How do I cope with the idea that my life will never be normal?
Hello everyone!
as the title suggests, I don’t know how to handle the fact that I’ll never live my life the way one can normally do so.
I should begin by saying I’m very happy with my life. I have a boyfriend who’s there for me most of the time, I’m doing good in school, and I have interests that suit me. I’m on track to go great places and I know that.
All of this considered, I still feel so unsatisfied.
I look back at my years of school and realize how much experiences I missed out on by being gay. I was an incredibly promising football player and I loved the sport but ended up quitting because of my sexuality. I can’t help but think where I would have been now if I had continued that when I had the chance.
I could have had the opportunity to go to a regular high school with a more traditional high school experience however I had to go to an arts school because i was gay and I didn’t want to face the harassment that I faced in middle school for 4 more years.
Im still happy where I am today.. but I can’t let go of the fact that I would be a regular 16 year old boy in a regular school, perhaps on the football team as long as I wasn’t gay. Being gay ruined that all for me.
In my head I know i can’t blame being gay for all of it. The way I was treated for acting and talking different than other kids in middle school played a big part. but I still feel like a sick toy in the game of life. And I feel like this life i so wanted to live could have been possible if I just wasn’t born like this.
How can I cope with this? Or how can I get my life a little bit more to how I want it to be and restore who I once was before I knew I was gay.
@Cruffin
It can be hard to look at our life and think that our sexuality or identity has cost us our ability to have a normal life, and in some ways it may bring us different challenges than we might have otherwise had. But I'm not sure that a normal life is as common as it seems.
Personally I like to attribute my losses to the hatred and prejudice in the world, not my sexuality. It's not my love for my partner that cost me things, it's other's lack of acceptance that is costing me. I find this seemingly small shift has helped me a great deal.
Further I try to remember that while my sexuality is a big part of who I am, I am a whole person beyond it as well. When my sexuality begins to dominate, I try to reclaim those other aspects of myself, return to my other interests, and reconnect with people on the basis of those other pieces of me.
I also like to find the value in the life I have, and look at what I have gained from the choices I have made in my life as a result of my sexuality. Realistically life is easily filled with regrets over decisions we did or didn't make, regardless of what has motivated those decisions.
Sadly, I can't really give you answers but I do have some questions you may find it helpful to explore:
From what I understand to avoid hatred and prejudice you've chosen to give up things that you wanted, it sounds like in avoiding one pain you've ended up with great deal of hurt and loss in a different way. So is there another path you could take? What will that cost? How might you cope with those costs?
If not another path, what are some things you feel you may be able to reclaim? How might you do that?
