#itdoesgetbetter

If It Was a Choice for Me, It Was a Choice for You.

From my last post you may be thinking “Well good for you! That sounds like that went as good as it could have!” and you’d be right. Sort of. That night was great and all but the thing with my father is, he is wildly moody. Me, my friends, and a few others who I wont mention are convinced he is bipolar. It is no surprise for anyone who knows them that he can be great one day, and flat out scary the next. So, if you think about how good that moment was the night before, and if you are me, you know what to expect next. In the evening the next day, I was laying down in the living room halfway snoozing, when my parents came downstairs and asked if they could talk to me. As I followed them upstairs all I could think was “What the hell is about to happen? Is it going to be good? Is it going to be bad? I had absolutely no clue. What followed this moment is arguably the most disappointing moment in my life. My parents had constructed a contract for me to sign. This contract outlined the behaviors I must abide to, and the reasoning behind this was that my parents were trying to raise my younger brothers in a Christian household and did not want my “lifestyle choices” affecting their development. I was not allowed to post on social media with anything related to my sexuality, and I was told that if I told my brothers there would be serious consequences. These consequences they talked about were never specified but being a college student not living at home I think I knew what that meant, that I was being threatened to be financially cut off. They held out a pen for me to sign it and I looked up with the paper, held it out, and ripped it in half. I left the room furious and when they approached me later, I told them that it was not a choice. That if anything being straight was a choice that made me miserable in the long run. They replied, “It IS a choice.” To which I replied, “Well then I am glad you made the right one.”

when i was 12 i was depressed for the first time in my life. it was the start of a long journey but i still remember how i felt nearly every day back then, and how alone i was. i couldn't ask for help because no one would believe me (and, spoiler, they didn't). i was cringe, insecure, sad, and very lonely. i couldn't see things for what they were, and i often leaned into my sadness just to feel something.

i'm 21 now and my life is so, so good. i moved out, went to college, started doing things by myself, got weirder, started accepting myself, came out, and have started leaning into my identity. i live with my best friends, who i met in college, who i love dearly. i am heavily involved with my college's pride organization, have friends i absolutely adore, and am starting the life i have always dreamed of for myself. i have a bright future and feel like i know myself so well and i have a fantastic relationship with myself for the first time in my life.

With the events that had unfolded a few days prior, and after my return to Georgia, I found myself almost numb with feelings. How could my parents give me something like that to govern me? I know they apologized but that does not really make up for the fact that they did it in the first place. Could anyone just do awful stuff and because they are misinformed that makes it forgivable? I should consider myself lucky as some parents completely disown their children at the news of them being gay, but at least they could live how they wanted. My parents may have apologized for their wording in the contract but nonetheless still felt that it was necessary for me to retain their original concepts of “boundaries” out lined in the contract. I held onto to those virtues out of nothing more than fear of what would happen if I disobeyed. I did not really see much change in them until I met my boyfriend.

            I met my boyfriend on an online dating app, which is not the story we tell people, he messaged me first and I was infatuated. I could not wait to meet him in person. He lived at a lake house on Allatoona and was a senior here at Kennesaw State University. I remember when I first arrived at his place for our first date, the first thing I ever said to him was “How you been?” You see we had been talking quite a lot and I had never met someone I clicked with and knew so well so quickly. Looking back, I know exactly why I worded it like that. It is because my whole life I knew who I was and what I wanted, and I knew there was someone out there who felt the same. Someone that had experienced homophobia in every facet of life and understood the internal battle that were forced to deal with. I asked him how he had been because I knew it was not always easy for him, much like it was for me. I just wanted him to know that someone out there had always cared, and now that person was here. It sounds corny, but I do not care, I grew up watching everyone else have the love life they always wanted and dammit we deserve ours. We have been dating nearly four years now and between him, our pet cat Foster, and the lake, we do not need anyone else.

When you are in the closet, you truly convince yourself that coming out would be the worst possible thing to happen to you. You ask yourself a million questions, like will they still love me? Will I still be treated the same? But as you get older you realize the pain of wearing a mask takes its toll on you more than the reality of any of those fictional questions ever could. It is like when you were a kid, and you were nervous about going on that big roller coaster that all the big kids were raving about. You knew it was fun, and you knew you would be okay, but nonetheless you roll over horrible “what if” scenarios in your head and build it up to a point where you cannot even conceive doing it. Coming out is the exact same, you are truly your own worst enemy, and for me I had reached my breaking point of my self-inflicted torment.

It is amazing what some people will do to avoid their problems, and I am no exception. Being a homosexual to me at the time was the worst thing I could be. If you would ask me then I truly believed it was the lowest of the low. You see, growing in the south you always heard slander towards homosexuals, I even heard it in my own family. Above all those was in school, and it was either be the predator or the prey. If you did not partake in calling people “f*ggots” and other awful slanders, you would be suspected as one of them. This effect was only heightened among my sports teams, it was simply the norm. I hated myself so much at this time and knew I would really have to sell being a heterosexual in order to retain my good name.

The solution was simple at the time, and that was to get a girlfriend. I cringe at how hard I pretended to be interested, and willing to engage with a girl. Getting a kiss from my girlfriend was like a badge I could wear to prove to my friends I was one of them. As years passed and this behavior continued, I found myself exhausted. Going through life pretending to be something you are not absolutely takes its toll. Numbing myself with drugs gave me a false sense of security that only perpetuated my self-hate. Alongside the ridicule from my father and his abuse, I am surprised I have turned out as well as I have. My plan to keep this secret to my grave suddenly felt like rock bottom. It was not until that moment that I began to really accept that I was gay. There was no denying it anymore, and I made a promise to myself that I would come out before I turn 21. I decided that I deserve to have the life I want to live on my terms. I did not want to grow old and alone, knowing I could have probably been who I wanted too. I mean people thirty years ago would be killed if they were gay, but still lived their truth. It would be an injustice to them if I did not take advantage of the gay rights they had perpetuated with their sacrifice.

Fast forward to college and 20 years old, I continued this façade and been pushing and pushing the date I would come out. This happened in part because of my fraternity. Choosing to go to Alabama for college probably was not healthy for me in retrospect but nonetheless I eventually found my way to Kennesaw State. A place where it was not just white, heterosexuals, but a place where diversity and inclusion were celebrated.

A few months before I was going to turn 21, the pressure really began to rise. I had so many questions and needed some sound advice from someone who had been in my shoes. Eventually I talked to an older gentleman and he told me a story that changed my life, and my perspective forever. You see this man had been married to a woman for over 20 years, knowing he was gay, and he told me each year that passed it became harder and harder for him to be a genuine husband. Eventually he could not take it anymore and decided to finally be honest with his wife. Nothing could prepare him for what happened next, but the wife took her life. She had felt that 20+ years of her life had been a sham, and what worth was she for someone to do that to her?