Unseen consequences
I was driving to my sister's this morning to keep her company during her garage sale, still pondering on things from last night. I thought to myself, "I am not less" and then as if someone laughing at me, I could feel the internal struggle between believing it and not believing it. Sometimes I feel like no one believes me when I say that I came out of the hospital a different person. I don't know if it is really a matter of coming out better or worse, I just came out different. Maybe people just are not able to understand or relate or something like that. All I know is that life was never the same.
I will start back into the narrative here soon and start pulling thoughts, feelings, and memories out of that deep box. This has actually been harder to do than writing the other narratives that I have. Maybe because it just involves me. The whole experience was based on my choice. No one made me do anything, no one was a "part of it", it was just me. All positives, negatives, outcomes, consequences, were because of me.
No one ever told me it was ok to be in the hospital. No one ever sat with me and told me I didn't have to be ashamed to be there. No one ever told me that I would not be less of a person for being there. No one. Over the years I would go with "I was just trying to get help" or "it was the only choice I felt I had" and even with those nice little fronts and covers, I still wish someone would have of just told me that the decision I made that night was not wrong. I am not sure if that will ever happen, and I guess that is ok. I have never been at a place where I might have bought into it anyways. I do, though, wish someone would have told me I didn't do anything wrong while I was there or soon after coming out. I wish someone would have been able to see I was not the same and help me get back my emotional footing. I was only 28 and, even so, I felt I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders with no one to tell me I could put it down.
There is a part of me that feels like I have spent the last 15 years trying to redeem myself for messing up, for doing whatever it was that landed me in that spot that turned into the stay at the hospital. Was it because I was gay? I have wondered many, many of times if I had chose to just keep quiet with that, stay in that nice bubble of denial, would things have been different. Was it a punishment for coming out and causing havoc in my family? I remember the letter I got from my mom's roommate after I had told my mom. It was blunt and straightforward. "I don't know how you can be so selfish. Did you not think of how your mom and sister will be ostracized because of your actions? How could you not consider their feelings and how this would affect them, what they are going to have to go through because of you." And it went on for a full page. I lost all respect for her at that moment. I still "played nice" if I was home visiting because it was her house too, even though when I would leave she would give me a hugs and tell me, "I am so sorry I won't see you in heaven." I think there was a small part inside of me that believed her. Just another piece I carried around prior to going into the hospital.
As I look back over things, it sure appears that anytime I tried to do something for myself, I made havoc for others. It was not that I was intentionally out to be a burden or a troublemaker, I just seemed to have good timing or something. When the validation was in support of the negative, it settled in and became a part of my identity. Because I was gay, I was a disappointment. Because I was gay, I shattered all my mom's dreams and hopes for me. Because I was gay, my sister and my mom's lives would forever be hell as they would be persecuted because of me. Maybe it was not so much of coming out as it was making the choice to tell my mom. She eventually would have found out so it was better to get it over with by me telling her than her hearing it through another. It still hurt though.
I will start back into the narrative here soon and start pulling thoughts, feelings, and memories out of that deep box. This has actually been harder to do than writing the other narratives that I have. Maybe because it just involves me. The whole experience was based on my choice. No one made me do anything, no one was a "part of it", it was just me. All positives, negatives, outcomes, consequences, were because of me.
No one ever told me it was ok to be in the hospital. No one ever sat with me and told me I didn't have to be ashamed to be there. No one ever told me that I would not be less of a person for being there. No one. Over the years I would go with "I was just trying to get help" or "it was the only choice I felt I had" and even with those nice little fronts and covers, I still wish someone would have of just told me that the decision I made that night was not wrong. I am not sure if that will ever happen, and I guess that is ok. I have never been at a place where I might have bought into it anyways. I do, though, wish someone would have told me I didn't do anything wrong while I was there or soon after coming out. I wish someone would have been able to see I was not the same and help me get back my emotional footing. I was only 28 and, even so, I felt I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders with no one to tell me I could put it down.
There is a part of me that feels like I have spent the last 15 years trying to redeem myself for messing up, for doing whatever it was that landed me in that spot that turned into the stay at the hospital. Was it because I was gay? I have wondered many, many of times if I had chose to just keep quiet with that, stay in that nice bubble of denial, would things have been different. Was it a punishment for coming out and causing havoc in my family? I remember the letter I got from my mom's roommate after I had told my mom. It was blunt and straightforward. "I don't know how you can be so selfish. Did you not think of how your mom and sister will be ostracized because of your actions? How could you not consider their feelings and how this would affect them, what they are going to have to go through because of you." And it went on for a full page. I lost all respect for her at that moment. I still "played nice" if I was home visiting because it was her house too, even though when I would leave she would give me a hugs and tell me, "I am so sorry I won't see you in heaven." I think there was a small part inside of me that believed her. Just another piece I carried around prior to going into the hospital.
As I look back over things, it sure appears that anytime I tried to do something for myself, I made havoc for others. It was not that I was intentionally out to be a burden or a troublemaker, I just seemed to have good timing or something. When the validation was in support of the negative, it settled in and became a part of my identity. Because I was gay, I was a disappointment. Because I was gay, I shattered all my mom's dreams and hopes for me. Because I was gay, my sister and my mom's lives would forever be hell as they would be persecuted because of me. Maybe it was not so much of coming out as it was making the choice to tell my mom. She eventually would have found out so it was better to get it over with by me telling her than her hearing it through another. It still hurt though.