Taking the first step...

Wow. Sorry you had to go through that. I hope that if you give them time, they will come around.

Congratulations on telling them. That is something many people cannot and some probably will not ever do. You are very brave.

 

Well, shame on them! And a huge thank you to you for being brave enough to confront your problems and open enough to share them with others! I still haven't told my parents and they're nowhere near that bad (I think/hope).

It's ridiculous that people can't be open minded about other people and accept them for who they are, and it's more than unfortunate that they can't stop living in the past and realize this is 2010! If they're so narrow-minded to think that homosexuals are all the same with only negative attributes permeating their lifestyle, then shame on them! Such ignorance.

I'm sorry it happened like that. There's no excuse.

 

First of all (*hug*)(*hug*)(*hug*)
I’m really sorry that you had to go through such an experience.

As awful as their reaction was, from a parent mindset, it’s understandable. Parents think they have a firm grasp of their children. And, if you’ve always been well-behaved, they feel like they have control over the situation. And then you come in, and they find out that there are key points about you they never knew about, and they see that they can’t just easily convince you that you’re straight after all. So they suddenly feel a huge loss of control. So they’re panicking. People who feel cornered can do a lot of things they otherwise wouldn’t, and probably regret afterwards.

Add to that that, if they don’t know a lot about gay people, they are really concerned that, to their eyes, you’re running into a disaster. They had a lot of ideas about how your life would be going, and suddenly, you come in and tell them that’s not going to happen. So they probably also feel quite a loss.

People who are confronted with that can, as a first resort, slip into denial (no, this isn’t true!), anger (faggot!), bargaining (just meet more girls first) and fear (gays have unhappy lives, and did you hear about AIDS yet??). All of which I see in the response you describe. Acceptance only comes afterwards. And sometimes that takes some time, or things even seem to be moving backwards (my mom said she accepted me right away, I thought. Until she blew up in my face a few months after that, and we entered into a protracted cold war).

In the end, you did the right thing, though! They have a bit of a journey ahead to go to learn to accept it, but that journey has now been started. They can discuss it amongst themselves. You don't need to feel depressed about lying and worrying whether they know, or what their reaction will be (you'll be amazed when you find out just how many time you save by not angsting about it) And most parents do come through in the end.

I do like Kevin’s suggestion of finding more information on gay people. PFLAG has a lot of good material on their website (concise and not too long, so it’s easy to digest), specifically geared to parents. Also, they might have a chapter in your neighborhood that your parents can go talk to.

I know that after I pushed for you coming out and it now blew up, you might not entirely believe me anymore, but things will be OK in the end! (*hug*)

 

First off, congratulations. I know it sounds awful to congratulate you for getting into a situation like this, but you did the right thing. They know now; you're not keeping secrets from them, and you did one of the bravest things you could ever do in a family context.
I'm sorry that coming out to them was such an unpleasant experience, but as Filip says, you've got to look at it from their point of view. I hope and think that you'll find over the next few days and weeks that they'll come to terms with it; they'll realise that you are in fact still human, still the normal son they had a few days ago, just that you'll not marry a woman. Your parents need time to come to terms with this, simple as.
I'm glad you see the positive side though; at least you can live an honest and open life now, without constantly looking over your shoulder to see if they're looking over it.

 

A) Don't hate your father. All you can do is love him. Love is returned with love.
B) Don't hate your home. You'll never have a place of comfort.
C) There's no reason to "win her love back". She loves you. She obviously cares about you, or she wouldn't have asked if you were alright.

Life has harsh realities, and sadly, one of them as that sometimes parents don't know how to handle the fact that their kids aren't what they expected. They might learn, they might not. I'm not going to give you false hope, but DO NOT return the hard feelings they showed to you. You only make it harder on everyone.

chin up. Big love from Oklahoma.

 

you could should steer mom and dad to pflag.com

 

I'm so afraid to come out but I'm dying to be myself on the inside