Finally came out to my parents

I've posted a little about my struggles with my sexuality, my battle with depression and struggling to come out to family over the years on this forum. I've posted a few coming out stories (i.e. when I came out to my sister, my fraternity brothers etc...). I posted a lot of this under the anon category, but some in this subforum as well.

So, naturally, I am obliged to post about me coming out to my parents after an 11 year journey

I finally came out to my parents on Jan. 29th. I was in a different state for a 2-week work trip. We had a few days off in between the two weeks of work and I got drunk (I know, not ideal for coming out... lol) and my parents called me after I got back to the hotel.

I was out with co-workers but there's a lot of tension between everyone. My employer is kind of a toxic environment. So I was in a ranting mood. Part of why my dad called was to check on me because I went on this trip I had a bunch of major panic and anxiety attacks. And my depression has come back in full force after being dormant for a lot of 2017.

So, once I picked up the conversation quickly turned into me ranting about my job, my depression, how I hated myself etc... Eventually we started arguing over where my life was going and I eventually said that I couldn't move forward in my life until I told him something. (Translation: I was a drunk mess and eventually decided I wanted to come out).

So, I tell him that I am bisexual. And that I had a preference for men. Prob the hardest thing I've ever told my dad. My family are traditionalist and we are a family of immigrants. In our family and our community, homophobia, bi-phobia and general hatred of LGBT was very much present.

I was expecting him to hate me, disown me, yell at me etc..because he had always bashed LGBT people and had a history of making very derogatory and homophobic comments over the years.

Instead he was kind of accepting and told me that he loved me and that he wouldn't disown me. I knew that things would be weird for a while because this man had just hated LGBT people minutes before my coming out and all of a sudden (for him) he had an LGBT son.

He asked me if I wanted my mom to know and I said yes, but I wanted him to tell her since I was a drunk mess. So he told her and she called me the next morning and told me the same things he told me: that she loved me and that she wouldn't disown me. My mom was always less anti-LGBT compared to my dad so I knew she would be more ok with it.

I don't think either of them understand the concept of bisexuality, but they are trying to learn about it and understand it. I've had a small argument with my mom over what bisexuality was and if I could "choose to like girls more." But, generally, its been a pretty decent experience. Never thought it would be a positive experience.

Things feel weird right now, but it is a good weird. I hope my experience kind of makes sense. I tried to sum it up into a somewhat small essay (lol). I left a lot of details out, but this is the general idea of what happened.

My sexuality struggles were a big part of my battles with depression and I'm definitely still very messed up in terms of happiness and my career, but I hope that this was a step in the right direction.

 

Haha thank you. appreciate the comment. When I told one of my fraternity brothers and some of my friends they wanted me to have some crazy insightful or deep response to my parents reaction and I was just kind of like "I had the best sleep of my life that night"

 

Thank you! and I agree, they definitely need time to adjust and get used to the idea. We already talked about not talking about it w/ other family members because they wouldn't be accepting at this point in time.