I have a few things to say this night

This is really NOT easy to post. Each and every time I tell this story, it gets just a little bit easier, but- it's still painful.

Maybe it always will be. I don't know. Dealing with what I have to say here hasn't made me stronger, and it hasn't made my life easier. I honestly don't think I'll ever be to the point that telling this story is "easy", and I have come to believe that sometimes, the "healing process" takes the rest of a person's life, and isn't ever really complete.

I'm very afraid that I'm one of those people- someone who can't, no matter how hard he tries, ever truly 'heal'.

Here's what happened. From the beginning.

I have to go WAY back.

I don't think there was ever a time in my life that I didn't know I was different from the people around me. My very earliest memories are laced with that perception, a bit like the stubborn frost on the windshield of a car on a cold autumn morning, but not nearly as easily removed.

I remember loving our music teacher in elementary school coming into our kindergarten class with her ukulele. My favorite song, ironically, was "The Rainbow Connection". It seems that song would come to be something of a prophecy, if you will, for my own life.

Oh, but I loved music class. It was the one class almost nobody really liked; as for myself, it's noted on my report cards from that time (which, amazingly, I still have, somewhere) that I loved it. I think that's what set me apart from the beginning.

All through my childhood, I was encouraged to play baseball, and soccer, and go outside and "play with the other kids". This really didn't sit well with me: I was a target, because I wasn't well coordinated at all, because I didn't really enjoy running, or swinging a bat, or kicking a ball. I wanted to amuse myself. The treatment I got from the other kids my age in many ways forced that on me.

Every team I was on was a losing team. It didn't matter if it was baseball or soccer; back then (and, very likely, to this day) the more athletic kids were put on one or two teams and simply slaughtered everyone else in whatever sport. Often, the "loser" coaches just ended up not caring at all.

Competition ended up being something I wanted nothing at all to have anything to do with. Honestly, if all you ever did was lose, would you even want to keep trying?

For most of my childhood, I felt like I couldn't do anything at all right. I was also a very deeply sensitive kid, emotionally; that continued through most of my life, up until now. I think part of that was simply not knowing how to defend myself from anything at all: my parents were of the old, broken mindset that bullies get bored and give up if you don't respond.

That was the advice I was given: don't respond, don't antagonize, don't let them see they're getting to you. "Tell them to go jump in a lake."

Yes, my parents actually told me to tell people that. In the mid eighties, no less.

Go jump in a lake.

Yup.

I think you all can imagine what happened. Bullies today- even back then- just weren't the bullies my parents grew up with. I was at that time too young to realize that the modern bully sees such nonresponse as a sign of complete weakness and vulnerability.

The proper response would have been to break noses and keep doing it until I was seen as someone too threatening to bully, and if I had a kid today, that's exactly what I would teach them: do not tolerate it, even once. Hit, punch, beat, and break noses, jaws, and arms if you must, because your own self-esteem and self-respect are bigger than they are and they deserve to have that fact beaten into them if they don't already get it.

Maybe, if I had done that, teachers wouldn't have sat me down and castigated me for being upset at being bullied and harassed. Maybe, if I had done that, I wouldn't have gotten laughed at by the playground monitor as a bunch of kids threw me into the trash headfirst. Maybe, if I had done that, everyone on the bus wouldn't have sang "Shut up, Kyle" with one voice when I tried to speak my mind.

That, all of that, happened before sixth grade.

I discovered at that point that I had talent in music. Oh, I knew before that that I liked it, but I thought everyone else did, too. When the band director came to our elementary school to test us all for musical talent, most of the kids couldn't even make the instruments make a noise. I was able to at least do that with each and every one of them I tried.

So did I pick a "cool" instrument, like percussion, or trumpet, or trombone? No. I chose oboe.

I immediately knew I was doing what I wanted to do, even then. I taught myself how to play piano as well- taught myself, mostly because even though I paid half the price for the piano we bought, I wasn't given lessons- even though I asked.

How many 13-year-olds help buy a piano, having never played it? How many ask for piano lessons?

Denied.

I was also in choir. I'd always had a very clear, carrying voice- and I got made fun of for that as well. I was so sure of my ability that I didn't much care who heard me singing, or where. I was always, even very early on, aware of pitch, and rhythm, and dynamics. Even before I could read music, I knew I could sing, and play.

By the time I was a freshman in high school, I knew I wanted to direct high school music. By the end of my freshman year, I'd determined that that was what I wanted to do, for the rest of my life. Marching band was especially fun for me: it's just as physical as any sport, be it track, or football, or soccer. Not that anyone ever really saw it that way, but I knew better.

Marching band, if you take it seriously, is hard. Harder than any sport, and much more intricate. I'm somewhat surprised, even today, after so many years, that more people don't see it for what it is: the only musical sport, if done competitively. It's really a ridiculously hard activity to even attempt.

I got made fun of a lot for that, too. Lucky me, by that point, I was so involved in music activities that I didn't much care: marching band, choir, concert band, musicals, honors choir (outside school), jazz band... I did it all. Along the way, I learned percussion for marching band and got more piano experience in jazz band. By my senior year, having never had any piano lessons, I was able to play sections of "Rhapsody in Blue" and was (also without lessons) able to sing a few of the more difficult portions of Leoncavallo's "I, Pagliacci".

Academically, I was also doing very well; I graduated 13th in my class with a 3.85 GPA, both NHS cords, and a 27 on my ACT (I never took the SAT; as a musician, the SAT was irrelevant to my career).

By the time I graduated, I was in very good shape.

In the summer of 1994, I auditioned for and was accepted into the Madison Scouts drum and bugle corps. I think this is where my interest in marching band comes from: Drum Corps International (DCI) is like marching band on crack. Most people reading this would really just not believe the intensity and dedication of the people involved in this activity: I've seen people with torn ligaments out on the field rehearsing; I myself spun a flag with a broken thumb (AND did a show the night after I broke it, oh, the horror). I've heard of people in other corps actually being seriously injured on the field, during a show, and finishing the show. In our corps, one guy sliced his face open with a saber and didn't even know it until he was off the field.

Such is the dedication of DCI members.

There was a problem, though: I was a percussionist, and in fact that is what I went and auditioned for. I got put in the colorguard instead, of one of the top six corps in the world. Me, having never once touched the visual aspect of the activity.

This would be much like an NHL goalie being drafted in the first round to play for the NBA. Needless to say, I got axed halfway through the tour (this, after the corps director sat in front of everyone and told all of us nobody would be cut now that the tour was underway). It was a good experience, on the whole, though: I learned how to do something in the activity I never knew how to do before that, and on a level I never dreamed I'd be involved in. I mean, come on: I auditioned for the cymbal line.

Jesus Tapdancing Christ on a chocolate-coated sidecar.

My family was never too terribly keen on the idea of my touring in a DCI corps. They didn't come to any shows while I was in the corps; in fact, once I got cut, they had the parents of another guy I was going to school with who happened to be in the same group bring me home. They actually tried to discourage me from doing it in the first place, despite knowing it was something I'd really wanted to be involved in for a few years running. It was almost like they didn't care, at all.

Did I mention, Madison was and is an all-male corps?

On October 9, 1994, my father was out of town on business. This happened a lot; he was a project engineer, and had to travel a lot to supervise construction of plants for the company he worked for. I came home from work and discovered that my mom had found every last bit of my "porn"- and I use the term reluctantly, since there was nothing nude; I just wasn't that daring- spread out on my bedroom floor, like the accusation it was intended to be.

My mom had asked me before that if I was gay, and I'd always denied it to her. This is because once, when I was fourteen, she told me and my sister, "the only thing that would ever really disappoint either of us would be for you (me) to tell us you're gay, or for you (my sister) to bring home a black boyfriend."

I don't clearly remember the two hours or so that came after she confronted me, with all that strewn over my bedroom floor. Oh, I felt so violated... I had hid all of that, deeply, in a drawer under my bed, beneath a whole bunch of papers and other junk.

My next clear memory is of getting on my bike, with a backpack over my shoulders, with a couple changes of clothes and the oboe she almost didn't let me take (but had to, because that's what I was in school for, and they were helping to pay for that), riding in the rain, without a destination. I was completely unprepared.

I almost killed myself twice that night, and the only thing that kept me from doing so was my own aversion to pain. Isn't that perverse? I was ready to lie down in the middle of the road, just after a blind curve, to wait for someone to run me over; later that night, I stood on an overpass, watching the cars go by underneath, wondering what it would feel like to drop down in front of a big rig, wondering if I would even feel the pain as it crushed me under its wheels.

Instead, I went to the home of people I didn't really know all that well (but worked with daily) and drank myself into senselessness. The next day, I moved in with someone I knew from school, and spent the next two weeks in the bedroom. I didn't even bother going to class, which really hurt my grades, but I simply couldn't face the world.

After I moved out of there, I moved in with another friend for a few months and then, when that lease ran out, had my father help me put everything into storage because I didn't have anywhere to live. He left me standing homeless on the side of the road that night. I won't ever forget or forgive that.

About two weeks later, after living in friends' dorm rooms and even under trees on campus, my parents 'let' me move back in with them. They insisted I hold a steady job as rent, which played irrevocable havoc with my studies and music practice- as if what they had already done hadn't done enough damage.

(Parents, please, listen, and know this comes from someone who already experienced this: if your child is going to be a professional musician, do NOT force them to hold a job while they're in school. It's just too huge a distraction from what they should be doing, and they- not you- will pay for it, perhaps, as happened with me, with their career. School is WORK, music school, unimaginably more so.)

A year later, my parents decided it wasn't worth their money to help "a failing student" through school, and they yanked my funding out from under me- AFTER financial aid had already been handed out for the year. They also had me in a position where my income was calculated as theirs, because I was living with them; my aid was calculated based on what THEY made, and they knew it.

My parents relished forcing me away from school. They ate it up like a juicy filet mignon. I sincerely believe if they could have done more to harm me, they would have.

To this day, the IOU to get the piano tuned that they "gave" me on my 18th birthday goes unfulfilled (in fact, my mom demands I move it into my apartment before she does anything, despite putting that "promise" in writing). She has grandkids now: three mixed-race girls she dotes on, handing my sister literally thousands upon thousands of dollars per year worth of child care, while at the same time requiring me to sign binding, business contracts when I need help- be it a dead transmission on my car, or a dangerously infected wisdom tooth.

Did I mention, she holds over four hundred thousand dollars in investments and over ten grand in cash in her bank account? Did I mention her three bedroom home is paid for, free and clear?

Did I mention I once saw her throw my sister across the room by her hair after she sneaked back into the house one night after seeing her boyfriend at the time?

The season we are in right now means very little to me from a family standpoint. I'm only going through the motions, only pretending I care about anyone I'm related to even a little bit. I, very simply, hate my family, mom, dad, and (not so much) sister. I just.... don't want to be around them. The only reason I am is because I intend to end up with that home after my mother is finally gone.

I intend to fix it up even more than it is- there's hardwood flooring in there, covered by carpet for twenty-five years. I intend to turn that place into a palace, finished basement, wet bar, fireplace, gleaming hardwood floors, and all (none of which are there, or visible, yet)... and then I intend to sell the thing, NOT to my sister, but to some yuppie couple willing to overpay, and get the hell away from the horrible memories that haunt me to this day. I intend to take the money and run, and I don't give a rat's ass what anyone in the family thinks.

So why, why now, of all nights, am I posting this terrible story? I'm honestly not quite sure. Maybe it's because I feel alienated, or deprived. After all, my mom told me, many years after the events I've related here, that both she and my father knew from the time I was five years old that I had a lot of musical talent... but didn't do anything because they "didn't want to pressure me". Instead, they let me go through my whole childhood thinking I was worthless, that I had nothing to offer, that I couldn't do anything right.

Right. Sure, mom. I believe you.

Maybe it's because, in this season where we're supposed to show people we love them, I just can't find anyone in my life I trust enough to be able to say I love them. Maybe it's because the only joy I ever got out of my life got twisted into my deepest shame. I honestly don't know what made me write all this, except that sometimes the hole in my heart aches so badly that I just have to let it out, to someone, somewhere. In this season, that piece of me that's been missing for so very long seems to be both closer than it ever was since I lost it and at the same time further away than it ever is.

Like I said at the beginning, sometimes, for some people, the "healing process" doesn't really end; sometimes, for some people, it just goes on and on, haunting us until the day we die. Like I said, sometimes it feels like it gets a little bit easier to tell the whole story with each telling. Mostly, though... it doesn't.

So, I guess, that's the end. It's not the whole story, not by any stretch; all this is only the most important parts. Parents... hold your kids. Keep them safe, see to it they're happy, and above all, don't stand in their way. Theirs is supposed to be a better life than yours; theirs is supposed to be more full of opportunity. Don't keep them from their dreams! It's not your place, and never was.

Above all, to any GLBT youth that may read this: it's your life. It doesn't belong to your parents, or any "authority". Don't think you have to obey! You don't. Ever. At all. Period. And, more than anything else, the lesson I learned is this:

If you have to ask yourself if your parents are ready to know you're gay, they're not ready. You have to be sure: not 95% sure, not 99% sure, but absolutely 100% beyond a doubt, balls-to-bones certain they what happened to me will not happen to you. If that means telling them you don't need help with school and taking out a bunch of loans in your own name, so be it. Being unsure isn't worth losing your future.

I'd say, "Merry Christmas", but that just doesn't seem right after all this. Just.... take care of yourselves, all of you, and try to just be you.

All of us who grow up in the dominant heterosexual culture carry scars. Sometimes the worst of those scars are inflicted by the families where we should be able to find love and acceptance. Unlike racial or ethnic minorities, LGBTs are the only minority to be born "into the enemy camp," so to speak. In many ways being LGBT is like being born black in a white family ... only no one realizes that you are black and keeps making racist remarks or telling bigoted jokes. Some families are more accepting than others, but hardly anyone who is LGBT grows up without some sort of scar, even scars inflicted unintentionally, by his or her family.

And, unfortunately, the holiday season with its emphasis on "family" can be an emotional mine field for so many LGBT folks (or anyone who had less than a Norman Rockwell sort of family life).

Between family issues and the problems of being "different" in society as a whole can be devastating. It's little wonder that their is a higher rate of depression in our community. Nor is it any wonder that so many of us try to self-medicate away the pain with alcohol or drugs or sexual compulsion or some other type of destructive behavior.

Sometimes I wonder if the scars ever truly heal. I know they ease after a bit and, in my own case, I believe I have forgiven my family for past issues. But forgiving isn't forgetting and it doesn't take much to bring old memories and emotions to the surface.

Fortunately, I think most LGBT folks have two "families" - one is the one that we get be accident of birth and the other is the family of friends we surround ourselves with who can provide the love and acceptance our birth families didn't. While the old scars my never heal, we have our second families we can count on to be the most effective "treatment" for those old wounds.

:hug:

Some of it gets easier. Some of it doesn't. You are not alone. You are heard.

Uff, the color guard... I started in guard in high school, because I wanted to be on the rifle team. I ended up wearing a dress and slinging a flag. They made me wear a sparkly rhinestone thing in my hair - I had a mohawk. It was the dumbest thing you'd ever want to see, that sparkly rhinestone thing jammed up against what little hair I had on my head. The dresses had yellow bodices and white cotton skirts. This would've been great if we'd been from Arizona, but we were in Florida, where it rains a lot. Once we competed in some event, and a thunderstorm broke out. We had one part of our routine where we had these giant blue lame flags with white butterfly lining on the back face, and there was only a foot of pole left at the bottom of the flags. In the pouring rain, with these metal poles and giant flags that turned into bags of water in the storm, our little line managed to bring the flags up, execute a toss with a single turn of the flag, not drop one in the wind, and bring them down and back up again without any mistake. The problem was that the flags stuck to the skirts on the way down, and stayed stuck on the way back up again. Our whole line ended up standing in the middle of a field with our skirts up around our waists and our asses hanging out. Not exactly the professional and disciplined experience of DCI.

Yesterday, I talked with my mom. She had sent me a nice scarf for Christmas, a plain brown wool scarf that goes with my favorite brown fedora. I thought perhaps she finally got it - this is the first time she hasn't sent something pink, or fuzzy, or that in some other way is evidence of her concept of how I'm supposed to be that, of course, I'm not. I called her to thank her, and to tell her about how my husband hadn't called since he flew out on Wednesday (although he said he would). She tried to sympathize, telling me "you don't have to put up with that, you're smart, you've always done everything yourself, you're beautiful..."

As if someone who isn't "beautiful" doesn't deserve to be treated like a human being?

Also - I don't want to do things myself any more. Yeah, I made my own way, when all the support went to my sister. Yeah, I made things work out, but you know what? That was necessity. I was "too old" at sixteen to have birthdays any more, when I was sad in a motel room in the middle of a hurricane in Tillman's Corner, Alabama because it was my birthday and that's where we were. And as for the beautiful part... you know, Mom, you just said the day before that my husband's mom had been intimating that I dress in suits because I "want to be a man". You defended me against that horrible accusation. You tried to bolster my ego by assuring me that I am "beautiful".

Well, Mom, I don't particularly want to be "beautiful", and Mom-in-Law has gotten pretty damned close to the truth. Your daughter's no daughter, and pretty soon, you'll see that. My husband, probably soon to be my ex-husband, is content to stay in his closet. I'm not. My life has been a series of damned closet doors, and I'm tired of it.

I am thirty-three years old and I am done playing games and slinging bullshit. I am tired of protecting the delicate feelings of the same parent who only ever wants to hear the good news. Here it is, Ma: you don't have a straight daughter who fooled around with girls. You have a queer son with tits who was very, very confused for a while, but who's finally figured it out. Congratulations.

I can't even imagine the pain you must have gone through, and are still going through. Nobody should be able to treat their own flesh and blood in such a callous manner, yet parents of gay and lesbian children do it all the time because of asinine religious and societal fixations.

The only thing I can do is offer you Metta and a virtual hug . May you come to know love and peace in 2006.

Buffy

I will never understand this kind of parent. Don't let them own your life. You have skills and desires and the RIGHT to live your life as you see fit. Go and fly. Don't look back.

written by my brother. I am just checking in and I saw this and for a moment he was back with me. He has been gone for 3 years now and you just brought him back, all the sadness and tragedy growing up in a similar environment. He was also a musician, it was his life.

I wish you were here. I would love to have you over for a nice meal and just hanging out. You would be more than welcome.

You are still here, keep telling your story. It is stories like these that eventually get to people, make them change, help them to understand. That is your gift to the world this Christmas. Maybe someone looking in will fill their hearts with love and understanding and be a little less bigoted. Maybe they will now think twice before being a bully. Maybe they will start to work for change.

Thank you for sharing. I am sending the warmest thoughts and love to you that I can gather. I do so wish you were here. :hug:

but, I grew up in a household where I was different. My difference was I loved the arts, the finer things in life, like spices in your food. I was the oldest of 5 children and relegated to taking care of my sister and brothers. When I asked for piano lessons, I was told no because my 2 sisters had taken accordion lessons and then quit. Dance lessons were totally out of the question for this little fat girl. I remember my mother telling me that my youngest sister was the pretty one, my other sister was the athletic one, and that I was the homemaker.

I won't bore you will all the details of my life. It hasn't been an easy life, but I've found that life is what you make of it. I got kicked out of my home when I was 17, with no where to go. Yes, it's difficult, but it does make you stronger. You already know who you are, which puts you one step ahead of me. I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up and I'm 57.

I remember having "the talk" with my son when he was about 10 or 11. He is a very sensitive person and was always getting picked on in school. I didn't ask him if he was gay, I just told him that if he was gay, that it was alright, that there was nothing wrong in being gay. Turns out, he isn't gay, but I wanted him to know that I supported him, just because he is my son, no matter what.

So, kgfnally and all the others who've had a rough time with parents, parents are not given any lessons on how to be a parent. There are good ones, bad ones and the so-so ones, but you DO NOT have to be effected by your parents. My turning point was when I moved out of state. I didn't have to deal with their stinging words daily. Now, it's just a phone call here and there, and a visit to them one every 5 years or so. Our relationship has actually gotten better because of this. Go and live your own lives, if you let your parents run/ruin your's then you have no one to blame but yourself. Teenagers, when you are ready to leave the nest, do so, and create your own reality.

There are going to be so many people in your lives who will try to change who your are. Be aware that they all have their own motives. Be true to yourself, (as long as you are not hurting others, that I have a really hard time forgiving, if at all) and find your true "family". This "family" may not be the one you were born into, but a series of friends who celebrate your uniqueness. Put your past behind you, learn from it and grow stronger from it, but don't dwell in it. This is the ONLY way you will ever be happy.

Kgfnally, forget about the house, move out of state. Is money or revenge worth you being unhappy? Go find your bliss, you deserve it.

zalinda

This is good advice. Wanting the house keeps you around for them to abuse. Move far far away and be around your real family. I have an okay family, but they are RW racist, ignorami. I feel the happiness of being with my real family when I go to protest events. Cut the ties and enjoy every minute of your life. It is too short to waste around people who abuse you.

I wish there was a haven for kids. A safe place to get away from controlling,abusive bad parents,and a place pursue a life without them.
Someday hopefully more parents will realize their kids are not their property and kids are NOT a way to eternal life( by proxy) or parental mini me's and treat kids as separate human beings with their own lives to live. Lives that may be very different than what parents want,"approve of" or intend.

Children are not born to be parental slaves,punching bags,"poison containers" toys,emotional soothers,relationship therapists(for parents who don't get along) bargaining chips in divorce cases or second class people.

I think bullies need to be isolated from other kids and their bullying stopped in schools. A bully does their chosen behavior because they enjoy terrorizing their classmates because they are emotionally stunted.The right answer to dealing with a bully is to beat the living shit out of them with no mercy. If all the kids who wanted a peaceful school beat the shit out of the bullies who pick on the smaller kids or the sensitive kids the bullies wouldn't bully anymore. The bullies bully because they know they can get away with it. If school kids were not taught to fear authoritarians and 'dominant' types so much and admire toughness, athletic prowess and sociopath personalities as"cool" things would be so different if society had the courage to value different things..

Bullies need to be put in prison schools where they can beat up on each other and the other non-bully kids could get on with their schooling un harassed..Bullies must be separated from sensitive kids and non-bullies by any means that works.Bullies as adults if they do not change offer NOTHING to this world but suffering for others they come in contact with. To me I feel a bully should live the life of a pariah,until they decide to stop bullying others . But sadly our culture does not understand that tolerating bullies at school ,at home,at work or in our government is a tolerance of sociopaths.Sociopathy is a problem that starts by ruining lives in the family , it taints childhood relationships and it sickens adult relationships if it is "tolerated".A culture of tolerance twords bullying and abuse is one reason among others as to why human society is so messed up.The problem is huge and entrenched.It's tragic.


Take care OK. . My past was alot like yours is,just substitute visual art/crafts and costume for music.

Hugs.

Your story is a depiction of what happens much too often in households that have been overly influenced by the evil which permeates our culture. And to me, this is exactly the kind of goal people and organizations like the AFA and Focus on the "Family" work feverishly for - to restore the embarassment and humiliation that can target gay Americans as unworthy of being full members of their own families.

It is funny how parents sometimes learn to rewrite the history of their own child's upbringing years after they have instilled such fear and insecurity in their own flesh and blood. Often I think this is because of a sense of guilt they discover as they change over time - yet usually the damage is already done and the relationships can't often be changed. I've been through that with my own parents - they try to be supportive now in their elderly years, and yet just beneath the surface I can still sense how rapidly they can disapprove of my own existence.

I had a partner for 16 years - and, being traditional about "marriage," despite lots of transgressions and little affairs he had along the way, I used my own self-tortured upbringing as a martyr to keep that relationship going. When it finally concluded (of course, with me giving up most of everything) I had realized that for the first time in my adult life, I was actually on my own completely.

He was one of those partners who always had to fly home for the holidays - and yet I wasn't welcome to accompany him. . .not because his family didn't like me, but because Christmas was for "family" and I wasn't "officially recognized." So we would always decorate our home and he would go home for a few days while I worked overtime or watched movies or found ways to keep myself occupied.

There is a reason why gay bars are open and usually busy on these holidays - when I would used to drop by there on a Christmas Eve night, I was surprised at how many poeple filled the club. Most were solitary - sitting at the bar or dancing with one friend - and many were ostracized from their own families because of the same "family" values the Right pushes so hard today. It was a welcome diversion - and if people were bitter, they knew how to hide it well. Patrons would say "Merry Christmas" to each other and bars would roll out a buffet to make the holiday seem more like family in the only gathering place for gays to meet. In that way, it seemed that the estranged memories from families could fade to the back of our minds and we could celebrate in the only way society seemed to allow us - from the fringes.

It is ironic that we always hear stories about the "true" meaning of Christmas this time of year - about helping the poor and unfortunate, of giving to others. . .and yet we were the group who could stand there and know the hypocrisy of those who would utter such devotions while depriving their own children and their partners. Christmas became used as a whipping post for those who were alone and unwanted - a way to underscore how they couldn't and didn't fit in and were somehow less valued because they had not duplicated the ideal fundie image of family life.

I'm glad that I'm old enough now to be over that image - and have learned how to value the peace of these holidays and the small gifts that come my way or are extended to others on a daily basis. I think if I oculd say anything to you, Kyle. . .it is that you extend those gifts in every day that you continue living your life for yourself - and that you should not worry about love, because it will travel your way when the time is right. You see, if there is a God, Love is what He/She created, and that isn't regulated by those who vilified you or tried so desperately to make you a target in order to divert attention from their own evils. Love is the way that you continued to nurture yourself even when all was lost and how you knew what you could give your life to from a very early young age. It was your parents who never grew up spiritually enough to realize that all of their actions couldn't destroy your dreams or desires. . .they were implicitly what was created inside you and that's why they remain to this day.

I guess what seems most telling to me is how the real "sinners" are the very ones perpetrating this level of denial and hatred to members of their own families masked under the guise of "morality" and "God." They've used that as a scapegoat so many times that it hardly bears any effect on me any longer - that need to inflict guilt and humiliation through namecalling and labeling and bullying that only points out how much anger and disgust they hold within themselves.

So don't despair too much about the past, Kyle. . .there is a future ahead that comes from what you have always known and protected inside, and no one can really take that away from you. And for all of us who are gay Americans from widely different experiences and backgrounds, our lives and our futures depend on our willingness to stay connected and to look after each other in the way so many families have failed to do for their own. We shall overcome.

Remember though, your story WILL have a happy ending. You'll see to that.

and you deserve to work through it. I hope someday you can sit down with a wonderful therapist and examine all of it, and your reactions to it.

For right now, it sounds to me like it is time to 'be your own man' and get out on your own. Don't wait around in life to people to die. It never happens until you're too old to care about it.

Godspeed.

Tallahassee Grannie

Difficult for me to read all that you've written. Brings it all back, so much hurt for so long.

I can tell you this: Life CAN get better, much better, even with all the emotional wounding. I strongly support the "take the money and run" perspective. It isn't right for everyone, but for some it truly is the best thing to do. I finally got physically away from my birth family in my mid twenties. It took another ten or so years with a lot of help to begin to get them out of my head. Everyone is different. For me it finally meant having almost nothing to do with them. The parents are gone now and I have almost no contact with the family of my birth at all--and I do not miss it.

What I do have is a family of friends. Some of them have been in my life now for going on 40 years. I live in a world so different from the one I grew up in (socially, politically, economically) that it often seems like another life all together. But this life is my life and I'm glad to have it. It isn't perfect. There are many things I wish I had that I do not have. But, all in all, I am very fortunate to have survived the emotional abuses of my formative years. For years I suffered with depression and suicidal thoughts--that is mostly gone now and without pharmaceutical intervention. Occasionally I just have to pull the covers over my head and hide for a day or so--knowing that 'this too shall pass'. It always does. Having one's 'art' to immerse ones self in is a great consolation.

I think the most important lesson I learned was how to respect my own boundaries and how to draw them and maintain them, especially with regard to my family. At some point I had to accept that they would never change. They would never accept me--not only my sexuality but my whole artistic orientation in life. They never knew me and they hated me because I was not what they wanted me to be. We all deserve to be loved for who we really are. We need this love just like we need food, clothing and shelter. Without it we can perish just as surely as if we had been left to starve on a mountain top. If we are not careful, we can die inwardly long before the body dies--and then we become a 'thing' just living a life with no love, no passion, no curiosity, no soul.

If you can avoid that 'first' death and keep something alive in your heart, you will be alright. No matter what else happens--good (and there will be many good things yet to come) or bad (and there will inevitably be unfortunate things as well)--if you can keep even the thinnest of connections with the most essential and precious part of you, you'll be all right.

Thanks for the reminder of what is important on this otherwise overcast and cold Christmas day.

Peace,

BMU

talk thing but there are all sorts of new therapies that really help get rid of trauma. They use some of them for soldiers with PTSD.

Here are two. I would look into a holistic magazine or check the net to find a therapist. I can honestly say that these therapies made a HUGE difference in my life.


http://www.psychotherapy-center.com/emdr.html

http://www.emotionalkinesiology.com/



:hug:

In my dotage I have almost forgotten the12 years of Catholic school and being given 3 days to get out of the Irish/Italian "Catholic" neighborhood I grew up in. under threat, You didn't day but I guess your folks are "Christian"?

I had many of the same problems as you, and some completely different. I was bullied, I was an overachiever, and my parents held me back from what I could have accomplished. I wasn't gay, but I have another sexual paraphilia and my parents were extremely overprotective. When I was five years old there was a total eclipse of the Sun in my hometown of New Orleans, and while it was happening my mother kept me inside so I wouldn't hurt my eyes looking at it. The first time I brought a girl home they spent so much of the evening ragging on how worthless I was and how I couldn't do anything right that the girl promptly went home and took three Valium and told me my parents were insane. When I found the girl I would eventually live with for 20 years and marry (in that order, due to the perversity of our health care system) they did everything in their power to destroy her simply so that I would not leave them for her.

Shortly before I severed all ties with them I later learned they were snooping around to see if they could justify having me forcibly committed to a mental institution, because I was making the "irrational choice" to live with the woman I loved instead of pursuing my education (which they'd sabotaged because I insisted on living with her). The day they had a lawyer call me I announced that I was no longer their son, and I never wanted to hear from them again. Turns out that was a fortunate choice of words because it nixed the loony-bin plans. I'd emancipated myself at the age of 19. I wouldn't inherit, but neither did I expect to.

It would be seventeen years before I spoke to them again. During that entire time I made it clear on several occasions when our paths crossed that I would read and answer a LETTER if they wanted to send me one. I would not talk to them on the phone, on my front yard, or whatever, but if they wanted to send a LETTER I would read and respond.

Seventeen years later, at the urging of my dying maternal grandmother, they finally sent me a letter, which I duly answered. According to her wishes I went to see my grandmother many times before she finally died. In the course of this I did run into my parents and this time they were polite and apologetic. They never have owned up to many of the horribly evil things they did in the 1980's but at this point I don't think they even remember doing some of the things they did. None of us are at all the same people we were in those days, and I no longer think they are dangerous to me. So I have reconnected.

My wife still doesn't talk to them, and I don't blame her.

Sometimes you have to chuck all the platitudes about family out the window. Blood is not always thicker than water, or even air. If they are still acting like this the best thing you can do for yourself is turn your back on them. Tear up those contracts they made you sign and tell them to fuck off. And never ask them for anything again. Every time you ask them for help and they make you grovel your soul shrinks a little. That's what they want. I ultimately realized that starvation was preferable to living a long comfortable and celibate life in a cottage behind their house.

Because of what my parents did to me I started out in life with nothing. Not even the education I'd expected to receive. I damn near starved several times before I found a niche for myself. It was incredibly painful. But later, when I met them again after seventeen years, I was able to hold my head high and wait for them to ask. Because I owed them NOTHING. Later, it turned out I was the only person in attendance at my grandmother's funeral who wasn't hovering like a vulture over her estate. My parents noted this, and later they asked me to execute their will, because I'm the most financially responsible relative they know.

Stay strong and remain yourself. I think you should seriously go to a place where they can't find you and start over. Offer to resume contact only when you can do so as an equal. Your talents and your sexuality are yours and it is an evil thing for anybody, including your parents, to try to take them from you.

to financial struggles and continued bitterness with the folks.

Your narrative of events pretty much ended ten years ago and you summarized the
rest in a couple of sentences. So what's holding you back there?

Have you considered a new life? Chicago, Toronto, NYC, DC, Vancouver B.C., Frisco,
LA? It's a big world. There's lots of stuff to see and experience.

If you haven't finished college, that might be worthwhile. Dropping out can keep
you living in dropout mode.

I know someone who's been teaching English in Beijing for years. You seem
articulate enough and aware enough of language to qualify. It isn't music, but it
might give you some time to reflect and make a plan.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0967706203/002-1905792-8092826?v=glance&n=283155

At the moment, the things keeping me from doing what I need to are a CC debt, a car payment, and an inflexible job situation. The USPS isn't exactly understanding when it comes to life choices that do not involve/contradict the wishes of the USPS. If I want to go back to school, I simply must find a different job; otherwise, there's absolutely no guarantee that they will allow me to be available for the classes I need to take. Since computer animation/modeling very likely will involve weekend labs, and since I'll nominally have to wait another ten years (on top of the six I've already been with the USPS) to get weekends off- to say nothing of a day shift- the job will just have to go, and that means paying off the debts first.

I never got this job with the intent of making it a career; as careers go, the USPS is a very poor choice. The pay is great, the benefits are awesome, but there is little to no flexibility regarding what they allow their employees to do with their lives outside of the USPS. It is, without a doubt, the most authoritarian and inflexible employer I've ever worked for, and I'll be a very happy camper when I can tell that company to kiss my ass and give me a resignation form (which is exactly what I intend to do- I have a LOT of bridges to burn with that company, not the least of which is keeping us in the building during a recent plantwide natural gas leak).

The sick, sad irony is, if I try to go "part time", I'll be working twenty hours MORE a week than I am at "full time". Yeah, and don't bother trying to understand why... it's the USPS, a company where "tour three" is actually second shift, part-timers work more hours more days a week than full-timers, seniority to get weekends off with a day shift takes a decade and a half to obtain, and schedule changes are not granted on a regular basis which would allow the flexibility to take regular classes.

I can't wait that long. As soon as my debts are paid, and I have several months' worth of a financial buffer, I'm kissing that job goodbye. At this point, it's only a matter of getting there.

I don't really have the time or energy right this moment to respond to each of you who have written here- and I really would like to do so, but right now, tonight, it's just a little bit too much to do. There are a couple things I will say, though...

The only reason I'm still hanging around here is because I still have a credit card debt and a car to pay off, but those are really the only things keeping me here. Once those are done and over with, I intend to go to school for computer modeling and animation, with an eye to becoming part of the gaming or film industries as a modeler or animator. I've been learning a lot about the subject lately on my own, and although it's about as far away from my initial, natural interests as can be, it's still something creative I can be involved in.

To that end, my mom got me a digital camera for Christmas (ahh, perversity! It truly is a love/hate sort of thing), which I explained to her I needed to take stills for use as textures in models and animations. Now, I can expand the materials I use in my scenes to surfaces actually based on real materials.

Being able to make something from nothing, purely from my own imagination, has always seemed to be a common thread in everything I've wanted to do with my life. As for staying in contact with my remaining family, well... for what I want to do with my life, having the necessary cash is important if I want to get the training I know I need. My "sell the house and run off with the money" comment was made in a moment of unthinking emotion- I'll probably want to live there myself eventually; it is, after all is said and done, quite a nice, cozy home.

That's neither here nor there; you all are right in that I ought to get away, but circumstances don't allow that right now. I definitely want to be free of debt before I go back to school, since I know once that happens I'll be spending a lot of hours in labs and I need to be able to be working outside of that as little as I can manage and still pay the bills. With the debts I have right now, I have to hold a full-time, career-type job, even though I in no way intend to make my current job as a postal worker my career.

As far as not saying anything about the recent years, well, there really is quite a bit to say, but that's all the subject of a post at least as long as the one that started this thread... in other words, it's for another time, when I have, well, more time. :)

I hope you all have had a good Christmas, and I'll be posting some more about all this either later tonight or tomorrow. Again, everyone- thanks for the responses. It all means a great deal to me.

I'll send you one of mine

This was a simple pic of my creme colored cat named Rustle.
I turned him into a lunacat in photoshop.


Live your dreams even if it's only in a small way.It will save your love for your own life.

There's no need to get the hell out of Dodge to start dabbling in computer animation. KVCC has a great program, and being KVCC, it's CHEAP. Check it out, friend:

http://newmedia.kvcc.edu/majors.htm

About a year ago I was shopping around for a program to go into once I was in a position to do so. I'm still not ready to enroll- I have to clear my debts first so I can work less and learn more- but I told them if they ever got a program I would probably enroll there first.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I found out they went and did it. And right nearby, too.

The only thing keeping me out of school at this point is a credit card debt and a car payment. I hope to get both taken care of within two years, hopefully sooner. In the meantime, I'm learning on my own, as I can... and it's truly remarkable just how much one can learn about modeling and animation just at home.

I definitely do need training, though. Here's my first attempt at an interior:



It definitely needs to be reworked, but I'm getting there. :)

Edited to add: another irony- my mom got me a digital camera for Christmas, so I can lift real textures now. Go figure.....

Dang.

You are always welcome in my home.

Drums...you were cool. :D

I played trombone and baritone horn, trumpet in a pinch. :)

I am picking out your part about being in marching band and in corps. I can relate to that. I couldn't imagine growing up gay, just being in band was enough to be an outsider. And you are *so* on the mark; band was just as rigorous, if not more at times, than any f--king team sport like football. I still make that clear to people. I was never good at team sports anyway, but I thought about joining the swim team. Meh...I loved band, and that's what I did for four years, and earned my letter sophomore year. Man, you should've seen the controversy I generated when I came to school in a letter jacket with leather sleeves. Oh, those were for the "jocks." Screw them. I worked hard, so no all-wool for me.

Anyway...that was a while ago.

I must also commend you for being so hardcore as to join the Madison Scouts. From what I hear, they still rock. I was a Santa Clara Vanguard fan, though, and I do recall being recruited heavily by the Velvet Knights back in the day.

Again, be well.

Ari