It's interesting how if you ask anyone about what happened when they came out to their parents, the parents' version and the kid's version always differ. The first time I 'came out' was when my parents read a letter I had written to a friend confiding in them that I like guys. So everyone totally freaked out. My stepdad was less surprising because he's a redneck who hated me for years before that happened. (I, apparently, am not a man because I like to read and write and be smart instead of just digging holes outside all the time.) My mom is a religious conservative Catholic and basically asked how I could "do that" to god and wondered if she could love me the same. Eventually she was making comments that I should be sent away and I'd come home to messages for returned calls about mental hospitals, et cetera.
But now? She says those things never happened and I must have just been very depressed, and that if I had a boyfriend I could even invite him over for dinner. She's totally okay with it, of course, and how could I ever think otherwise, I'm her son, she says.
I always thought it was strange. I can understand embarrassment at really freaking out and turning a difficult situation into what was basically hell for me. But at least admit your mistakes. At least tell me I didn't deserve that. That I deserve honesty. Nobody, least of all your kid, would expect that moment to go perfectly. It's so utterly terrifying and everything seems so bleak. You could lose everything. The number of gay teens who are homeless because their parents just 'got rid' of them like they were trash is astonishing. And whether or not you know those facts or precise numbers going in, intuitively, you understand that it could happen.
Coming out as gay is one of the hardest and bravest things someone, maybe even your child, will have to do. Just remember that. Everything I've been through, and that moment was the worst part of my life. It changed me, and everything around me. Everything after that, you just can't ever go back. You can't un-say something of that magnitude. Even if you tell your parents it was a phase, which I did the first time, to basically escape being sent away, it's never the same for you because you know. You know this is it. This is their reaction. This is what they've said, that they never, ever tried to apologize for. That they never took back. This is the reaction of your mother and father. The people who have loved you since birth, that's all over, and they just don't feel the same anymore.
You know that if you have to tell them again, if you even think of it again, if you don't do anything in your power to hide it even more carefully, because they are going to try to dig up more information about you, about the letters you write, your internet habits, if you aren't careful, you always know this is how they react to that.
I don't pretend to have knowledge that this is how every gay person feels or would feel in the future, but I do know that this isn't just me. I'm not speaking for everyone but I don't feel like it's only for myself, either.
This is why if you fuck up, just say you're sorry. Say you're trying to deal with it and you'll be okay and you love them no matter what. Nobody expects you to be perfect. We're not perfect, either. You think a scared kid who's literally probably terrified of death or being kicked out is going to handle the coming out situation in the best possible way? It's awkward for everyone.
Especially when someone finds out because you were careless about where you store a letter meant for someone else.
So when I read this, I get it:
When Tyler - a skilled violist - told his mother about his sexuality and that he was 'tired of living a lie' just a few days before leaving for his freshman year at New Jersey's Rutger's University, she said she was stunned.
'We talked for a while, hugged for a while, cried together. I told him how much I loved him and he told me how much he loved me.'
Internet chats and texts released in the criminal case paint a different picture, as Tyler had wrote to a friend about coming out: 'Mom has basically completely rejected me.'
But Mrs Clementi said this was not true.
'I told him I needed time. You have dreams for your children, and when someone tells you this, your dreams are kind of shattered for that moment.
'I was processing it, but cutting him out of my life was never a possibility.'
Tyler Clementi, of course, was the guy who went off to college and killed himself after his roommate and a friend filmed him in an intimate situation with another guy. This should show anyone that you don't always get the time you want with someone. You don't always get to just pretend like everything is okay in the future because there might not be one for your kid, due to other circumstances beyond your control.
And, you know, this is just yet another thing kids have to think about if they're gay. Beyond family rejection, you know, is someone at your school just going to bully you, kill you, lead you to kill yourself? Parents in general should be a lot more aware of these situations. It's terrible that something like this has to be written.
I am absolutely certain that his mom is telling the truth and would not have cut him out of her life. I'm also absolutely certain that he honestly felt completely rejected by her. But I'm not really sure I understand the whole concept about a parent's dreams being shattered, even for a moment, because their kid is not heterosexual. It's easy for parents to throw that kind of stuff around, mine did, but I don't understand, what about my dreams? Or some other kid's? We're the ones dealing with not-being-heterosexual, not our parents, and believe me, I won't speak for everyone but I expected a fuck of a lot better out of my life.
My "dreams", whatever they were to begin with, were immediately reduced to "not pissing off my family too much," "never, ever leaving internet browser history open," "making it through high school alive", "making it through college alive," "not being fired for being gay", "not being stabbed, beaten, burned, cut into pieces, or otherwise maimed for being gay," and other such "dreams." If you can survive those, a lot of times that's a miracle in itself. So, from the outset, my dreams were gone. And then you hear that you're killing your parents' dreams, ruining everything they ever expected from you. You're shattering and destroying basically the last years of their life raising you, because they wanted, what? Something else? A better "dream"?
My dreams were shattered the moment I realized I liked guys more than girls. Then they were shattered again when I got paralyzed. Then they were shattered again when my family reacted the way they did. Then they were shattered again when a friend in high school rejected me and told people I'm into guys. So, I guess, maybe I'm wrong but from my point of view I've never been all that sympathetic to my parent's "dream" for me. This is what we get. I've moved on from being upset about something I was born with and have to live with forever and I'm just trying to live and be accepted for being a good person.
I mean, enjoy your life, enjoy your kids. They're what you get, and you may only have them for a short time.