I don't want to be gay

I came out as gay almost four months ago. I was raised by conservative Catholic homophobes who I adopted my own homophobia from at a young age. I was so far in the closet that I didn't come out to myself for many years after subconsciously realizing I was gay. I can't go out in public now without being ashamed of myself for being gay. I have become what I had learned to despise all these years. And also, I like traditions and now I won't be able to have a traditional straight relationship. I feel emasculated and sad and lacking in any identity. Can someone help me out?

 

Learn to not be so close minded. Do you wanna be miserable all your life? Do you wanna hate yourself all your life? There isn't any known way to change your sexuality so you sorta gotta get over this homophobia if you wanna be okay with yourself. Also homophobia is stupid and there's no good reason to be homophobic.

 

My friend, learn to love yourself before you love anyone else. Let us make no mistake, you had absolutely no discretion in picking your sexuality. It was assigned to you at birth, just as your family was. I do not know your age or where you live, but if you live in the U.S. and you hit age 18 then essentially what they say doesn't matter. Unless you rely on them for financial support, you are your own person and can do whatever you want to do.

 

You are a perfectly normal red-blooded human being and you're beautiful ^^ God made no mistake when he made you. Or any gay person. We are who we are. Natural and perfect in His eyes. Remember that.

 

I've experienced your feelings before I reached self acceptance. I'm not at a place to come out yet so I applaud you for being brave enough to do that. What you're feeling is what society wants you to feel. It's not wrong, don't let people think that of you. I know I'm not the best person to give this advice but it's true. You're still you, and you haven't changed. You only now realize the real you, who is gay. You've always been this person, you just tried to hide from it for years. Be proud! Stay strong!


Good luck!
Kyboan

 

I was raised just as you in a similar household. Been hiding for 30 years and now finally I'm coming to terms with who I am and can't be more excited. Scared but excited. Shame is normal for all people and especially us here. It's a hard thing to work through but keep at it.

Have you tried therapy? been great for me in regards to shame.

Check out these threads linked below as a start:
http://emptyclosets.com/forum/lgbt-later-life/209293-shame.html

http://emptyclosets.com/forum/lgbt-later-life/207514-lgbt-shame.html

 

Your feelings are very normal, I think most of us have felt shame at some point over this. Do you live in a conservative area? If so I strongly recommend moving to a gay friendly city. You need to connect with other gay people, maybe seek out a gay therapist who can help guide you through this.

 

Thanks everyone. Part of my confusion is that I think I might be bi but I don't know. I'm scared of my sexual orientation because I am a traditional person and being gay/bi was always a violation of my moral compass.

 

Why is being gay a violation of your moral compass? Start from there.

 

I have posted to a similar thread or rather a few. Maybe I should post this reply as just one thread topic... Due in part, that it's hard to gauge what advice to give you without first giving you a back story. You see I don't want to seem partial or impartial without you first being aware of my back story and rather where I am coming from. I'll probably end up doing that. But, for the moment... I will try to keep short. I seem to type novels every time I reply.

I may not be catholic, but I was raised a Seventh Day Adventist. SDA's go to church on the seventh day of the week=Saturday. Very old testament. Almost strictly vegetarian, soy based meats, etc. Pork and certain types of fish are considered unclean and a sin to eat. From sunset Friday to sunset Saturday, it is strictly a time for rest and worship. I remember tv off, no music unless gospel, no video gamesv(in general it was thought video games were bad anyway), cartoons, etc. If it didn't involve the bible it was off limits. And it wasn't just Saturday. There were numerous other things.

A teaspoon of alcohol was considered a sin. Our communion involved grape juice and feet washing. Almost everything was off limits. The books in our library had the cuss words marked over with white-out or completely removed from the book. Sexual activities were for only married couples, divorce out of the question, women could not cut their hair, women could only wear skirts to the ankles or dresses, women could not wear jewelry... Men could wear shorts, but had to be right to the kneecap or below. Almost all fantasy and imagination were products of Satan if it wasn't in the bible.

The list goes on and on and on. So, as you could imagine to be gay was immoral and a sin. It was not something one could be born of and as such it was Satan's doing. My mother was lenient on some things. She allowed me to have video games and I could have an imagination. I remember around the time I started having a realization that I could be gay my father found out. He went ballistic. I had some merlin figurines and statues of dragons... A few other things. He burned them. They were doorways for Satan and demons to enter our home.

They went to their pastor (I had stopped going when I started having my thoughts and couldn't find an absolution nor resolution through my prayers to stop them) and asked for prayer during church. I wasn't gay, it was the demon in me. A demon was trying to possess me and I needed to have an exorcism was the final solution. So, I blatantly refused to have the church involved. It didn't stop my father. He had preached some and started a ministries, so he felt was strong enough to do it on 3 different occasions.

Hun~I felt the same way. I; in no way, shape, or form, wanted to be gay. I already was bullied in my high school after leaving the Christian school I attended, not just for my upbringing but because of the possibility that I could be gay as well. Bashed as well while "Hit the fa****" was chanted. All that and more... Same as everything I have spoken of and more... All at the same time dealing with the fact I had been molested. So, you see.... I was very similar with devout upbringing and my wanting the picture perfect and church going wife/family.

But, alas... To no avail! You are born the way you are meant to be! God does not make mistakes. Take science into play here. Many breakthrough's have been shown to state that we are born homosexual. Well, if that is the case and God doesn't make mistakes... Suffice to say, then we are most definitely born the way we are meant to be.

You can still have a family... Kids and all. Some churches even allow homosexuality. So, take your parents out of the picture. They, according to the bible, have already done what they were supposed to do. Married, had child, and raised child. Now it's up to you to decide how you want to live and how to live!!! Find yourself and find happiness with yourself! If you are gay, don't label it if it helps. But, either way... If you are. You can only hide from 'yourself' for so long before it catches up to you. Like others have stated... Do you want to live? Or do you want live a half-life and miserable, unhappy, and in some ways unloved?

 

@A Seraphim Moon: Wow, I am so sorry to hear about your struggles. I am glad that you have been able to find peace with yourself and live the life you were meant to live! I am still very Christian (though not Catholic) and God actually spoke to me soon after I came out to myself and told me it was okay to be gay. That was the most important moment of my life. Had I not received God's approval, I don't know how long I would have wallowed in misery about it. Because I think ultimately, regardless of how my parents felt about gay people, I had a personal objection to it that I couldn't get around until God suddenly washed away my shame. Of course, it creeps back up on me now and then when I recall all of the horrible things my parents, relatives, and friends used to say about gay people.

I think the biggest hurdle that I deal with is the fact that I had read some online literature a few years ago from Catholic theology stating that homosexuality was removed from the DSM in the 1970s for political reasons. And that it is indeed a mental illness. That made me think that I was mentally ill for having gay urges. So even though I know now that homosexuality is not a choice (believe me, I did everything in my power to try to "choose" heterosexuality), there was such a conflict between me knowing that I've been gay since childhood and yet being taught by my church that it's a mental illness and gay relationships have "something missing" due to the lack of sexual complementarity. And I think what hurts the most is that I am politically conservative and devoutly Christian, and yet the view still held by many in this country is that gay people are anything-goes diehard liberals who are defying God. (Not that there's anything wrong with being liberal lol, I'm all for diversity in the political views of the people I associate with.) I just feel like a subset of a subset of a subset and it's like...where the heck do I fit in?

So yeah, as you've gleaned from this post, I am becoming more and more sure I'm gay and not bi. I think I'm trying to will myself to be bi in order to avoid the reality of being gay, because I've just been in such denial about it so long. Plus I thought I liked many girls before coming out but looking back...that was forced. And I'm still forcing it now and I want to just stop forcing it already lol. :eusa_naug

 

My advice to you, Just be yourself. Do whatever makes you happy and feel right and if you're not comfortable, take your time and maybe you can learn to accept yourself more. Also don't let anyone change how you feel. Don't let others influence you or tell you what you're doing is wrong. That's all I have to say, I hope it at least helped a little.

 

That may have been somewhat true about the DSM in the 70's but if being gay was a condition reparative therapy would be an accepted practice and proven successful by now. Seems to me it's been a disaster for many.

I grew up a devout Catholic and politically conservative myself so I get where you're coming from. Just curious, how did God speak to you about being gay? That's a real "wow" moment. What was it like?

 

I was listening to a reading with the line "Love is patient, love is kind" and He told me it wasn't a sin to act on homosexuality. Changed my life. Saved me, really.

 

You need to heal your shame of being gay. I created this blog entry, which you might find helpful.

Healing the shame of being gay​

 

Wow I just read that myself and just...wow. I'm crying good tears right now.

 

Thanks, SiennaFire!

Yesterday I realized why I came out to myself seemingly out of nowhere. And it's related to certain homophobic comments that my parents would make regularly when I was in the closet. But I feel awkward saying it on here. I wish I could talk to people about it in the chat room but I don't have 50 posts yet lol. Would someone mind doing a back-and-forth with me on here for a while so I can get up to 50 posts? I'm feeling pretty alone and accessing the chat room is pretty important to me. Plus I need to flesh out a lot of stuff aside from the awkward comments, so talking about stuff on this forum before going to the chat room would be helpful!

 

Hey daughtry,

As a Full Member, I will tell you that the chat room activity is pretty sparse. You can verify this yourself by going to the Welcome tab and looking at the Chatroom Activity dashboard at the bottom of the page.

Since this is an anonymous forum, hopefully you feel comfortable posting your thoughts in the public forums. If not, you can reach out to members of the EC Staff via PM. You can Use the Ask the Staff forum to get the specifics for doing so.

EC is an amazing place. Hopefully you'll be able to find the appropriate venue for sharing your thoughts and feelings that will allow you to move forward in your life.

You are not alone

(&&&)

 

Hey, you just have to remember that your sexuality doesn't define you. YOU are more than your sexuality! Also, many of the lines in the Bible that say homosexuality is a sin can be interpreted in different ways. (The line that says that a men can't lay with another man can be interpreted as an anti-rape passage) You are not wrong. You should be proud of who you are! I sure am proud of you.

 

Thank you! I felt uncomfortable when I went shopping today. I bought two shirts with quirky designs and two V neck shirts I would probably have never gotten while in the closet because I was afraid it would look gay. But I saw a cute guy and felt weird about it. Being gay made me feel like a perv for most of my life, and I used to resist and resist it. Now it's hard to let the feelings happen without feeling like I'm having sinful thoughts, even though I know it's not a sin. It's just ingrained in me. And I keep having flashbacks of the awful things my parents, relatives, etc. said and did.

A few years ago, my uncle brought a football jersey with the word "Homo" on it to my family's house on Thanksgiving. He was making fun of the football player Tony Romo, who was playing in a game that day. When my relatives and I were playing football in my backyard, we had a bonfire going. And my uncle decided to take the jersey, put sticks in it, and hold it over the fire. I don't remember if he burned it or not. But...yeah. I always felt weird around my uncle after that without knowing why. But it makes sense now since I might have been traumatized by that.