People ask and are curious about my coming out. I get asked this a lot by my straight co-workers and friends. It’s kind of funny because if you flip the questions ‘when did you know you were straight?’ it’s silly. Anyway, I don’t mind sharing my story, so here it is.
I always understood I was different at least on some level.
I grew up in the 80s, so yep, I’m old. Anyway, I never gave much thought to sexual feelings or identity in middle school. Sure, I was ‘sensitive’ but I had a good group of ‘nerd’ and ‘stoner’ friends so I never suffered from any personal angst. I couldn’t figure out what the big deal about girls was. Yes, they were pretty, and some were friends, but I wasn’t interested in kissing them or anything like that.
I suppose there were a few girls who liked me, but honestly, I had no clue.
I wasn’t super popular in school but I wasn’t an outcast either.
I didn’t really deal with my sexual identity until my later teens and early twenties. I had a few girlfriends and even was engaged to be married, but something didn’t seem right. Again, I didn’t really know, clueless as I was, what the ‘it’ was. I found guys so much more attractive than girls but I just thought I was normal.
Once, my engagement fell apart (her doing and not mine) that was when everything crashed in around me. I realized I had all these fake walls and barriers up. For the first time I had to take an honest look in the mirror and accept that I spent my younger years in deep denial. I had major crushes on guys and I denied it ¬– hid it. I had even fooled around with a few friends, but again it was all pushed behind these walls I created, and this life I wanted to live – I needed to live in. For me it wasn’t so much an outside source, but internal ones. No one told me to be one way or the other, it all came from me. Anyway, when all the walls crashed down, I fell to pieces. It wasn’t until I thought about killing myself that I figured something needed to change. I couldn’t be like this anymore. I had to pull myself together.
Of course, no one realized any of this because by then I was amazing at hiding my drama.
I found a therapist and spent about a year going to treatment once a week. She helped me face who I was and where I needed to be. After that I was able to come out to everyone. First, my friends. Then my sister. And finally, my parents.
I was lucky, very lucky, because I was my own worst enemy. Everyone in my life supported me and was there for me. I was the hurdle. I was the one that created all my problems. I tried to make myself fit into this perfect image that I had in my head.
I guess what it boils down to for me, is that I always realized I was gay. I always understood, but I wasn’t willing to face it. I never blamed society or anyone (as I said my family and friends were way more accepting than I was) and I don’t judge it as a failing of the time period I grew up in, it was more what I was willing to accept. Maybe, if there were more positive gay male figures when I grew up things would have been different, I honestly don’t know, but like I said, for me, it wasn’t so much the outside influences, but my own internal thoughts that caused me the most trouble.
Part of why I write is to provide positive queer characters with a voice, because I do agree we need more of them. My goal is to show them without this ‘struggle’. I want them facing other issues, the queer part of things is just a part of them and not the focus. My opinion is that the more people/society can see us and relate to us on a non-sexual identity level the better.
I share my story because people ask about the ‘gay struggle’ and it’s different for everyone. As I say, I was lucky.