Gay and Depressed
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 greatway 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!
Dear Ducky!
I'm going trough a similar situation. However I did get help from a listener.
I would hear your story but I'm a sucker at giving advise. So my best advise is when finding listeners search for LGB or LBG. You'll find people who ''specialize'' in our situation, make sure they are online tho it will say in green start a chat session now instead of send an offline message.
I'm sure you'll find someone on here!
Thanks for the suggestion - I'll try to focus my listener search to people who specialize in LGB issues... I sent an offline message to one of the listeners about a month ago and never heard back, but it is possible that they're on vacation or something. I think that I definitely do need advice, but I also really just need somewhere to discuss my issues, because it's not like I can tell my parents or friends how I feel. Guess I can only go up from here, right?
Hello, Ducky! First of all, as Roger said, it's always best to contact listeners that are currently online, as they will always (hopefully!) respond to your chat request. It's summer and I imagine a lot of people might be on holidays etc, and therefore probably won't respond to messages right away.
As for your situation, I'm really sorry you're going through this. That must be incredibely tough. I know that saying "if they don't like me, it's their problem" doesn't always work, because the fear of losing dear friends is tremendous. However, you were able to reconcile your religion with you being gay. Do you think some of your religious friends could have the same views on this as you?
I'd love to help you somehow, however, I am neither religious, nora member of the LGBTQIA community. (Although I am an ally!) There are listeners that might be better suited to your situation and would love to talk to you, I'm sure. Good luck!
Thanks. Honestly, the main problem I have is that I don't think my friends who are religious would be able to reconcile being religious and being gay. It's not that they're homophobic - we believe it's not a sin to be gay, just to act on it - but more that the reason I haven't completely just spiraled into internalized homophobia is because I also believe that God made everyone how they're meant to be,whether gay, straight, or somewhere in between, and because I've done some research into historical interpretations of my faith vs. cultural interpretations of it. That being said, I still feel like I've dropped the ball somewhere just being gay in an almost entirely heterosexual religion, so there's all sorts of confusion going on here.
I appreciate your help, though! And thanks for being an ally! :)
I understand what you mean when saying you're not sure how your friends would react. They might surprise you, but I understand that the possibility ofa negative outcome of telling them might very well trump any hopes of getting a positive reaction. That is such a tough situation. You said your religion is "almost entirely heterosexual". I think there's a high chance there might be people going through similarinternal struggles you're going through right now. How to find them, though? I have no idea, unfortunately.
Also, I hope you'll get a reply from one of the listeners you've messaged! It just occurred to me there's no way of knowing when the listener was active on the site for the last time. I imagine there are people who simply quit the site. I hope we'll get a feature like that in the future.
