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ducky30
7,932 M Moving Along 8
PathStep 14 Compassion hearts316 Forum posts6 Forum upvotes4 Current upvotes4 Age GroupAdult Last activeJune, 2020 Member sinceJune 2, 2014
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Gay and Depressed
Depression Support / by ducky30
Last post
 August 1st, 2014
...See more Hi all, I'm 29, I just came out to myself a few months ago and I've started to come out to friends who are also gay or who I think will be supportive. I haven't come out to my parents or other relatives or my closest friends, because I'm not sure I'm ready for the disappointment I'm inevitably going to face from them, and I'm definitely not prepared to lose my friends, who I consider to be family because we are so close.  I know it's easy to say that, if someone doesn't support me for who I am, then it's on them and I should just move on, but I already deal with my parents' sort of grudging tolerance of my choice of religious beliefs; I converted to a different religion 3 years ago, and while my parents are tolerant of me for the most part, I still get a lot of remarks about how my holidays are different than theirs or how marriage ceremonies will be different than theirs and, given that one of my holidays requires fasting, I get unnecessary commentary about me "starving myself," which to me signifies a lack of respect for my religious beliefs. I can understand that it's something different for them, and that it may take a long time for them to finally completely come around. But I don't know that I can deal with adding in the reaction that will inevitably come with me coming out; even if they don't say it to my face, there will definitely be backbiting about it. As for my friends, I love them and I would do anything for them (and vice versa). But because we are religiously conservative, there is no dialogue to be had about being gay - men and women get married to each other and have kids, end of story. So I fear that coming out to any of them would either cause me to lose them or, at the very least, severely negatively impact my relationship with them and so I don't think I could ever come out to them. What's worse is that I have a HUGE crush on one of my friends - to the point that sometimes I'm not sure how well I hide the fact that I'm gay.  Right now, I'm at the point that I feel like I'm being dishonest with myself and the people around me that I care about and it's not only affecting how close I feel with them, it's also making me feel distanced somewhat from my religion (despite its approach to homosexuality, I still am extremely proud to be part of my religion and feel that it's a great way of life), all of which are making me depressed. Part of me thinks it would be easier to just "blend in" and find a nice guy to marry and stay in the closet, even if I'm not attracted to guys, and part of me just becomes more depressed when I think about the idea, because it reminds me that, even if I come out to my parents and relatives and eventually find a nice girl to spend my life with, I can't even invite the people I want there most.   Sorry this is so long - I tried to reach out to some of the listeners on the site and haven't heard back, but I really just needed to let this out somewhere. Thanks!
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