My Family Part 2

You will probably want to check out the Part 1 entry here before reading this entry.

To understand myself and my relationship with my family, you need to keep in mind that I have a lot of conflicting emotions and thoughts with regards to them. Not all of it makes sense, but that is the reality of my life and head-space right now. I'm afraid that there will be a 3rd installment to this post. Not everything will become clear yet, however a fair warning: this post won't be very "the glass is half full".

If you've become a fan I've my blog, you know that in my teenage years I bottled up my feelings and thoughts into a deep part of my mind and threw over the mask of an average kid. I did this to hide any idea or even mere stereotypical suggestion that I was gay. Behind the the image, I was terrified, lonely and severely depressed; I suffered mentally. As a reaction to feeling the need to be on-guard all the time, I never really felt close to anyone. To express it in an alternative way: people believed I was their friend, when in reality I knew that I cared very little about them. My affection, friendships and enjoyment was all part of the act.

Emo? Yup, but also very appropriate

I had learned early-on that talking about people/things around you, whether true or false, creates the impression of closeness. Sharing something controversial, for example "ya Bob, Bobbet and Bobby all smoke weed" makes someone believe you have confidence and trust in them. Typically, they reciprocate the feeling back at you. A bonus is that it saves you from having to speak about yourself personally. Of course, I would talk about "my" feelings, but lies are better kept at a minimum in case their falseness comes back to bite you in the ass. (Kind of sounds like I'm a robot, right? Well, it's just an extreme form of scary,calculated thinking)

It's sad to say this but my family was not an exception to my "sociopathic" behavior. My family would pretty much never acknowledge gays as existing, but the rare times they did mention something it wasn't exactly positive: from the off comment that "they won't go to heaven" by my Dad, to my Mom being disgusted when the newscaster would say the word "gay", to even my uncle blaming "the faggots" for problems. This would serve as confirmation that they were, in a way like most people, direct threats to myself. I felt that I had to keep up the act for my parents' eyes. To them, I was just like either of my older brothers: good at school, went out at nights with friends, talked about my loves/hates... The weed example I mentioned earlier is one memory I have of a conversation between myself and my Mom. My parents (well, my Mom mostly - my Dad could care less, haha) liked hearing about my friends and gossip regarding other kids at my school. They felt close to me since I shared so much about my "real" life.

In the end, how can you possibly feel close to someone if you are afraid of yourself and afraid of how you will be treated by others? You can't. I was already terrified that my parents would abandon me (or worse) because I was gay. Add the masked identity and lying to the mix, and I just slowly pushed myself away from them. I used to love seeing my grandmother and spending time with my brothers, but I slowly became indifferent to it all. Spending "quality time" with a member of my family became a labored task of me having to keep up appearances. I just started to stop caring because I believed, or in my head I knew, that if they learned that I was gay, they would go against me in a second, regardless of us being family or not.

Now let's look in the present today: I'm 23 years old and they still don't know I'm gay. Since beginning my coming-out at the age of 18, I've become much more confident, accepting and true to myself and others. I try my best to not mask my feelings, reactions or affections (friendship or boyfriend) around those I know. And I have seriously lessened anything fake about myself in front of my family, but I'm just still not at that point yet of being completely open with them.

The years of building a wall between them and myself has made me feel apathetic at times. My oldest brother moved far away for work - I didn't really care. I didn't even really say goodbye. When the middle bother calls to talk, I become uninterested. I count the minutes until he decides he's finished asking me questions. I know he can tell I wan to go back to what I'm doing. I've even reasoned that since my Dad is helpless without my Mom, I want him to die first, otherwise my brothers will annoy me to help take care of him.

Don't worry, hope is not yet lost. I genuinely want them to know the real me and I sincerely want to care about them. My elaboration will however need to wait until my next post.