I guess this would be a question for people who like to analyze human behavior. Have you ever had something really awesome that you wanted to say, but something in your brain stops you? Like an executive order, like a president's veto? That's sometimes how I feel about my entire life. I envision myself as an out women, open about her sexuality and political opinions. I imagine all of the things I would say, and tell myself one day that will happen. But when I get to school, when I'm around my friends again, there's this pattern. And it's both comforting and secure and depressing and deadly. Everything inside of me, it doesn't even scream. It calmly assures me that this is the right path, to just go along with it. And I crumble under those words. Because the anxiety of not just going along... it scatters my brain. So I can't even think right anymore. If I'm controlled by a pattern, is it my fault for setting the wrong one, or did I never have that much control over the pattern anyway? I'm writing about all of this to start a discussion about coming out, but also to talk about how we live our lives every day, and I think the coming out process can be insightful in matters of social mobility. Once society defines us as one thing, how do we change the way we are viewed and our position in that society? What can we really do besides wait?
My wild guess ( and want to underline the word is guess, not conclusion ) is the pattern might have been learned in early childhood. Were you encouraged to speak up your mind, and if you did say something that the other people didn't like, what were the consequences ? How were you opinions received ? Did you feel they had weight in the eyes of your parents?
You know that's interesting. With my mom, who I was closer with, I would almost always speak my opinion even if she didn't like it. With my dad however, most of the time I would feel like I would hurt his feelings if I didn't share his opinions, also he was never very accepting of opinions other than his own. So I guess, when I feel super close to people, I mostly share my opinions, but with acquaintances or especially authority figures I guess I just automatically feel that it is "polite" not to? I mean in some cases it probably is, but I feel like not to the extent I take it. Though more recently, I have been standing up for my opinions more and actually pissed off one of my friends a lot over a debate--think they might have been the type who's like my dad though, they couldn't have their opinion challenged without getting angry.
Your observations seem on point, congrats! I would layer some more information there. You know know the saying that a daughter's first love is the father, and a son's first love is the mother. Typically daughters have better relations with the fathers, and the mother is the one that they see sometimes as nagging, and vice-versa, boys see the father as controlling and annoying, and the mother as warm and nurturing... Long story short, without getting in psychological stuff, it is quite likely that the pattern you went though with your father would stick faster to you subconscious mind, if he left more of an impression on you... The good news is, once you are aware of it, and know where it is coming from, you can try to alter it or even break it . (*hug*)
That was me in my younger days. I would not voice my opinions if I thought they would not be well-received by a group (not necessarily related to sexuality). I wanted to blend in too much. And that. I started to voice my true opinions when I slowly realized that I did not have true friends anyway in spite of my efforts to blend in. Like most people were okay with my presence but no one was genuinely interested in my personality (because I had none). Of course my age and experience helped a lot too. The older I become, the less I care about random people's opinions. In my own case it had more to do with my family rather than the society (of course my family was not isolated from the society). I was raised to follow the conventional gender roles, which probably explained why I was so afraid to stand up for myself. I would like to say that as long as we are brave enough, we can be our true selves regardless of what others defined us to be. However, I was not able to do that until I left my family and started to live on my own. In other words, I waited.
