What Helped you with Self Acceptance?

I would say that in the end it was clearly the social change I have experienced in my short life. When I first became aware of my sexuality it didn't mean anything to me since I was just a child. I never felt the kind of guilt that people describe. It was only after my first same sex experience that I wondered what it meant for family life to be attracted to men. I wanted to get married, have children, as a man, I thought, I needed a female partner to do that. In only 30 years everything has changed. I remember reading Andrew Sullivan and John Boswell in college, back then it all seemed an impossible dream. People were still dying, the Quilt was growing and growing, today, those times seem far away back when Ellen kissed a girl on tv. Sometimes, I wander if today was back then would I now be a married gay man, raising kids, and doting on my husband, perhaps. I am happy that somewhere a young man will do all these things and I am ok with that. My last straight relationship ended in 2014 and haven't been with anybody since. Oh, my has it been that long...

 

Hello:

It took me about 30 seconds to come out to myself when I finally a) admitted a crush on a woman and b) went to a lesbian club for the first time (they happened at about the same time). I was 18 (it would be many many years before the internet was invented).

I had been immersed in a Catholic milieu and had never met someone homosexual or been to a club or other setting where queers gather so I had no frame of reference for what homosexuality was. So when I walked into that club it was like ding, ding, ding, ding, all the bells and whistles went off and I felt like I had finally found where I belonged. Despite growing up in the Catholic environment I had never truly accepted the doctrine but I had always (quietly) accepted the fact that I was attracted to women, it just seemed like a natural part of me.

So, in answer to your question it was meeting and being with other queers that allowed me to accept myself.

 

Understanding what happened to me in my early to mid teen years has given me great peace. It has been a very long struggle. Why? Everyone is different. I had to find what worked for me in obtaining understanding.

 

Although in the very early stages of my journey, the 'light bulb' moment happened over the course of seconds. I am by no means at any kind of peace with who or what I am as of yet, but I find mulling over events and experiences that occurred in my teens and 20s seem to affirm and gratify the emotional investments I have made to get to the point I am at now. Still confused and conflicted, but answers are starting to trickle through. Hope that makes sense!

 

For me it really was meeting other gay men. The journey to self-acceptance wasn't easy for me. I came out in the early eighties, grew up in Utah, and just had no idea what life as a gay man would be like. I looked forward and just saw nothing but this life of shame and hiding. My senior year in high school I tried to kill myself.

Once I decided this was who I was and I had to make a go of it I still wasn't really sure what it would look like. The event that finally turned the corner for me was going to Pride. Pride in Chicago is a huge event (over a million people). It wasn't quite that large back then but, still, bigger than I would have ever imagined. I went to the Parade--alone--and it was great but I was alone and I didn't really meet any one there. But I'd seen a joyful camaraderie there that I wanted to be a part of. So I went to a bar there on the parade route--I ordered Sprite because I didn't really know what to do. And then I told anyone who asked that I had never been to the parade before--eventually it came out that I had never been to a gay bar either. People thought it was great that I had just been to my first parade and they sort of introduced me around, then the people who I was introduced to introduced me around. I think I probably "met" a couple hundred people that afternoon (it's a really big bar) and really hit it off with quite a few of them--I'm still friends with many of them twenty-five years later. Numbers were exchanged, plans were made--principally that I would meet a bunch of them back at that same bar the following Sunday.

I remember riding the bus home that night just beaming at this whole new life I'd found. I also remember somewhere in the back of my mind thinking that surely it was all too good to be true. What if I went back the next Sunday and none of them were there? Maybe none of them would remember me? But almost as if they knew they had to allay my fears, that night two different guys from that afternoon called me to make sure I'd gotten home safe. That next Sunday I was introduced to the rest of the guys who would provide the core of my friends for the next ten years.

What I really needed was a sense of who I could be and what my life could be like and I found it in that group of guys. We were all so different, except we were all gay and they showed me that that could be a beautiful joyful part of a full life. For that I'll always be grateful.

 

Being able to make love - to a woman I really like and feel comfortable with - and experience her joy and astonishment about our intimate relationship. Wanting to please her so badly that I lose all awareness of time and my surroundings and inhibitions melt away - all this helps me to accept my gayness little by little....

 

Aenima1997 welcome to ECs

Thats how memory and reflection can come back to you. It's absolute amazing.

I suggest starting a journal. Capture these thoughts. From time to time go back over your journal entries and reflect. This can jog your memory a bit.

Makes perfect sence.

 

Honestly it was moving, coming out and getting a fresh start. I always knew I was gay and I knew I couldn't change it, I never even tried. When
I moved nearly a thousand miles away, it was like being born again, I felt like a little kid, I had dream again.

 

I hid from it for years. I knew it was there and I did everything I could to hide it from myself. It took a long time to accept it. And I am at the point now where I don't care what anyone else thinks. I am ok with me. I am comfortable in my own skin. I feel like that part of me that was missing isn't anymore. I could'nt be happier!

 

My intense dislike for my father.

I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but the fact he tried to humiliate and shame me into being straight on a daily basis, every chance he got or could make for himself? It really freed me up to be myself.

 

Well I'm a Christian, and I do believe in God, and I'm not going to go into full detail now, but I've had many depressing things happen in my life, the death of my mother when I was growing up being a big one.

I just think for some crazy unknown reason, I was supposed to be homosexual in this life I'm given, and I just have to sadly accept it. Ugh.

 

Time. Took a few years. Sometimes I still run into road blocks, but they're much smaller. It's been almost 4 years - I'm at a comfortable point.

 

Dont be sad, life is too short.

 

I am not particularly religious but I am often only reluctantly accepting of this part of me. My girlfriend is a Catholic and she struggles with acting on it at times. I find it difficult when she says that if it weren't for me, she wouldn't be pursuing any relationship. My life and hers would be easier without this for sure....and so would a lot of other people's...but the flip side is that we have never experienced intimacy like it...even if we can't make this work, at least we know we are whole.

 

Actually, if anything it's the opposite to me. I do believe that god made me gay, and I don't have to listen to people that say I'm living in sin. That's their salvation and opinion and it's fine. My god, loves me regardless.

It's really complicated, but I am a gay Christian, and nobody can tell me otherwise.

So why would god make me gay, if he didn't want me to be happy and live as gay? That's how I see it.

 

For me what cemented my being able to embrace my homosexuality was my first sexual experience with a man. I could never have imagined the passion, sensuality and eroticism of being with another man. In a millions years would I have ever thought that the touch, the kiss, the body contact with another man could be so right. That night I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I would be comfortable in identifying as gay. I could no longer honestly be straight and bisexuality held no interest for me. With a week or so I had broken up with my girlfriend and was seeing my boyfriend regularly. That night changed my life for good. I have never looked back, and don't miss the old life in the least.