Do you regret coming out? Advice badly needed!

Nope, the rust belt, near Philadelphia. I live in a blue state.

 

I only have a few regrets about coming out.

One of them is that people I’d love to have met the real me I have no way of contacting them anymore.
Another is that after I came out to her and my grandfather, my grandmother(fathers side of the family), rejected me. She called me selfish and said I was betraying my duties to her family. But I had come out to her for a very good reason, at the point of my realization, I was still invited to my little brothers wedding, and we didn’t want my grandmother to be shocked when she saw me. Needless to say, for the sake of keeping the peace, I was uninvited to said wedding.

 

I agree with the above poster, it sounds like you live in a really toxic area, would you consider moving?

 

I'm not in a position to move. I live with my Mom and she wants to be close to this area until she dies so she can be buried next to her mother. I don't have a job or know how to drive a car so I can't really just pack up and go.

 

I don't regret coming out at all.

I think for me, the prospect of never doing it, and never getting to that place where I could live openly, became an even bigger fear than all possible negative repercussions of coming out could create. In my case, I didn't end up having to deal with the "worst case scenario" in my head, it wasn't as bad as that in reality, but even if it had been, it still would have been worth it.

 

Ive been thinking about this on and off all day. Would you say you have good self esteem or is it something that you struggle with?

 

I have terrible self esteem. I don't believe in myself at all. If I get something right, I think it's a fluke and that I just failed my way upwards. I have pretty good self-image, though. I look at myself in the mirror and say "I am dead sexy." But self esteem? No, I barely have the confidence to get out of bed in the morning.

 

I wonder if this is part of the problem, perhaps if you could do some work on your self esteem you might see this reflected in the others around you.