Immense Guilt

Truthfully, you’re at war with yourself and how you see yourself, including how you think the World sees you and how you think you fit into the greater puzzle. It’s natural and it’s okay to feel guilty. It’s even okay to feel like you don’t belong or that you don’t fit in. The trick, though, is to understand no one is going to accept you until you accept yourself. Outer peace starts from within.

If you’re like me and grew up — at least partially — in the Deep South, you know that there’s whole lot of bible thumpers that would claim we’re living in sin. Is that true? I dunno. Depends on if you believe what they say. But who’s to say their version is the right version? Believe me, I get it. My hometown in Texas is this small, backwaters and backwards town. But the whole World ain’t like them.

 

I grew up in a very conservative religious family, and like you, I carried huge amounts of guilt. And as you know, it makes life a lot more complicated. While we know logically that we did nothing wrong and that we have nothing to feel guilty about, it's hard to get over.
The problem is that guilt and shame are toxic - not standing up to them will only make you feel worse and worse (as a teenager, I was so overloaded with guilt and shame that I seriously believed I have no right to live).
Try to exercise letting go of that guilt. When these feelings come up, tell yourself, actively: "I have no reason to feel guilty. I am not at fault and I did nothing wrong. Being bisexual is not a sin, and it doesn't make me a bad person. I am just the way God made me".
It will feel very "fake" and artificial at the beginning. But the more you do, the easier it will be to counter the guilt and the negative feelings. I used to think it's useless, but really, we NEED someone to shake us out of the "I'm horrible/sinful" mindset and remind us we are fine the way we are - and there's no reason that someone shouldn't be us.
Take care.

 

Another term fo being “in the closet” is “posing.” It’s an older term and perhaps it fell out of favor because of its negative connotation. This site is called Empty Closets and not No More Posing for a reason. Perhaps it’s because being “in the closet” is passive that makes it is more attractive than “posing.” It seems nicer. When you are in the closet you are just choosing to remain silent about you gayness. Not hurting anyone by keeping things to yourself, right? Posing on the other is an active term. When you are gay posing as straight you are actively trying to deceive people. And that doesn’t sound nice.

These days it’s polite to look the other way when someone isn’t ready to come out and then offer support when they do - it’s the ultimate affirmation of self-determinism. But at what point does being in the closet turn into being deceptively posing? You can certainly be in the closet when you first discover your homosexuality, obviously that’s okay. Early 20’s is fine too. But what about 30’s, 40’s, 50’s? What does it mean to stay closeted “too long”? What IS too long?

The truth is, the moment you discovered you were gay and decided not to present it to your classmates the next day during Show and Tell, you made a choice to deceive, and that is why you feel guilty.

Everyone on this site, myself included, will tell you what you did and what you are doing now is totally okay, totally understandable, and totally not your fault. But none of that matters. What matters is what you tell yourself.

From your perspective, there is no way to right this wrong because you cannot be in the closet AND be yourself at the same time. And that’s because what you are, right now, is a fraud. And that is what is really, really making you feel like crap.

Okay, that was the easy part, so how do you fix this? Well, I’m not a therapist but if I were and if I could fix this for everyone in a blog post imagine how popular I’d be. What I can tell you from personal experience is, your life right now is no way to live so you do need to make a move and the longer you wait to do so the worse you will feel.

Personally, I’m for whatever works and I can tell you regression therapy just simply does not work for anyone so the sign posts therefore are only pointing in one direction -> you need to come to terms with who you are. You know how difficult this is, you certainly don’t need me to tell you that, so cut to the chase and accept the fact you are going to need some support to get through it.

But before you look for support you are going to need compassion. A lot of compassion. For yourself! And I suspect you lack self-compassion and that is at least one of the reasons you have have been resisting dealing with this issue until now. You are down on yourself right now and it’s the guilt that’s doing this to you. It’s stopping you from moving foreword. You feel nothing but stuck in this shitty place.

Start by thinking about helping yourself as if you were helping a friend in need. What would you do for that person? Would you tell them not to listen to their insecurities? That those are feelings are from the past and have no relevance to their life now? Would you tell them that their religion isn’t against them? Would you tell them they are not a terrible person? Do you think others are terrible for being gay? Would the fact that you thought others weren’t terrible for being gay, do you think that would make a difference for your gay friend? For yourself?

Believe in yourself. Not because you should and not because it will help you either, but do it because it’s the right thing to do. You know it is. Use your compassion to motivate yourself into looking for the support that YOU need to move out of this space. Your situation is what’s terrible. Not you.