I'm still living with my parents and they're kinda religious, so how did you felt when you came out to your family?
I wanna just get a good job so i can leave, it will be so hard to do it, but i hope i can do it soon!
Coming out was something I put off longer than a lot of folks. I was already in my 30s when I did it. It’s such a unique experience for each person and we each have to judge our surroundings and weigh the possible outcomes. We tend to second-guess what others will think and that can cripple us for years, even decades if we let it. But this is an instance where we should put ourselves first, and the sooner the better. I’m disappointed I waited so long, but there’s no use regretting that now that it’s finished.
It’s not always possible to come out—consider your safety—but consider the ramifications of keeping that part of you stifled.
I reached the end of my ability to keep hiding. I broke down in a tearful panic one day out of the blue—apropos of nothing but casually thinking of my future—and I knew that to take any step forward I would have to do this thing... tell my Mormon family I was born gay.
I got to where I couldn’t tolerate even another second of not being open about it, which was such a new, truly bizarre feeling. There was an urgency out of nowhere to rip the BandAid off. After decades of being fearful how they would react I suddenly put myself first; it was for me, to get this insanely heavy burden off my shoulders, and they would have me in their life or they would deprive themselves of that.
I called my mom and clumsily let it happen. She wept because the expectations she’d built for her “straight” son’s future had been instantly broken; she would need weeks to process it even though her love for me was unwavering and made instantly explicit. It was my sister’s turn a few minutes later—thankfully she didn’t really give a shit and processed it like I was telling her the weather. I wouldn’t tell my dad for some weeks. In fact I never told him—I asked my mom to do it. He’s a conservative, Trump-loving, NRA member and despite my never having witnessed much direct malice or homophobia from him, I feared most how he’d react to having a gay son. He too would process it slowly in his own way, but he took the news without much external emotion one way or another. When I received word that he’d been told, I came to my parents’ house and he said he loved me. And after decades of wearing this secret like a terrifying tumor in my heart, I felt a freeing lightness I hadn’t felt since I was a kid and hadn’t yet been taught by a billion different social cues to hate who I was.
In the end my coming out story is a really lucky, happy one because I’ve been privileged in countless ways with an accepting family that even advocates on my behalf. My dad, although not his initial inclination, refrained from voting for Trump to support his gay son.
I truly wish you luck on your process. Listen to yourself, be in tune with your surroundings, and take the step when it feels right for you (or when you feel you can’t take another step without coming out first). 🤗😌❤️
