Coming out wasn’t really an issue when I was young. I knew the repercussions and everything would be two times more difficult as it is. When I was in primary school, most of my friends were girls, I was academically gifted, and such a klutz in sports. Naturally, all the guys teased me and called me names, which prompted me to take martial arts. I was never comfortable with being gay back then, because even my dad was controlling me and telling me not to have too many friends who are girls, or never watch “girly-shows”.

In high school, I transferred to a new school, so it was kind of a fresh slate. In this new environment, I never verbally said I was gay, but I was assuming that everyone knew, because I thought actions speak louder than words. Apparently, not. It wasn’t also the right time to come out to my parents because we had other trust issues with my family.

In college, I vowed to be clear about it from the get go and told my classmates whenever they asked or the topic of love comes into the conversation. I have been met with not-so-positive remarks here and there, but never really experienced extreme bullying. Probably because, I also made it clear that I won’t tolerate those kinds of actions and I can kick people’s butt if I have to. That sort of served as a deterrent to would-be bullies.

However, one of the more excruciatingly painful experiences I had was when I lost one friend because he kept on insisting that I attend Christian fellowships, that in summary, sort-of evangelizes you to pray the gay away. He said that there are a lot of ex gay Christians and they can help me realize that I can choose to be straight.

In contrast, the person who brought me closest to God that time, was another friend who’s part of the same group. He said, that he believes in a personal relationship with God through prayers and that he taught me that the way to get direction in life is to have this relationship with God. In the end, when he found out I was gay, he said, “I choose to accept you as a person, so while I don’t like what you do in the privacy of your own bed”

In terms of family, I told myself, that I’ll officially tell them when I’m already financially independent, so that whatever happens, I can support myself. So until now, I haven’t verbalized it to them, although I think they know. And frankly, nowadays, I don’t see the point of telling them, mostly because nobody comes out if they’re straight, so why do I have to tell them I’m gay. They’ll just know if/when they meet my boyfriend. Lastly, I think it would be hypocritical of them to hate me because they were the ones who helped my aunt accept her gay son.

Manila

 

I began attending college. It was a new world for me. I moved to a city. It had sidewalks, and stoplights, and restaurants, and bars. There were also high school friends in very close proximity. I had an abundance of new found freedoms, but I still felt trapped. In 1994, we hadn’t started using the internet. I didn’t know how to find other gay men. I had waited for so long to live my life, but now I didn’t know how. Desperate for friends, I needed to rely on the familiar faces of my past. My friends from high school became my early friends from college.

I became depressed that I may never escape my life in the closet. I discovered an on-campus psychiatric counseling center, and scheduled a session. During my session, I spent fifty minutes dancing around the issue. In the last five minutes of my session I said something out loud that I had never spoken to another human being, “I’m gay.” I know it sounds cliché, but it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of me. I knew I was gay, but to be able to announce it to another person was a huge step in the right direction.

Over the next couple of years, I came out to my two best friends. As my confidence grew, I made it out to a gay bar. I met a fantastic guy who liked me, and developed my first true-love. I began to make a few gay friends, and soon enough my life as a gay man was slowly evolving. For me, the coming-out process was gradual. I never made a huge declaration to the world. Instead, it happened person-by-person over the course of many, many years. I managed to live a double-life: my gay life and my family life. There was no doubt which one I preferred.

When it comes to relationships and dating, knowledge and experience go a long way. For many, these lessons are learned in high school. As a newly comfortable twenty-something gay man, I was far behind the learning curve. I felt like a 15-year old living in a much older body. Like a kid in a brand new school, I was scared to approach others. I desperately wanted to fit-in, but I was also terrified of rejection. As I began to network with other gays, I felt a compulsion to lie about my upbringing. I mean, who would want to date a poor kid with a seriously screwed up childhood?

The ruse began, and I became a master of lies. My father owned a furniture store. My mother was an accountant. We lived in a two-story brick house in the center of our town. Both of my parents were college-educated. Some of my stories from the past were true, but I often embellished them with phrases like “ran upstairs” or “at our beach cottage”. I felt like these twists further substantiated my lies. Over the course of a couple of decades, I began to believe them myself.

Eventually I graduated from college. I relied heavily on student loans and scholarships. It was a point of pride for my family. My dad and oldest brother were actually high school dropouts. My mother and four other siblings weren’t educated beyond high school. At my college graduation, I carefully maneuvered keeping my family and friends away from one another. It was not an easy task. My family was aware of these happenings, and amongst them I developed a reputation as a phony snob. Nevertheless, they couldn’t be prouder of me… and I could not be more ashamed of them.

I began a professional career, learned how to be an adult, and eventually found the love of my life. During this time, I had written off much of my family completely. I maintained a telephone relationship with both parents and two of my siblings. I went home on holidays, but even then my attendance was far from perfect. My relationship with my father had changed greatly since childhood. As an old man, he became regretful of his actions. He made it known that he respected my accomplishments, and often told me that he was incredibly proud of what I had done with my life. I, in turn, felt similarly about him. He had grown into a better man, and as I aged I also became more compassionate of what it must have been like for him to have life dreams that didn’t meet actualization.

In 2010, my father passed away. He died in a hospital room surrounded by mother, four of my five siblings, and myself. There are particular things that a man will remember throughout his life. One of mine will be the look of joy my father had when he realized that I had traveled 3,000 miles to be by his side. That look melted away any rage or hostility that I could ever have for a man that I vowed to hate for an eternity.

It took me over seven years before I came clean to my husband about my upbringing. When I finally told him the truth, he thought I was telling a very sick joke. It wasn’t until he realized that I was actually crying that he became compassionate. Although I felt his delay was hurtful, perhaps it was a true testament to how well I had learned to lie. His reaction was not one of pity or judgment, but sheer amazement that I survived such an ordeal with so few emotional problems. For me, the thing that kept me hanging on was a hope for a better future. I empowered myself to make that future happen.

When I was asked to write my coming-out story, I knew that my story wasn’t a single event. It was truly an evolution. Learning to be comfortable with who I truly am has been a process that stretched well beyond my sexuality. It’s been a difficult path. First, there was fear. This emotion was followed by grief, and then rage. I turned my rage into motivation, but not even my success could cure me. In the end, it was compassion, forgiveness, and honesty that set me free. I am proudly a gay man, but I am also proudly a survivor of child abuse. Best of all at 38 years old, I am finally happy to be myself.

North Carolina

Shortly after this incident, I began to realize that I was attracted sexually to men. It was something that I realized almost immediately once puberty hit. I hoped that I was just entering a phase. At the age of 12, I believed that my abusive father was to blame for this affliction. I thought that I was just desperate for the affection of another man. My initial reaction was to deny the possibility that I was permanently homosexual, and hope that the attraction passed. As the years went on, my efforts to have sexual attraction toward women continued to fail.

By the age of 15, I began to realize that I was gay. It was something that would never change about me. Being gay in my hometown was unacceptable. It would make me a social pariah. My mother was deeply religious. If she learned of my homosexuality, it would emotionally devastate her. My father was not religious, but he would blame my mother for turning me gay. I genuinely worried that if my father learned that I was gay, he would kill both me and my mother. There was only one real solution for me. I needed to pretend to be someone that I wasn’t in order to survive.

By this point in my life, I had already become a young master of deception. I maintained a sense of normalcy amongst my teachers and peers, despite the turmoil at home. On Monday mornings, I was ready to start my week. It was the weekends I dreaded. I played the role of a respectable kid whose parents were intelligent and classy. No one in my school knew any differently. I poured everything I had into school and extra-curricular activities. I had to escape my home life, and I knew that my education would be my transportation out.

As I continued my ruse, I became increasingly embarrassed by my family and roots. I rebelled against any activity that reminded me of them. My dad and older brothers were hunters; I got involved in animal rights. My siblings listened to country music; I listened to modern rock. My peers used words like “ain’t” and “y’all”; I began focusing on speaking eloquently with no southern accent. By the age of 16, I began working part-time. I bought a car. I stopped attending church. I made excuses to avoid any activity that involved my family. I may have physically lived with them, but I could not have been less emotionally attached to them.

My senior year in high school was my most emotionally difficult time. Over the years, the violence at home had improved. I was growing bigger and stronger, and my dad had become older. He occasionally had flashes of a poor temper, but violent outbursts happened more sporadically. Nevertheless, I hated my parents. I believed that the existence that they had provided for me was sub-standard. My father was emotionally disturbed, and my mother allowed it all to happen. I began saving money for my own apartment as soon as I became 18 years old that November. Despite my elaborate plans, there were no apartments to be had in our rural area. I counted down the days until I could go to college, and leave them behind.

In addition to my resentment at home, my fellow classmates had begun to have sex. I was desperate to maintain my cover as a straight man, so I began dating a girl. I sensed that she really cared for me, and wanted to be a part of my life. I could not love her in return, but I strung her along. It was the first time in my life that I had to be emotionally cruel to someone. I hated myself for using her.

What is your earliest memory? This is a question that I have avoided answering honestly for decades. Quite frankly, the truthful answer has terrified me greater than anything that I’ve ever encountered. If I answer it honestly, I fear that I will become an outcast. I find myself afraid that every time my friends and loved ones look me in the eyes, I will witness their looks of pity and judgment. I have spent 37 years building a persona. Desperately, I have strived to be so much more than my earliest memory. I have devoted my entire life to not being defined by that moment, and the other distressing moments that would soon follow.

So, what is your earliest memory? The majority of people would probably be uncertain. For some, it’s when their mom left their side on the first day of kindergarten. For others, it’s a trip to Disney World. A friend once told me that his earliest memory was when he had the flu, and his mother held his head in her lap and told him that everything would be OK. His story’s sweetness warmed my heart. I stole it, and imposed it on the illusion of my perfect childhood that I sold to others.

I am a con-man. My entire childhood as anyone knows it) is entirely fictional. Over the years the lies have become so great, that the only way to maintain them was to shut people out of my life who knew the truth. Like every con-man, you must stay on the move before others are able to find discrepancies in your story and become curious. It is time for me to come out of the closet. Entirely out of the closet. I shall remove the delicate cloak painted with smiles and sunshine to reveal the scars and wrinkles underneath. These imperfections I must proudly display and possess, because they are me. This is my path to freedom from the burden of lies that have consumed me. This is my truth.

My earliest memory happened on a weekday. I was four years old; playing on the kitchen floor underneath the table next to our living room. My mother worked rapidly in the kitchen on our family’s dinner. My two older sisters played in their bedroom, which adjoined on the opposite side of the living room. Soon, I heard the sound of my father’s car pulling into our gravel driveway. The ritual of sounds that followed was predictable. I heard the door of his car slam, then the familiar stomps up the three steps leading to our front door.

My memory fails me as to how the next few minutes played out. It is this lapse in my attention span that has troubled me most as an adult. I revisit these moments often. “Was I being too loud?” I don’t remember what toys I was playing with at the time. I had a wide-selection of Hot Wheels cars and Star Wars action figures; but I often liked to play with my sister’s dolls. “Could my selection of dolls have sparked my father’s anger? Had my childhood neediness distracted my mother from preparing dinner?” I want to blame myself.

I sensed that my father’s tone was becoming hostile toward my mother. “I burned it, and had to start over”, my mother exclaimed in her defense. My father was upset that dinner was not ready when he arrived home from work. My mother’s voice became increasingly distraught, as she begged him for a few more minutes of patience. Like a flash of lightning, my father began throwing plates at her. As they shattered around me, my oldest sister grabbed me from the floor and dragged me into the corner of the living room where we all cowered on the sofa in silence. He began punching my mother, while screaming obscenities at her incompetence and failure as a human being. When she retaliated with threats to leave, he grabbed a handful of her hair and led her outside. He shoved her down the steps of our mobile home, as my sisters and I cautiously followed far behind. He then dragged her by the head to the car, and began slamming her head repeatedly into the car door. He shouted, “If you want to fucking leave, then leave!”

She stayed. She also finished dinner, which my father refused to eat.

We were poor. We lived in a mobile home. It was surrounded by forest and swamp land. The closest town was four miles east. It was a sleepy, southern community filled with churches. Churches were like tribes. Everyone knew everyone else in town, and which church they belonged. Our town had a school, a post office, a gas station, and a small grocer. The wealthiest people in our town lived in two-story houses and had cement driveways. These luxuries symbolized prominence in our neck of the woods. My mother forced me and my sisters to wake up and get ready on Sunday mornings, to go to our Baptist Church. My father would not join us. As a young child, I used to pray that my father would go away. Year after year, my prayers went unanswered. Eventually, I began to suspect the entire church was a sham.

The violence continued mercilessly. At times, it was directed toward me. Most times, it was directed toward my mother. By the age of 11, it began to escalate. My mother had asked our church’s reverend if she could have a key to the church. In a town of a few hundred people, there were very few options for a battered wife. I remember a Saturday night sitting on the floor of our church’s bathroom, helping her apply bandages from the first-aid kit that we found in the medicine cabinet. By dawn, we had to return home. We couldn’t let the church’s other parishioners know what had happened.

On a summer evening in 1987, the violence peaked. I was in my bedroom, and heard voices beginning to escalate. My mother had become hardened to the violence, and her composure made the situation more volatile. I sat frozen in my bedroom listening to every word. As tensions escalated, my father screamed to my mother that he was going to “blow her fucking head off.” “I hate you, and I hate that fucking son”, he proclaimed. He had never voiced that he hated me before, but I had known it to be fact for many years. It stung, but the feeling was mutual. I cautiously opened my bedroom window and climbed outside. My initial thought was that I would just run away. Slowly I crept around to the back yard, where I could witness the assault through the windows. It was there that I found my father pointing a gun to my mother’s head. As he berated her, she pleaded “Please, just let us go.” Every second passed in slow motion. I felt my heart racing in my chest. I wondered how I could ever survive if he pulled that trigger. It was difficult to breathe. My entire universe was collapsing around me. And in this anguish-filled moment, the gun begins to lower. I remember hoping that he would kill himself. My mother slowly made her way to the back door. She was surprised to find me outside waiting for her. We ran to the car, and drove off to out hiding place at the church. We spent the entire night looking for approaching headlights through the stained glass windows. Fortunately, they never came.