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How do you deal with bad memories?

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by crazydog15, Sep 22, 2016.

  1. crazydog15

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    In this instance, I'm focusing on LGBT-related, closet-related, bad memories. Like many of you here, I have some really bad memories of being in the closet. Mine fall into two categories: emptiness and hostility. Emptiness in that I didn't let myself form any real relationships apart from a few relatives, for fear that I'd be outed and (deservedly) ostracized from my entire society as I knew it. Hostility in that I was basically taught that gay people shouldn't even be alive. Bad stuff, I know. But how do you deal with all that after the fact? Simply focusing my attention onto something else won't work, especially in the long run. The memories are simply still there. So what does one do...?
     
  2. johndeere3020

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    My grandparents were Quakers... bin there...don't dwell on the past, it will twist your soul. think about the moment, the day. find a hobby you can focus on...good luck!
     
  3. OnTheHighway

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    Make yourself vulnerable and embrace your past. Dissect it. Understand what happened, why they happened and how they impacted you. Think about what happened then and how you would have changed the outcome based on what you know today. The more you come to terms with your past, the better ability you will have of reaching your ultimate self.

    In fact, as I was reading your post, it triggered a feeling of deep satisfaction for me given where I am on my own journey. I was at a similar position just like you a few years ago. And I did not do consciously what I just suggested you do. I just happen to do it in due course. and now that I think back on those events that so troubled me previously, I have come to peace with them (ok, so a few are still bouncing around my head no doubt). Coming to peace with events in my past, has allowed me to progress and get as close to coming to peace with myself today as I have ever been. (again, does one fully get there?)

    I firmly believe in this approach. It takes courage. It requires you look in the mirror. But it does help you move forward.
     
  4. OGS

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    I think you deal with it by embracing it and building the contrast. I grew up Mormon in Utah in the seventies. Everyone thought it was a mental illness--if that is they were the charitable type. I met my first openly gay person in college--and his family disowned him when he came out. I tried to kill myself my senior year in high school because I just couldn't see a way forward in life. Pretty bleak stuff.

    But I've actually come to be pretty grateful for all that. Because it makes me so grateful for what I have. I have a pretty normal little life. I've got a husband whom I adore and who adores me in return. He's my Prince Charming but objectively he's a pretty ordinary little guy. I've got a job. I'm not wealthy but I'm not poverty stricken either. I really enjoy my clients and I'd say I probably enjoy a little over half the time I spend at work. I've got a home. It's a little one bedroom condo but it's got a great view, including overlooking the gay section of the beach. I've got supportive friends and family. It's a nice, unremarkable life. But I feel so grateful for it.

    And you know from what I've seen most of my straight friends would want so much more. Their houses aren't big enough, their cars aren't new enough, their spouses aren't supermodels, they don't enjoy their work all the time, they aren't fabulously wealthy. And all that really seems to consume them so much that they never really enjoy their perfectly ordinary, perfectly serviceable lives. And the difference seems to be that they all assumed the baseline--home, job, family, friends. And now they can't actually feel grateful for any of it until it exceeds the baseline.

    While I on the other hand genuinely didn't think I'd have any of this. And so I can wake up next to my perfectly ordinary (and perfectly wonderful) husband and genuinely thank God every morning. I can go off to my perfectly ordinary job and wonder at the fact that I get to be me--really me--and not only is it alright but people seem to like it. And on and on. The contrast has made me able to enjoy all the perfectly ordinary, perfectly wonderful things in my life.

    Embrace who you are and what you thought and what you felt and just build the contrast--at least that's how I dealt with it.
     
  5. crazydog15

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    Thanks for your responses.

    On reflection, I think that I still respond to my gay-ness the same way I did back when I first realized I was "different." My reaction then had zero to do with embracing how I felt. All I knew then was that (1) I had these funny, yet really good, feelings, (2) that people saw me really starting at other guys, and (3) they let me know that I was a freak and that I was a horrible human being who wasn't fit to be alive. I reacted to all of this in two ways: (1) try to get rid of my triggers, which meant trying to make the hot guys go away, and (2) try to get rid of my own tendency to react to them, to make my own pleasure reaction go away. I hope that makes sense. Of course I wanted for them to not be hostile and just accept that I found them attractive (not that the word "attractive" even existed in my sexual vocabulary at the time), but I couldn't control how they reacted to me.

    So, in retrospect, if I could have changed my reaction to all that, how would I have done it? No clue. I may not have any gray hair yet, but all that took place in a pre-Internet, pre-Ellen world. It may not have been all that long ago, but the world was still a very, very different place. Coming out would likely have been a physically dangerous thing.

    What about trying to build something different? I guess that's an idea. I realize that I'm living in a post-Internet, post-Gay Straight Alliance, post-civil-unions, post-gay-marriage world, where you increasingly can't harass people at work for being gay and you can't lose your job in the military for coming out. But at least a part of me is still dealing with my gayness in the same way as before all that progress happened. What one person refers to as memories are still, at least for me, a currently lived reality, even though they happened years ago.

    Maybe that's something for me to think about.