Regret coming out

[Anonymous]

I'm a twenty-five year old gay woman and sometimes (increasingly often) feel more and more regretful for ever having come out at all. Coming out as a teenager cost me my relationship with my parents, extended family, and many friends from growing up because of how prejudiced people were. I'm still in contact with some of these people (parents and a few old friends) but the relationships are fundamentally worse and weaker than they were pre-coming out, despite it being a decade later. I was treated like a pariah and essentially terrorized (through both social and religious means) in the hopes that it would turn me straight, but all it did was cause me a lot of pain and trauma. I've since attended and graduated from college and moved to a new city, but still feel like coming out hasn't exactly brought me anywhere near as much happiness as it has pain.

I have some accepting friends but still find coming out a burden because I feel like people are often subtly prejudiced and that I don't get treated equally after coming out, I become "a gay person" (e.g. I get stereotyped, straight girls no longer fully treat me as "one of the girls," girls are afraid of me checking them out). I find this particularly difficult as a reasonably feminine woman who was socialized as a girl and values female friendship and socialization. On top of this, I feel like my dating prospects are nowhere near as good in my current city as they would be if I was straight based on what my dating pool looks like vs. what it is for my friends. I find this all extremely difficult to deal with, especially in light of living in an era where people seem to think that coming out never goes badly, everyone is accepting, that if you're not openly gay in all situations while fitting a certain aesthetic you're not "your authentic self," and that "nobody cares anymore." I'm kind of at a loss for what to do. I feel like I haven't had any of the positive, heartwarming coming out experiences that so many people view as an expectation, it hasn't all magically worked out for me, I've never found that "everyone was right there with me all along" while I was afraid of nothing. Instead, I've experienced damage to both my life and psychological state. I wouldn't date a guy without at the minimum disclosing that I'm gay and probably can't give him everything he's looking for, but I'm starting to feel hopeless after years of less than fantastic experiences identifying as gay.

[Anonymous]

Talk to a therapist.

[Anonymous]

This is life. It's not a feel-good movie, and you're at the age where it's just dawning on you, and it hurts. Support groups might help.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry you feel this way, OP.

This is why I hate the current coverage of transgenderism. The media makes it seems like so many people are coming out and modifying themselves, that everyone is going to welcome them with open arms, etc. Perhaps as it did with homosexuals in the past - I wasn't living in this country at that time so I don't know.

I never imagined that coming out would lead to an easy life. Easier than the previous life? Perhaps if the person in question has been suffering greatly from hiding his or her identity, but not necessarily.

I'm going to say something that's perhaps not true and terribly ignorant, so I apologize in advance: I get the feeling that with increasing media coverage, teens who are feeling isolated may be encouraged to "come out" as X, Y, Z, without actually having suffered from a gender identity crisis in the past (an identity crisis, certainly, but not particularly gender-specific), and that this trend catches them at an age when they are taken seriously but are not self-knowledgeable enough to really weigh the consequences of their decision.

There is so much fluidity in identifying oneself. I wish we could do away with labels and coming out and all the big hoopla and just live our lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm sorry you feel this way, OP.

This is why I hate the current coverage of transgenderism. The media makes it seems like so many people are coming out and modifying themselves, that everyone is going to welcome them with open arms, etc. Perhaps as it did with homosexuals in the past - I wasn't living in this country at that time so I don't know.

I never imagined that coming out would lead to an easy life. Easier than the previous life? Perhaps if the person in question has been suffering greatly from hiding his or her identity, but not necessarily.

I'm going to say something that's perhaps not true and terribly ignorant, so I apologize in advance: I get the feeling that with increasing media coverage, teens who are feeling isolated may be encouraged to "come out" as X, Y, Z, without actually having suffered from a gender identity crisis in the past (an identity crisis, certainly, but not particularly gender-specific), and that this trend catches them at an age when they are taken seriously but are not self-knowledgeable enough to really weigh the consequences of their decision.

There is so much fluidity in identifying oneself. I wish we could do away with labels and coming out and all the big hoopla and just live our lives.

Thank you, PP. I absolutely can't and don't want to speak for everyone, but I think that the media overstates a lot of the coming out "success stories," whether that happens to be gay/bi/trans. I especially feel this way when comparing these media stories with actual statistics on LGBT youth bulling rates and health outcomes (read: pretty terrible). I also see myself in your statement about kids coming out at an age where they're taken seriously but can't always weigh the consequences of their decision. When I came out, being gay was somewhat accepted (it was only the 2000s lol) but the prevailing narrative at the time from a lot of media sources was that people who love you will come around, realize you're the same person you always were, and if not, you don't need them. I had no reason to expect that things would go as badly or have as longstanding an effect on my life as they actually did.

[Anonymous]

Do you live in a relatively large city? I think that's the first step to success as a queer adult. It sounds like you've been surrounded by dolts up to this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you live in a relatively large city? I think that's the first step to success as a queer adult. It sounds like you've been surrounded by dolts up to this point.

I actually do live in a large city. I feel like some of the issues I mentioned with micro level prejudices can actually happen anywhere and that I might be more sensitive to them because of my past experiences and because I don't feel like I particularly belong in the LGBT community (in my city it's extremely gay male centric).

[Anonymous]

I think part of it is getting older and not caring or being apologetic about who I am. I came out 25y ago and the first 5-10 years were rough. I felt exposed, judged, faulty, and hurt. My parents weren't great, my friends thought it was a funny joke, and I wasn't out to my co-workers and felt like I was always lying by omission. There was a LOT of internalized homophobia on my part. But gradually (and after therapy) I realized I wasn't faulty and by and large my friends weren't judging me or thought of me as a joke - they just didn't know what to do and defaulted to humor and sarcasm.

And of course your dating pool isn't as big as if you were straight (there are far fewer lesbians than heterosexual men.) But that doesn't mean you can't find your person out there. You have to put yourself out there where other lesbians will be - social events/volunteer events/online. You are young. I didn't meet my soulmate until I was in my early 30s and now we have 2 kids, a house in the burbs, and great friends (99% of whom are straight.) Being a lesbian is one thing about me - but certainly not the defining characteristic.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think part of it is getting older and not caring or being apologetic about who I am. I came out 25y ago and the first 5-10 years were rough. I felt exposed, judged, faulty, and hurt. My parents weren't great, my friends thought it was a funny joke, and I wasn't out to my co-workers and felt like I was always lying by omission. There was a LOT of internalized homophobia on my part. But gradually (and after therapy) I realized I wasn't faulty and by and large my friends weren't judging me or thought of me as a joke - they just didn't know what to do and defaulted to humor and sarcasm.

And of course your dating pool isn't as big as if you were straight (there are far fewer lesbians than heterosexual men.) But that doesn't mean you can't find your person out there. You have to put yourself out there where other lesbians will be - social events/volunteer events/online. You are young. I didn't meet my soulmate until I was in my early 30s and now we have 2 kids, a house in the burbs, and great friends (99% of whom are straight.) Being a lesbian is one thing about me - but certainly not the defining characteristic.

Good luck!

Thank you for the kind and thoughtful response, PP.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry you're going through this, OP.

[Anonymous]

Some tough love here. You need to take a deep look at yourself. It's not coming out that is your problem. Being gay has some challenges, but in a large city in 2017 if you aren't happy it isn't because you came out; it's something else and you a redirecting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some tough love here. You need to take a deep look at yourself. It's not coming out that is your problem. Being gay has some challenges, but in a large city in 2017 if you aren't happy it isn't because you came out; it's something else and you a redirecting.

Or maybe I'm sick of having damaged relationships with my family, relatives, and people I was friends with growing up who never came around. Maybe I'm sick of often dealing with microaggressions and subtle stereotyping after thinking "maybe it'll be different this time." Maybe I'm sick of having a lackluster dating pool in a big but not NYC or San Fran level city where the entire gay scene revolves around men. Maybe I'm sick of feeling like coming out was all for nothing in a lot of my experiences that people like to pretend don't happen anymore or haven't since the 1950s. Things may be better now, but coming out certainly hasn't overwhelmingly brought me joy and I've basically hit a wall where I just avoid doing it now. I could ramble for ages (I promise I'm not always such a barrel of laughs ) but ultimately I feel like I had a lot of highly damaging and frankly abusive coming out experiences in my youth, still find that people aren't perfect, and in many ways feel like there just isn't a place for me in today's LGBT community where everyone seems to have accepting parents and their own expectations for what you should be like if you're gay.

[Anonymous]

Do you have any lesbian friends, OP? Sounds like that would help. It can be hard to find other lesbians but I'd bet that, despite how you describe the male-centric local scene, there are other lesbians out there if you are in a reasonably sized city. Look on Meetup or whatever. Therapist can help provide support in the meantime. Just sounds like you could use more connections with other (gay) people. And yes, dating pool for lesbians can be tough, so focus on friend pool for now maybe. GL!

[Anonymous]

Is there a UU church in your city? They are very open and accepting and just might be a nice additional place for you to spend time.

[Anonymous]

I live in San Francisco. My dentist is gay. My DD's elementary school principal was gay and her middle school assistant principal was gay. My boss is gay. One of my closest friends from work is gay. The point is, there are a lot of gay people in my world, and it's a non-issue. I am guessing you are from somewhere bible-belty or small-town-ish. If being assertively gay is important to you, then you need to move to a big city (NY, LA, SF, PDX, etc.) that is known for being LGBT friendly. If you want to just be able to drop "my girlfriend and I saw Hamilton this weekend and loved it" into casual conversation, then you need to learn to find the signs of open-minded people, jobs, communities, etc. and go to those people/places. Hang in there.