Joe | 20 | Manchester, England | Radio Producer
"It’s probably important to start all of this by saying that I’m happier now than I’ve ever been as a result of the events of the past few years." From a young age, the only time I ever heard about ‘gays’ was from the bigoted slurs of my uncle (related by marriage, thankfully) whenever there was a reference on TV or in the newspaper. When you’re so young, it doesn’t occur to you that the adults that you look up to could possibly be wrong about these things, so I suppose I just believed what he said as fact. The way he cursed ‘gays’ is something that has always stuck with me throughout growing up. We won’t dwell on that though, he’s been divorced and currently resides somewhere in Llandudno, Wales. If you’re ever there and happen to see him, throw glitter at him and chant the chorus of ‘born this way’ with an interpretive dance accompaniment. That’ll show him. Something that I also picked up on at a young age was the cliché, stereotypical examples of gay people that were presented to us all in the media. Nothing ever made me think I could be gay because I wasn’t anything like these people, so the thought never really crossed my mind. I just knew (or thought I knew) that it was bad to be ‘gay’ and I’d been given the impression that it was something that one would not wish to be. |
Something that still bothers me is the fact that a child so young is not to know that the media does what it needs to make a buck, and that not all gay people fit the narrow silhouette that they’d have us believe. I can feel myself wandering off on a rant like tangent so we’ll move on before I waffle! So, anyway, this all created a bunch of negative images of gay people in general based on the few I’d actually seen on telly. Children are supposed to be impressionable, how would they learn otherwise?
"Life was as wonderfully irritating and frustrating for me as it was for anyone else until I reached the interesting age of around 13 or 14. I did what all teenage boys do. I explored the Internet."
Without going into too much detail, the content that I was looking at became boring. As though the novelty of it had ‘worn off’ and I couldn’t explain why. It was like something was missing and I couldn’t put my finger on it. This would come in phases and I’d just deal with it as and when, growing ever more confused as to why I didn’t like what on my screen, or at least where my attention was.
I got to that age in school where people were talking more and more about sex. I can only put this down to me having subconscious doubts and wanting to prove something to myself (which sounds awful when I put it into words like that), but I slept with a girl from my school. I knew she liked me, and I was convinced that I liked her too. I remember afterwards having the lingering feeling of being completely deflated and feeling rubbish, and I didn’t know why. After about a week, it was something to brag to my mates about, and once more, any thoughts that I didn’t know how to address were suppressed. A string of ‘relationships’ continued on and off with the same deflated sensation as the outcome, but I did it just enough to keep myself convinced that I was okay. What I didn’t realise was that this was affecting me in ways that I couldn’t anticipate. College started and I never looked back. Off I went into the City Centre making a new group of friends, minus a few important pals. It was great! It was a completely different atmosphere from the testosterone driven, proverbial ‘dick measuring competition’ of High School. |
There was a friend I’d met there and gotten on famously with. One day when he told me about a girl that he liked and it felt like my stomach had physically dropped to the floor. Quite quickly, I announced that I needed to go home. On top of the fact that I was devastated he was after this girl, I was now struggling to deal with the racing thoughts as to why was I so bothered about it? The more I thought about it, I got lower and lower. I was desperately trying to deny to myself what I’d always tried hard to disprove. That gut feeling I’d put to the back of my mind - I felt like I was losing.
"Amongst pals in college, I quickly went from being a confident young lad, to being quiet and vacant, and people were noticing. I lost weight and I very nearly had to leave college as a result of my lack of focus or motivation. I was deeply unhappy and there was not a soul I could tell about it."
Not only could I not find the words to say how I felt, I didn’t even want to. I made myself ill with these recurring thoughts that couldn’t shake. I started employing little routines and rituals when performing certain tasks. I won’t go into too much detail but this became a big problem and was later diagnosed as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. If nothing else it was a distraction, which I was more than happy of at the time.
With this entire drama going on, the thought of a week off college being stuck with my thoughts did not bode well. Just before the half term of my second year, we were given the task to study a soap opera storyline that either ‘subverted or enforced a dominant representation of a particular character type’ (It sounds fancy but was an excuse to escape and watch telly that I was willing to take). Naturally, I used this as a green light to innocently explore the portrayal of a young gay lad in Emmerdale that I’d not heard much of before. What I expected was not what I got. He was ‘normal’. This was the first gay character I had found for realistic comparison to myself. I was hooked from the word go. I sat in my room, not putting my computer down. Before I knew it, I’d watched the storyline from start until the emotional climax. After the months of bottling up these feelings that I refused to deal with, something as trivial as a soap opera storyline was enough to crack me.
"I remember sitting in my room, replaying this one scene in particular, crying like I’ve never cried before. I literally couldn’t control myself." That was finally enough to make me see that however deep in this I was, I had to tell somebody though fear of what’d happen to me if I let myself carry on. So on November 4th, I spent the whole day playing out scenarios in my head about how I’d say it to my mum, without making too big a deal of it (which was never going to happen with my theatrical mother)… It was easier said than done. I sat there, white as a sheet with the full intention of telling her for hours, whilst we watched evening television. Just as I’d psyched myself up almost enough to tell her, she got up and said, “right, I’m off to bed”.
It was possibly the worst thing that could’ve happened at that point. All of this energy, stress and heart ache. What would I do now? I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to sleep. So, like a scene from a movie, I tried writing a letter but my bin soon became stacked with crumpled up failed drafts. The words simply failed me. Needless to say, I did not sleep well. I was so lost and I could think of nothing to do but crawl into my mum’s bed the next morning, wishing things away, as though I was a child again. She woke to me sniffling her rubbing my eyes and asked what was wrong. After pausing, I blurted out words before I’d even thought about them – “I just hate the thought of anybody being different around me." |
Which was true. It wasn’t being gay that bothered me, at all. It was how people would treat me as though I was any difference because of it. It was only once I’d already said it that I realised what I’d done. I’d started and there wasn’t a way back. She asked me what I was talking about, understandably. It wasn’t my most coherent of moments. I went on to just simply saying it. No letter, no big speech. I just said it. For about 30 seconds, she looked at me puzzled, as though she didn’t believe me. I’d had girlfriends and I didn’t act any differently to my straight mates. But she could see how torn up I was. So we went and sat in the kitchen and had a very lengthy chat about the whole thing, slowly. Talking about it was as new to me as it was to her. She was fantastic.
I’d always known my mum was very accepting and normal around the whole gay thing. She’d gone out of her way with all of the younger ones in our extended family to make sure we knew that being gay was nobody else’s business but your own, and it was completely okay. Whatever she did and said when I was younger, it was obviously good enough for me to muster up the courage to let her be the first person in my life to know, which is something I am proud of her for.
Without pressuring me, it was mum who urged me to talk to somebody about the ways in which I was making myself ill. So after talking to a doctor in depth, about what I was going through, it was decided that I was to start talking to somebody more senior and more specialised in the areas that I needed treatment. The stigma around mental health is something that I’m guilty of enforcing myself but through growing up and facing problems myself, I’ve learnt that it’s not okay to have that attitude. You wouldn’t suffer with a chest infection and not go to see a GP, so why would it be any different with mental health? You would not sit there and suffer.
For a long time after I’d told my mum, I didn’t tell anybody else. Although mum said it would be a good idea, I knew how emotionally taxing it was to tell her, the person I trusted most in the world.
"How could I even consider telling people whose reaction I couldn’t anticipate?! This is where RUComingOut came into the picture." I’d started following a few gay people on Twitter who I found funny and easy to relate to. I liked them because they were the type of people that I felt a lot more similar to and made me feel better about myself. One of the chaps I found as a result was @WayneDavid81. Coincidentally, Just days after I began following him, he announced on twitter about a project he was planning to launch called ‘RUComingOut’. Of course I was all over this like a tramp on chips, it was like he was speaking directly to me at that point in my life! The general response of people on the website was that it was easier to tell others once you’d delivered the initial blow (If you’ve just turned that line into smut, behave yourselves, this is an emotional tale). |
I went on to slowly tell my friends, one by one. Admittedly at first with the help of Gordon’s Gin and Asda’s Smart Price Vodka (uncle Gordon and Paint stripper to you and I), but they were right. It was a lot easier. It was only in university on a night out that (I thought) I got a negative reaction. My housemate had seen me holding a boy’s hand and confronted me about it. He marched me outside and I thought I was going to get a lecture. To quote him:
“Why would you not tell me?! Did you think I would be upset, My uncle is gay. Now buy me a beer and don’t kiss me”.
And with that, it was done, completely normal and classic behaviour, which is exactly what I needed to hear. Without knowing it, he did a lot of good for me that night. He showed me that the chances are, the people that know you well aren’t as narrow and basic to divorce themselves from you just because you’re gay.
With the encouragement from all of the important people in my life, there was only one more hurdle. Dad. I think a lot of young gay men have a big issue telling their dad for a few reasons. A big one for me was that I’m my dad’s only child so the grandchild issue (naively) quite upset me whenever I thought about it. I think there’s also the belief that things won’t be the same as they once were after telling one’s dad something like that but I had to do it. It wasn’t fair of me to keep it from him. So, once I was confident enough, I asked my mum to tell him. You might think this was a bit of a ‘cop out’ but my dad has never been one for openly speaking about issues. Though he is fantastic and understanding which pleases me, as it’s looking like I am heading in the exact direction he did in back in his golden days. Although I have better hair, the 70’s were bad for everyone. As anticipated, dad took a little while to adjust, as you would. He said he had no clue, which is what threw him the most.
“Why would you not tell me?! Did you think I would be upset, My uncle is gay. Now buy me a beer and don’t kiss me”.
And with that, it was done, completely normal and classic behaviour, which is exactly what I needed to hear. Without knowing it, he did a lot of good for me that night. He showed me that the chances are, the people that know you well aren’t as narrow and basic to divorce themselves from you just because you’re gay.
With the encouragement from all of the important people in my life, there was only one more hurdle. Dad. I think a lot of young gay men have a big issue telling their dad for a few reasons. A big one for me was that I’m my dad’s only child so the grandchild issue (naively) quite upset me whenever I thought about it. I think there’s also the belief that things won’t be the same as they once were after telling one’s dad something like that but I had to do it. It wasn’t fair of me to keep it from him. So, once I was confident enough, I asked my mum to tell him. You might think this was a bit of a ‘cop out’ but my dad has never been one for openly speaking about issues. Though he is fantastic and understanding which pleases me, as it’s looking like I am heading in the exact direction he did in back in his golden days. Although I have better hair, the 70’s were bad for everyone. As anticipated, dad took a little while to adjust, as you would. He said he had no clue, which is what threw him the most.
"BUT, after a two-year journey, it was done!"
Finally, with everyone who was important in my life aware and accepting, I could look back and smile. I owe a lot to RUComingOut. Not only did they help me make the transition from being trapped in my own head to being happy and confident about myself, but also, I met my lovely boyfriend as a result of the website! We are very happy together and owe a lot to Wayne. So for that, I thank you very much! Follow me on Twitter @JoeFlinders Joe's boyfriend Pete also wrote his coming out story for RUComingOut. You can read that here... |
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