I started coming out a few weeks ago, with a few close local friends, talked about that a bit in another thread in the main Coming Out forum. Since then I've been continuing that and I'm now out with most of my friends and family. I do still tentatively plan to make a 'public' announcement of sorts, likely on Facebook, but I want to make sure I've told everybody who I'd like to tell directly before I do that. I had an interesting experience around this last night, I recently had a Facebook memory come up with a couple friends (a gay couple) who used to live in the area and are now a few States away, which had me wanting to touch base with them directly so we did a video call and caught up a bit and I told them. From there, I felt sort of inspired to keep it going so I ended up doing calls with two other sets of friends. The discussions in all three cases were wide ranging and my coming out was only part of it. My wife ended up needing to crash early so I finished the last conversation by myself, which was fine, but after the call I just started feeling really overwhelmed by everything and had a bit of a freak out. Coming out has been great, I feel like I'm finally being more true to myself and I do want people who care about me to know that, too, but I think I maybe just overdid it a bit last night, several long conversations where I was kinda laying everything out. I don't regret it, but yeah, I was just feeling really overwhelmed by it all. So I ended up calling one more friend (who already knew I was out, one of the first people I told, actually) and had a good conversation with them about how I was feeling they were really supportive and understanding and it was nice as I was able to get grounded again and felt a lot better after that call. This forum has been great, and I love the support and advice I've gotten here, but sometimes it's just really nice to hear another voice.
Thanks! Like I said, I don't regret it, I just probably did a bit too much in one night. On top of all of this, I also have some other job-related stress going on right now, which was probably a factor, too. I think it also brought up everything at once, this entire thing and how I've been dealing with it. It's almost all good stuff, it was just a lot at once. I'm glad I had someone to reach out to, I felt tons better after that call. I'll take it easier going forward, but I shouldn't have that problem again, there are only a few more people I still want to tell directly and at least one of them will be indirect (email or FB message).
'Twas all good. This group was among the last ones I told directly, and I did do a wider Facebook post later just to put it fully out there.
