hurt.

So that was all the planning I did! No written speech, no special occasion, and pretty much no planning at all. I skyped my grandparents at night as usual (mom happened to be there too) and they were all happily chatting away about the news and the weather when they noticed that I wasn't talking. They did a little more talking before asking me what was wrong. I said 'I have something to tell you'.

Then I completely broke down into a teary mess. For the next 20 minutes I kept crying and they kept guessing 'was she raped, did she get cancer'. I could only shake my head and after a while they relaxed a little once they covered the worst things on the list. I was able to get another sentence out 'do you know why I never dated guys' before breaking down again. More crying. Then I reminded them of my first girl crush (they knew her as the ahole friend who dumped me) and told them I was very much in love with her. More crying. My grandma wondered whether it was some mental illness. I responded with louder cries and she shut up.

After a while, I was more coherent and was able to convey the main points: 1) I have fully accepted myself and my feelings; 2) I am tired of constant lying and pretending no guys are good enough for me; 3) I hid it for so long b/c I was afraid they would blame themselves or think they failed to raise me properly; 4) I am sorry to disappoint them and they will probably never see any great grand kids. My grandma thought for a while and said 'at least you have a good education and won't need any man to provide for you'.

Then she started talking about how lots of girls were single these days and it was not a big deal. I think she was too embarrassed to even think about me with a girl but I will take what I can get, especially this went a lot better than I imagined! So we spent more time talking about how nice it was to be single and most marriages ended up in divorces anyway. She also promised not to pressure me into dating/marrying a guy.

That was my coming out experience! It was so so much better than what I imagined and it is definitely a huge weight off my shoulder. Big hugs to all the EC members! Every single one of you pushed me a little closer to coming out until I finally did it! It is almost 3am now and I am pretty tired from all the crying but am too excited to sleep. I love you all!!

 

Thank you all for your replies! I still feel funny from all the crying but it is definitely a huge relief.

I obtained a lot of strength from EC members who had much more to lose than me (bristajedi and many others) when they came out. I have also realized that there might never be a 'right' time to come out. Gay relationships fail just like straight ones so how many more years do I have to wait/lie before I am in a secure long term relationship with a lady if it ever happens...

-Adray, coming out to family always seems to be the most difficult because they can hurt you like nobody else can. I wish you all the best!