Sally, it was just one more thing to deal with. It caused a lot of stress an anxiety, and when she'd start talking about "gay issues" I'd get very tense and feel sick.
Bella, I don't intend to tell them, either of them. I might tell my brother, am still considering that, but not my parents. I'm already enough of a disappointment, although I do have to wonder if my mother knows or suspects. She's made some bizarre comments to me.
Beth, I had never seen Queer as Folk, although I do have the season 1 DVD sitting at home to watch. My parents would never get cable or satellite, so I never got to watch anything like that.
By bent I meant that he leans a little towards the gay side of the world.
I do want approval from my parents. I want them to tell me that even though I've made some bad choices, I have done too badly after all. I'd like for them to tell me that they are proud of me. I'd like to hear that they would love me no matter what. That's what I want.
Unfortunately, I'm not going to get it. I toy with the idea of coming out to them all the time, just to see if I'd finally get disowned. Part of the reason I was so determined to move out was that it was becoming really, really draining to keep up the charade. It's really hard to play straight and pretend that I want to talk about, "you might get married someday" when I'm sitting there thinking, "Yeah right. Not very likely." I wanted to be able to tell M and talk about it before he started hearing all the homophobic nonsense at school. I was tired of having to hide my books and movies, and I just wanted to be able to relax without worrying, "Did I leave that book out? Did I leave that in the library bag? What screen did I leave up on the computer?" It was an enormous drain. I was so tired of it.
At least now, I can be open, although I don't like having my family at my house because I feel the need to censor myself, but I'm working on that. And it wouldn't have mattered if I was straight as an arrow, because my parents would have treated any man I brought home the same way. I did a lot of work with the local sheriff's dept., and my father was horrified I might find a cop to bring home. It was another of those moments where I sort of snickered, and thought, "not likely."
Hops, thanks for the love. I talk with this issue a lot with my T. It was one of the reasons I started going to the T to begin with.
