Issues with my Parents: please give me some advice

Hi, I am a 26 year old bisexual man. I have some sexuality issues with my parents and could use some advice.

Backstory:
I was force outed by my parents before I was ready when I was 17 after they read my diary and found out I was seeing a guy. After I said I was bisexual I was subject to a lot of physical and verbal abuse which ultimately left me devastated, afraid and alone with no phone or internet access in a small town with no resources or lgbt support or people I knew. See more here: https://forum.emptyclosets.com/inde...-out-story-and-re-coming-out-recently.342985/

I went back to pretending to be heterosexual, had a few opposite sex relationships at university, but still continued to receive abuse from my parents about what had happened before. The last time this happened was about 4 years ago, after I had moved back home. Around the same time I became sick of feeling uncomfortable and stifled and started to gradually come out again, and I am now out to most of my friends but still not to family or work.

The Situation Now:

I have since moved out again from home and have my own flat with 2 friends, 1 of whom is coincidentally gay. My sister recently came out as bisexual and my parents informed me of this on the phone, but said nothing to her. My parents have not said anything else to me about what happened before, but have started acting more friendly to me, offering to buy me a new phone, a new car and to go on holiday with them to Greece.

The problem is I still feel incredibly negative towards them and their attitudes to my sexuality both in the past and at present. I don't go home to see them. Every time the phone rings I feel angry and hurt, whenever I see or hear the words "mum, dad or parents", or when anyone mentions them I feel angry and hurt. When they offer to buy things I want to be grateful because I am skint, but I normally refuse and feel angry and hurt and resentful. It feels like because it hasn't been mentioned for years and I've since had long relationships with women they want to be friends on those terms, but not for me being who I am.

The Main Point:
This may seem like I'm being picky about it, but I have still not received any apology from them about what happened before, given that it destroyed and wasted 9 years of my life, made me hate myself, fail my degree, attempt suicide 3 times, have addictions, become isolated and emotionless and wooden and unable to be intimate with anybody from hating myself. (I haven't been intimate with anyone of any sex for 3.5 years; I have self aware internalized homophobia and I'm working on it).

I want to be able to have a relationship with my parents, but I also want an apology from them and for them to accept me before I try to do that (and before I can move on, essentially) - but I don't know how to go about it or how to bring it up. The last 2 years I have tried to write a letter but failed (it sounded like a letter from the UN asking North Korea for nuclear disengagement) and I don't know where to go from here.


Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

 

Hi Elendil, thanks for replying!

I am in touch with my sister and she knows I am supportive of her - unfortunately she still lives with my parents, and also recently had a mental breakdown - having to go to inpatient psychiatric care - I don't know if this was caused in part by her having observed my parents' reaction to my sexuality 9 years previously. She does have a group of lgbt/supportive friends though, so hopefully she will be ok.

I have seen 5 therapists between 2010 and 2015, and done a lot of personal therapy, which helped me to accept and appreciate myself, although I am currently not in the position to date or be intimate with people. I also am not financially in the position to see private lgbt therapists, the nhs psychologists have a 12 month waiting list (as I found a few years ago) and my city's lgbt advise groups either seem to have closed down or run out of funding.

The issue with my parents is feeling a desire to be positive with them, and to have a family I could go to, and them seemingly offering this - but this is only on the basis that everything is fine with them so long as I agree with their terms of appearing heterosexual.

What I want is to phone up and say that I hate being offered things, or being around them on the basis that what happened before has been glazed over, that they think I am heterosexual and that they have never apologised for it, or offered any further thoughts on it.

I feel like when it all went down before I was so young and nervous that I just retreated and hid, instead of standing my ground - and I've always wanted to do that and make the point and find out what the deal is with it now, rather than constantly feeling angry and miserable about it and not being able to move on - but I don't know how to go about this - it also seems really out of the blue for me to be starting up about it without anything leading up to it.

 

Hi Myclosetisfull, thanks for replying - it's very isolating not knowing many in the community and posting on here with quite lengthy posts and not knowing if anyone will even reply - I really appreciate it! (and to everyone else!)

At the time the worst of the abuse was happening I did not really know how to react, I had a couple of straight friends who were accepting but didn't really want to talk about it and my parents telling me that what I did was illegal (it wasnt) and that I was lucky they didn't call the police on me for being a sick pervert. I literally had no information at the time, no internet, no resources, I knew nothing other than that I had met this guy who I couldnt stop kissing!

The situation with my family is varied - my mother is a sociopath, she has no empathy and will never apologise for things, believes in superstition and has no scientific, psychology or social understanding and is constantly judging other people in society. She was abusive to me from the age of 3, a long time before any of this happened - when you are growing up and isolated, you just think that this is the way things are for everyone, and it is only after when you leave and go into the world and meet more people that you realise that it is not.

The situation with my dad is complex - I am a multi-musician, writer, and artist - my dad is exactly the same, but much better - my earliest memory is him playing guitar and singing on the sofa in my room whilst I fell asleep - in terms of music and language and artistry he is my hero; he had a broken life before he met my mother (although opinion would differ on whether this made it better or worse), but does not question anything and does whatever she says, and as much as I feel hurt and broken, I would not wish the same on him - and so I could not bring myself to report it for that reason - I just closed down emotionally to nothing. Does this make sense?

 

Hi PatrickUK - thanks for the reply,

I understand your point about the level of apology - really the sorts of things that happened can't be undone, unremembered or fixed - but I suppose expressing regret, acceptance of being wrong and understanding the longterm effects would be a start. Understanding things as they currently stand - that who I am is who I am - is another point I suppose, but if I got both of those I would be able to try to rebuild emotionally and try to have a relationship with them - to feel like I have a family to go to:

Currently I don't see a lot of family as aside from my parents I am not out at all to my extended family and not knowing their reactions compared to my parents makes me uncomfortable and want to avoid them. I have two flatmates and a few other friends I am out to nearby, but not out to friends at work, neither do I know any other lgbt people to have support. I have no boyfriend or girlfriend - so events such as Christmas I end up spending alone - I know it's not good to isolate, but it's a comfort level thing.

I'm currently on the 3rd draft of the letter, and in the 3rd year of writing it (on and off, I'm not that sad don't worry) - I don't want to put too much detail in or be too negative or aggressive - perhaps when I've finished this draft I will post on this thread for critiquing.

Thanks for those contact details - might be best to give a link to them in the aftermath of the letter, I don't know if initially it would inflame the situation since they have an automatic negative reaction to those words.

 

Hi OGS,

I think it was more to do with feeling that I had been not just rejected but forced down and stamped on and been so weak and insecure and victimised by it, and running away and not standing up to the hate and confronting them. I'm fed up of being in this presumed heterosexual bubble and it getting me down because "thats just the way things went". It's a long time later, but it's also still an issue and its only since mid January this year that I have been fully financially independent from them in a way that I was unable to address it before until I was in a position of security.

 

Hi again Elendil, thankyou for your extensive contributions!

I suppose I want to be in the situation where I know where I am? Because it hasn't been confronted for a long time, a part of me hopes things might have changed - they were equally negative and critical about mental health problems at the time, but after my sister's problems, and the extensive therapy I did when I was still living there, they seem to have changed into being self proclaimed regional mental health ambassadors. Also when my sister came out, the way I heard about it was my Dad awkwardly saying on the phone "your sister has a girlfriend now", whereas I don't think he would have mentioned it before, he would have been too busy swearing violently, drunk on red wine and hiding in his study, which was what he did before.

Ultimately I want to be able to get on well with my Dad but also be comfortable. I also want the satisfaction of making a woman who has never apologised to anyone ever for anything accept that she was wrong.

Perhaps part of this has to do with being a shy teenager, and having reached 26 being inspired by other people making a point to change negativity, but feeling hypocritical towards my socio/political peers and interests that I can have these opinions but be unable to confront my own issues - and wanting to get any rebelling done before I hit 30!

 

Hi Foxfeather - it's not so much that I've wasted 9 years waiting for the apology, it's that the initial trauma has induced 9 years worth of mental health problems, poor self esteem, and hiding; and having reached the point where I can't take any more of it and have summoned the courage to come out again, but then looked back and felt even more upset.

They have tried to reconnect, but it seems that it is only on their terms, and that they have swept away everything that has happened without addressing it or admitting being wrong, or apologizing.

 

Yeah, I hope it works out - when I've drafted the letter I will post on here and see what people think - and will post updates.

Thanks for your help