This Body!!

[Tiger]

I am pleasantly surprised by peoples response to that!!! I have been up against discrimination for several years for one thing or another!! I have always been petrified about people's reactions!! 2 men have actually tried to change this with rape!!! I don't do confrontation and unfortunately some feel the need to attack this orientation!!! If I had a choice, I would not choose to be gay! Not in a million years! I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, I really wouldn't!!!! If you can still be comfortable in your own skin after being raped and abused, you must be so tough!!! Very strong!! Made of rock!!! It must get to you, even if you don't choose to let it?

 

[Chava]

I can understand the added fear of judgment is not helpful. and there are some assholes out there. Is there a LGBT support group you'd feel comfortable looking into at some point? There are even therapists who have specialization in helping with this stuff. NOT because it's wrong or does anything to change the awesome human being you are, but because the shame can be such a problem, especially with the a-holes in the world and reactions from family...the rejection and everything. I speak just as a straight friend (though almost asexual) and best friend to LGBT. My gay friends have been my faves, because they did help my world feel more gender neutral (and they just happened to also be really creative and hilarious good friends, all orientation stuff aside). You do have a lot to offer others by simply being you. And there are people who can accept you and help you begin to accept yourself.

As for the body stuff, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be in therapy if I felt okay in my body. It's something I want to get to, but I'm not always there. Honor yourself in whatever ways you feel okay. Posting here and telling us your truth is a good strong start. Good job!

 

[Anarchy]

The prejudice towards being gay probably depends a lot on what community you are from and living in. ammongst the largely secular community, whether in a former industrial town, a former pit village or a farming community, people are likely to be surprisingly OK.

Mainstream urban society, there's usually no more problem than being straight.

Ammongst some of the more religiously devout and insular communities, you might have more problems, and need to employ some subterfuge, but then, having a same sex friend around probably won't arouse their suspicions, so long as you are reasonably careful, it won't be something they are likely to know how to spot the signs of.

I don't know what community you grew up in, but, so long as you are in a place where you are unlikely to be recognized, and you dress like the mainstream community, no one would give a second glance at the two gay women going shopping together - and if you did grow up in one of the more devout communities, so long as you dress and act the part when you are around people who know you from that community - then they're unlikely to discover your other life.

If marriage is something that your family expect - well, you "just haven't found the right boy yet" and it isn't unusual for gay couples who still haven't told their families, to invite a gay couple of the opposite sex allong to events, that way it looks like two straight couples.

 

[Anarchy]

If you can still be comfortable in your own skin after being raped and abused, you must be so tough!!! Very strong!! Made of rock!!! It must get to you, even if you don't choose to let it?

To go through such a trauma and be completely unaffected would suggest absolutely total, ice cold, psychopathy. a snake would be warm and fluffy by comparison with anyone who could do that.

That you are so badly hurt shows how human you are.

 

[Tiger]

The family don't accept anything about me or what has happened in this life!! To them nothing has ever gone wrong and they believe that I have been seriously, mentally ill for a long time!! That's how they pass it all off!!! My sexuality is apparently just another aspect of an illness!!!! This is also very, very difficult to deal with!!!

 

[Anarchy]

Tiger, in vague and very general terms (for example "mainstream white british" or "third generation british, west Indian origin" or "Indian origin Hindu" and "late twenties" ) would you be ok sharing the sort of cultural background you are from and your very approximate age?

being gay stopped being considered an "illness" about 40 years ago

I'm only now learning how difficult it is for others to acknowledge abuse and trauma, and how damn easy silence and disbelief or even worse, victim blaming can be.

I don't see you as "ill", I see you as someone who has been badly hurt and in need of support and validation as you heal. and there's no reason why the healed Tiger shouldn't still be gay, and with a loving and supporting partner. (can't offer services in that department - I do like girls - but I'm rather attached to my male parts :p)

 

[Tiger]

I'm in my mid 30's and very British!! For as long as I can remember the family, going back at least 3 generations, homosexuality has been thought of as being really sick! Or seen as rebellious behaviour!! Deserving punishment or needing treatment! I have actually been taken to the GP to see if they could cure me!!!! I have also been accused of hanging around with the 'wrong' sort of people and being influenced by them!! The topic of sex has always been forbidden in my family and I was always punished if I even mentioned it!!! Apparently, that was what the schools were for!!! I think that some of this attributed to my issues now!! I don't know!

 

[ghotiff]

I'm so sorry your family can not be the supportive family that you deserve. My family lives in denial about my abuse outside the home (even while they knew and it was still happening). I now let them live there. My family is what it is. The relationship can not be "real" as a result if their denial but trying to fight a losing battle would just cause me more grief.

There are many communities around the world who are very gay friendly. It seems to me that if you could find and spend time with such a community it might help you let go of some of your negative gay judgements. I live in such a community and being straight or gay is just not relevant. You have reminded me that I should remember how lucky I am to be in this community. I am not gay myself, but I am very strongly pro personal choice and I would not be happy in a phobic community.

 

[Anarchy]

Hi Tiger,
Thanks for answering, I wasn't sure if you were from one of the more staunchly religious communities.

I'm sorry Tiger, I thought that sort of sh!t was all in the past.

I know that about 30 years ago my brother ended up disappearing for a week or two while he waited for our parents to blow off steam after they found out. We'd got an agreed arrangement, if they asked me, I would say yes, mum asked me, and I said yes, what I wasn't expecting was her to ask what about me - so I told her I'd had a couple of boyfriends, and I never heard any more about that bit of it.

I think they'd been worried for a while about me. In our teens I had the boyfriends, he had the girlfriends (one of who's mother had read her diary with all of the smutty details in it - Youch!). We swapped over the roles when I was about 18 or 19.

I know that after my brother had shacked up with a boyfriend, one of the old women in the village had tried to stir the sh!t with my grandmother (If the woman and my grandmother were still alive now, they'd be well into their 90s, infact that granny would be almost 100, my other grandparents would be 115 - a differnt world. in her younger days the crap stirring old woman had had a string of blatant extra marital affairs that everyone in the area knew about. one of them was with the groom from a big house, who used to tether three or four of his employers hunting horses that he was supposed to be exercising, outside her gate while he was in "seeing" her. One day her husband had returned un-expectedly and set the horses loose and chased them off in different directions as revenge - he was always shagging around too - bloody hypercrites, the pair of them). Some time after the sh! stirring, my brother's friend was sitting in the car as my brother quickly ran in to pick something up from my mum's and the old woman came peering through the car window, the friend gave her two middle finger salutes. She never gave any more trouble after that.

My Brother has lived as openly gay for about 30 years now, in a rural farming community. no one gives a second glance.

The topic of sex has always been forbidden in my family and I was always punished if I even mentioned it!!! Apparently, that was what the schools were for!!!

OMG! boarding schools? finishing schools?

I think that some of this [con]tributed to my issues now!! I don't know!

It is possible. it's a refusal to accept you for the person who you are.

It's difficult, if you are living under your parent's roof, then they get to set the rules for what happens under that roof (so long as it stays within the law anyway), and from the content of your posts - you don't sound like you are in the best condition at this moment for moving out and getting a flat or a house share of your own.

Big hugs Tiger, I feel for you and the situation you find yourself in. Are you seeing a T who you can discuss this with?

I'll see if I can catch up with a friend who's parents were very disapproving of his being gay when he was in his late 20s (20 years ago), to see if he has any tips for pacifying parents.

Hugs again and please keep in touch.

 

[Tiger]

I just wanted to add that I have actually lived alone since I was 15 years old and I was still at senior school when I was pushed out into this petrifying, intimidating world! At the moment I am having to return to the family because my parents are both not in the best of health and I have had to take the strain from it, I have another brother who used to help, but he has moved to another country!! My sister has her own life and 'he' still lives at home and does nothing at all to help!! ('He' is the abuser!!) (I have a unlimited, ever building anger towards him) one day I will explode!! Its complicated!! It is doing my head in!!

 

[Anarchy]

Hi Tiger

Just to say I'm thinking of you. please go easy on yourself. and there's a hug if you'll accept it.

 

[Tiger]

Thank you!!