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I feel like I'm drowning

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by mnc99510, Aug 23, 2021.

  1. mnc99510

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    I'm 33 and I'm a lesbian.

    My sexuality has always been a hazy terrifying area for me. I've lived my entire life in a small town in the most conservative part of the most conservative part of Texas. I was raised in a christian very conservative home. So the first messages I got about being gay were at the Southern Baptist church I grew up attending, so as you can imagine they were not at all positive. They were terrifying to me frankly. I can remember being maybe 8 or 9 telling one of my little church friends "I don't know what I want to be when I grow but I know I never want to be a homosexual!" and she agreed with me. The thing is I already knew I was different and I just decided my difference wouldn't be that I was gay.

    But it was always lingering. I can remember being around 10 or 11 and my friends talking about having crushes on boys and feeling confused. I wasn't sure if they actually felt something for these boys or if they were just picking out boys and saying they had crushes on. I picked out boys and said I had crushes on them but I never felt anything for any boy. I was always interested in and noticed girls. When I was 14 I had what I now realize was my first like real strong crush on a girl, I mean I fell hard for this girl. I don't know if I didn't understand what I was feeling or if I was just completely in denial but I was so confused by it and when there was a falling out between her and me, I was devastated and again I was confused about why. But when I look back at it and what I was feeling and thinking and doing, I'd fallen hard for her and she was my first heartbreak.

    When I was 15 I met a guy and we started dating. He was a good Christian boy who my parents very much approved of. I was never for a second attracted to him but I had such low self esteem, I was just flattered he liked me and so I agreed to date him. We were together for 15 years. We were engaged for about half of that but we could never seem to get on the same page about getting married...thankfully! The last 5 or 6 years we were together were....terrible. Looking back I stayed because I was using it to hide and deny my sexuality. But even when I was with him the questioning was happening, I couldn't escape it.

    In 2012, I met a woman while taking college classes and we became fast friends. She was openly gay and married(obviously not legally but they'd been together a long time and had a ceremony and all of that) and obviously at that time I was also in a long term relationship. I didn't realize I was attracted to her at first or again maybe I was in denial. But a few months in, I suddenly realized how flirty our friendship was or at least felt to me. I kept trying to figure out if she was flirting with me or if it was in my mind or what was going on. Then suddenly about 5ish months into our friendship she tells me her wife had asked her to end our friendship and we did and again I was devastated. For several months after that I was questioning my sexuality but I swept it back under the carpet and moved on.

    I started 2017 by walking away from the church my fiance and I were attending and Christianity in general. I've never said to anyone I'm atheist but I am(double closeted!). I left all of that though and I've never been back. That put a lot of strain on my relationship and later on in 2017 he broke up with me basically saying I had checked out and he couldn't continue to live the way we were. It was much harder than I thought it would be but it was also quite a relief.

    Since then I've been trying to make sense of my sexuality. But up until recently I was just tip toeing around it. I decided I was bi-sexual or maybe pansexual because that was okay. I could be bi-sexual or pansexual and not be out and live my life. But a couple of months ago I started watching a TV show with a lesbian couple that I just fell in love with and it was like the truth smacked me in the head and made everything crystal clear, I'm a lesbian. It terrifies me but it also feels so completely right. Nothing has ever felt so right to me in my life and it's been a relief to me that those questions are answered.

    However I am currently living at home helping care for my grandma and helping my mom out because she has some health issues of her own and my parents and grandma are still very conservative. So I don't feel like coming out would go well and yet not coming out is breaking my heart. I want to meet someone. I want to fall in love. I want to be who I truly am and I can't. I literally feel like I'm drowning in the pain of living this lie and I wonder if I wasn't better off in the haze sometimes. I don't know why I am writing this, I guess I just need to get it out. I need someone to know the war in my mind, even if it some strangers on the internet because I have no one in my real life I feel I can talk to.
     
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  2. Paul101

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    Hi mnc99510 - I only found this forum a few months ago, so not really sure about offering any advice. I do feel what you are saying so very deeply, it is a very confusing and stressful time. But you have made a big step forward signing up to EC. The people on here are so open and friendly. I had the first real open and honest conversations about my sexuality on here, and it really helped. I am sure you will get some very good advice.
    My story is similar to your's, minus the strict religious up bringing, and I am struggling with getting over a lot of internalised prejudices.
    Happy to share and talk more if you want to.

    Paul x
     
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  3. QuietPeace

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    Welcome to EC.

    I was also brought up Southern Baptist and it was a long difficult struggle for me to finally live my own truth. I hope that eventually you are able to live yours also.
     
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  4. silverhalo

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    Hey welcome to EC. I am sorry you are currently feeling a bit trapped in your situation. I know you said you live in a conservative area but are there any LGBT groups there or maybe slightly further afield that you might be able to get to once in a while?
    EC is a great place to write all your thoughts and feelings down to get them out it can really help sometimes.
     
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  5. PatrickUK

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    Writing out your thoughts and feelings is actually a very big and important step and I can sense the inner turmoil and agony from your closing remarks:
    I think many of us will be able to relate to that mental war. It's so draining, isn't it?

    You may think that writing it down is merely a small, first step, but you actually took a massive step towards authenticity in 2017 when you left the Southern Baptist Church and you should give yourself huge credit for that. You purged a hostile narrative from your life and in many ways it created space for you to discover who you really are. May I ask how your mom and grandma reacted to your decision to leave the church (which is just as big a deal for conservative Christians)... what did that have to say about it and how did you feel?

    When we are young, we are led to believe, and convince ourselves that all kids go through "a phase" of questioning their sexuality, but that's actually not true. When kids question their sexuality, they are doing so because there is actually something to question. The so-called phase is nothing of the sort and the questions never really go away. All we do is repress them and store up trouble for the future. I think that's where you find yourself now and you are not alone. A read of this sub forum will highlight that point in floodlights!

    There is a journey to take from here and I won't pretend it's easy, but I don't suppose you are finding easy to live with the status quo either. What I can say is that a journey shared with others is better than a journey taken alone, especially when the road has a number of bumps and bends. So why not tell us what you are thinking and maybe say what you would like to happen and we can take it from there and share our stories?

    You are doing better than you imagine. :slight_smile:
     
  6. mnc99510

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    Thank you!
     
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  7. mnc99510

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    Thank you!
     
  8. mnc99510

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    I don't think there is anything around here unfortunately.
     
  9. mnc99510

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    It is very very draining. Yes leaving Christianity was huge for me and it for sure opened things up so I could start to really start to understand and accept who I was. My parents were actually supportive of me leaving. There were some really awful things that happened to me in the church I was in leading up to me leaving and I think that made it easier for them to accept it. My grandma was far less supportive but not as bad as I thought she'd be.

    Thank you for your kind words!
     
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  10. chicodeoro

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    Hi mnc99510, just to say that I found your story really moving, and relatable. There have been several points in my own life when I've known the direction I want to take, but because of circumstances I can't get there quickly. It can be incredibly frustrating.

    But you will get there! I can tell from the beautiful way you've explained your situation you have all the qualities you need to get yourself there - patience, courage and determination, a clear sense of knowing who you are and where you want to go. You just need support. EC is a brilliant place to find that support and I feel certain that there is a real life LGTB+ community out there somewhere near you that you can access too.

    As others have said, you're already doing brilliantly. And now you have us in your corner too!

    Beth
     
    #10 chicodeoro, Aug 26, 2021
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  11. mnc99510

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    Thank you!
     
  12. silverhalo

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    That's a shame. Sometimes on the dating type apps there is an option to just look for friends so perhaps that could be an option when you feel you are ready. Until then EC is a really great resource.
     
  13. BiGemini87

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    Hello, @mnc99510. Welcome to EC! :slight_smile:

    I feel for you, I really do. I feel like, even though our generation (I'm 34) was on the cusp of tolerance towards LGBTQ+ people in the 90's and early 2000's, there was still a lot of negativity and stereotypes revolving around being gay/lesbian/bi etc. Perhaps in larger cities, it was more widely accepted. But in smaller cities or towns, a girl so much as drunk-kissing another girl could cause such a scandal (this literally happened back in high-school. A girl one year older than me had to transfer schools, because someone who disliked her made flyers, showing her making out with another girl at a party). Given that kind of petty small-mindedness and your own experiences with the church, it's not so surprising that you've spent so much time repressing/denying your feelings.

    As for whether it would be wise to tell your family... Well, only you can decide. Ask yourself, "What is the most plausible worst-case scenario? What's the worst thing they can say or do? Will it impact my living situation? Or will they just go into denial because they need my help?" Stuff like that. If you don't want to risk it, it's entirely possible you can enter the dating scene--but you might have to do it on the sly, and that can put a strain in the relationship if your partner is fully out. If they're in a similar situation, at least then there will be even footing.

    I'd say don't wait. If you really want to find someone, don't let your family or what they might think stop you. We only get the one life (so far as we know), and you shouldn't have to deny yourself a shot at happiness.

    Whatever you decide, I hope things go well.
     
  14. Unsure77

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    My story is fairly similar. I grew up gay and southern baptist in the 90's in Arkansas. To give you an idea of how tolerant my hometown was, I graduated with around 300 people 25 years ago. There are still zero other females from my class who have openly admitted to being lgbt (which is not mathematically probable). I suppressed it up until a couple of years ago. Losing my faith in conservative Christians in 2016 because of the way they fawned over Trump did me in, and I think that made it easier to finally just admit and accept that I was gay. I had known since college I wasn't into guys. I knew I was having to actively work to ignore women since I hit puberty. But it took until 2018 to admit what those two things meant and to say the words.

    A couple of things I would point out. YOU are doing your family a favor by staying with them. They are depending on YOU. Not the other way around. So, no, they don't have a right to ask you to further put your life on hold by also denying your sexuality in addition to taking care of them. They don't have a right to control your sexuality and they never did. You're a grown-ass adult. (and, no, that would not be my coming out speech, but it is the truth of the matter). You also aren't giving them or yourself the chance to grow and move on. You don't know how they're going to react. But, even if they react poorly initially, it's possible that (with some thought and some time and maybe some learning) they'd come around. But, they can't begin that process until you tell them. Meanwhile, if they're NOT going to come around, you're not letting yourself begin the grieving process for that until you tell them. Either way, I would definitely recommend maybe finding a therapist if you can swing it. It helped me a lot and I suspect you're going to find you have a lot of things to work through. I've talked to exactly zero lgbt people who grew up SBC who didn't have some mental health baggage to deal with. It's just a completely toxic denomination just in general, much less for people like us.

    I would second using dating apps to look for friends. You can say in your profile you just want friends. Ironically, it may also be vaguely possible to find some lgbt people in churches (but the RIGHT churches). Like it seems like there are a lot of lgbt people at the Universalist Unitarian church in my town and the Unity church. The teaching may or may not make your eye twitch as an ex-Baptist. But, a lot of the Buddhisty type stuff actually helped me heal a little. And my local Unity was, in fact, SUPER gay. And they're super non-judgmental and not rigid about what people actually believe. It might be too much, and they may not be there, but it could be worth a shot if your town and surrounding towns don't have any lgbt groups.
     
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  15. mnc99510

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    Exactly! It was getting better then but it still was not good especially in my tiny extremely conservative town. When I was 13, I was "dating" this boy who was very feminine and he was bullied all the time about it and terrible things were said to him and me. I was horrifically bullied as well even before we met and together we were just double the fun I guess because they would not leave us alone. I'm talking we were chased all over the school, had things thrown at us(books, rocks, one of them busted my lip open with a baseball..), pushed, hit, and then the insults on top of that. Middle school was a terrible experience for me. I think we both kind of tried to hide behind us "dating" to keep try to keep the attention off of both our sexuality without realizing that's what we were doing. But it just made things worse and we were far from unique. He's out now and has been in a happy relationship for several years, so that gives me some hope.

    I don't think not coming out is really an option. I just can't continue living this lie forever. I likely won't come out to my grandma. I think as long as my parents know and my sister and her family, I can work around my grandma. I just have to figure out how to do it. About a month ago I had a whole letter written for my parents was getting close to giving it to them and then my dad made a homophobic comment and it scared me off. I actually kind of think they might suspect it, especially my dad because he's made some random comments(not homophobic before that one a few weeks ago) that I got the feeling he was trying to gauge my reaction on but then he made that homophobic comment so it confused me. I think ultimately they'll come around and be okay with it, it's just scary. I know my sister will be fine with it, I've been kind of playing around with the idea of telling her first. She's hinted a few times that she knows I am, like clear hints and for years before I'd even really accepted it myself while I was still with my ex lol. I wouldn't be interested in starting a relationship before I was out, I just wouldn't want to do that someone else. I know it happens and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't but I just can't imagine how hard it would be to be with someone who has to hide you or hide who you are to them and I wouldn't want to do that to someone else or myself for that matter. I know sometimes you do what you have to do but it just makes me sad to think about going that path.

    Thank you!

    Thank you!
     
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  16. mnc99510

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    I can't think of any women from my class of probably about 300 who are out either and there are only a couple of men. Yeah leaving Christianity really opened things up a lot for me. I was over it well before I actually left, but I had some really terrible things happen to me in the church that lead to me leaving. Yes SBC is extremely toxic in every way. I probably should find a therapist.

    I think my parents would come around. While they are super conservative, they took a very hands off approach with my sister and I when we got to be old enough to start finding our own opinions and such. They let me quit church for awhile when I was 14 and then allowed to me switch churches and attend a different church than them at 15. My sister and I both registered as Democrats when we registered to vote at 18 and while they didn't love they never really had an issue with it. My sister moved out of the house and in with her boyfriend at 17. She married to another man now and they lived together and had 2 of their kids before they were married. My parents didn't have an issue with any of that. Again I wouldn't say they loved it but it didn't change their relationship with her at all. They were very supportive when I left church and actually currently themselves are not attending a church. So I really think they'll eventually come around. It's just scary.
     
  17. QuietPeace

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    They might come around and they might not. My parents were not thrilled about my quitting the church at 18 but they did not really do anything to me over it. My parents have been supportive of my half brother through all of the things that he did - he is a convicted drug dealer and they were the ones to get him an attorney and a job to help gain him a lighter sentence; they also seemed to be fine with him having children before he finally got married; they even helped him with the down payment on his house. However with me being LGBT+; they never accepted me, disowned and disinherited me and both my mother and step-father never once gendered me correctly. It is entirely up to you to decide if and when to come out but until you actually do so you cannot be certain of their reactions to it.
     
  18. Unsure77

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    It is scary, and it’s hard to say how they’ll react. That’s part of why I recommend the therapist. They’ll help you put together a plan and help you make sure you have a support system in place for when you do it.

    My parents took it much better than I expected, but to QuietPeace’s point, there’s not guarantee you’ll have the same experience. I just had personally reached a point (after all those decades) where I wasn’t willing to deal with being closeted any more. It was too stressful to try to hide, I got tired of my parents spewing homophobic remarks unable to say anything, and I eventually determined that if they couldn’t love me as a gay women then I was basically just pretending to hold on to a fake love (that I could lose at any time if they ever figured things out).

    Again, I felt like I owed telling them in person and in a respectful way. I did not (and do not) feel like they have a right to control my sexuality.

    But, it also took me a couple of years and a lot of therapy to reach that point.
     
  19. staticinmyattic

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    Your post makes me look back, and wonder how many of the people I kept my secret from had secrets of their own. We must pass each other on the street, have little conversations, maybe even be friends, and we have no idea that we’re all keeping these big secrets from ourselves and each other! I think about that whenever I feel like I must be the only person going through this. If the cis het world actually knew how many of us there are, they’d be a lot nicer, because we’re friggin EVERYWHERE
     
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  20. Unsure77

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    I think a big clue is that both of had zero women in our decent sized high schools admitting they were (or are) queer. Mine was a public school and the only high school in my town (so, it’s not like we were filtered out by virtue of it being a religious school or something)..it’s just what nature produced. If we were an average group, There were probably half a dozen to a dozen of us walking around with that secret in my school. There had to have been.
     
    #20 Unsure77, Aug 30, 2021
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