I'm planning on cutting off my mother and older sister when I get the chance - they both have serious symptoms of the same personality disorder. I've grown up with them and have always felt there was something wrong, but I assumed it was with me, not them (so I also have very low self esteem and I'm not secure enough in myself to even come out to family members I do trust.) With the way they treat me and other people in the family, I don't feel comfortable telling them I'm a lesbian. I'm pretty sure they already know - because my mum looked through my phone behind my back - but I've already made the mistake of confiding in my mum and sister about another issue I have and the triggers involved, and ever since, they sometimes try to bring it up to get a reaction out of me. We don't hug as a family and I don't feel close to either of them. They have betrayed my trust so many times. Neither of them think they have a problem, but they act like everyone else does and my mum has told everyone who's ever lived with her that they have an "illness". Should I bother coming out to them at all?
CoconutOilLady....You don't mention your age. That would be an important factor in how you deal with the situation. If you are still a teenager, living at home...then I would suggest being very careful how you handle this. You could face some serious backlash no matter what action you choose. Sorry to paint a depressing picture, but until you have a solid support system in place, you should avoid any action that could put you in danger...physically or emotionally. Even then you would have to either avoid talking about the subject or find a very, very low key way to approach it. If you are an adult, then your life, your choices are most certainly yours to make. However, even if you have suffered because of the actions of your mother and older sister, it is almost always better to avoid "burning the bridge" unless it's absolutely required. They are family and it's always possible that they may come around in the future. That does not mean that you have to subject yourself to their mistreatment. You could simply not include them in the parts of your life that you feel would cause them to be a problem. In other words, no problem telling them about how your work is going or that you saw a great movie last week, but beyond that, just do not include them. If sharing simple things with them still causes difficulties, then stop telling them about those things also. If it gets to the point that anything you share with them results in some kind of a problematic response, then I would think that you would just stop telling them anything. That would amount to "cutting them off" without any kind of a confrontation. If they were then to ask why you don't share anything with them anymore, you could then just say; "when I tell you anything you make an issue of it, so I just don't share anything with you anymore". That puts the ball in their court. If they then get upset, I would suggest you give them a "knowing smile" and just walk away. That would make a very direct statement without any direct confrontation. Try not to get emotionally upset and storm out. Save the emotional outburst for later when you are not around them...then go ahead and have a little fit (that's what I do...and it usually feels good because I held my tongue to begin with!). At that point, send them birthday cards, Christmas cards, etc. but otherwise live your life without them. If they later make an effort to reconcile, I would be very wary until they proved that they were willing to treat you with respect. Sorry that this post has gotten rather long...and I wish you the best of luck dealing with a difficult situation!!.....David
1) Put a password on your phone. I have no idea why more people don't do that, but seriously. Password your phone. 2) Safety first. If you are under their roof, dependent on their finances, you need to get yourself independent before you start debating on whether or not to come out to them. THEN 3) IMO.... If you are not dependent on them, I would just live your life the way you wish and let them draw their own conclusions. No need to make a big announcement about it, especially to people you don't trust.
Don't tell anyone anything about your deepest feelings if they don't deserve the information. You don't want to have to defend your core being, that's really too stressful, and if they are the sort of people who won't be sympathetic to how awful that feels, then it's not worth it - you won't get anywhere. My mother has straight up asked me "are you a lesbian" and I've said "no" to her face, over and over. I'm not ashamed, I tell everyone and anyone else, but when she asks it it comes with an accusotary tone, a grabbing hand, an angry look, it comes at the end of a trail of homophobic insults and it comes in between those conversations where she denies the validity of LGBT people and all the times she shows she doesn't trust me. So when she asks, I lie because she doesn't deserve the truth because she knows that if I am gay, she is hurting me, insulting me, laughing at me, trying to make me feel insecure and fake. In fact she pretty much already does know that I'm gay but she is enough of an ass to think this is the way to treat me about it. So what is coming out gonna do except let that toxicity in deeper? Nothing. So I have to protect myself - I won't come out to her until I've had relationships etc and I am so secure that literally everything she says goes over my head and even if she thinks I'm confused I have receipts and she has to accept it. Unless you're at that point, theres no reason to come out.
Thanks. I never used to put a password on my phone because I didn't like the idea of typing it in every time. But the positives do outweigh that one negative. My mother and sister both have expressed "acceptance" - my mother saying how if either of her daughters dated women, she wouldn't mind, and my sister acting very self-righteously liberal. However, my mother's mother (who also shows symptoms - this kind of thing gets passed down through the afflicted person's inevitably poor parenting) is quite uncomfortable about LGBT things and according to my mother, used to accuse her of being gay because she was sporty. tbh I have no idea if that's true, but when she said she would be accepting of me/my sister, she gets jittery and obviously uncomfortable, making no eye contact. As for my sister, I can tell that she definitely thinks I'm bi. And then she did this weird thing where during one of our conversations, I can't remember what we were talking about, but she responded by forcefully declaring "but bisexuality doesn't exist" which seemed out of character, so I said "uh, I think it does" and she said "no it doesn't." Then later on I asked her about it she said "what? I don't remember saying that!" -_- gaslighting as usual. Then a couple of months later she was talking to my cousin when we were on holiday, on the balcony behind me while I was in bed, and she said "If anyone asks, I say I'm bisexual." Then when we returned my sister told my mother and I "that GIRL I told you about that sits next to me on the bus asked me out and I was like... " to which my mother attached the suggestion "What? You were like 'I'm not GAY'?" and my sister said "Well yeah. It was really uncomfortable." And I suspect it has something to do with jealousy. Both of them put others down constantly and act really jealous - so I think my sister thinks I would take attention away from her. It's something all of her actions indicate she's very obsessed with. Then, for my latest birthday, they were both watching me open cards and when I opened my mother's it had a heart at the center patterned with thick rainbow stripes. I was immediately uncomfortable and just acted like it was a regular card. It had nothing inside talking about acceptance or coming out - it was written like a normal birthday card. So I put it down and moved on. Then my mum took out her rage on me the next day
