UPDATED: General Troubles

[bear_cub1]

Hi. This is my first post here. I don't really know the best way to write this but here goes. I have troubles with social anxiety and depression and i'm also gay. I have had these 'problems' for a while and have gotten help over the years but nothings really worked a great deal. In the last year I have stoped all my meds,stoped counseling ect and i think i'm better off for it. I was feeling better but things happen and i'm back feeling the way I was. I have just been pushing my self to get out more, go more places and try to be happy. It's worked but with that has come problems. 

I don't have many friends and only one friend in town. We have been mates since high school and have started talking again. He has been great and I push my self a lot more to do stuff and he pushes my comfort zone and it's been good. We see each other maybe 2-3 times a week and some times even more. But there is a new problem that I knew would happen and that I tried to stop. I'm falling for him big time. 

I liked him at school all those years ago and when he left I cut off contact so I wouldn't punish myself. We weren't close mates but I still missed him and I thought that it was the right thing to do.After a few years we started talking again and started to hang out and that was a big step for me as I hadn't had friends in a few years. It was good but I soon felt these feelings for him again. I tried to stop them, time apart,trying not to think about it ect and it didn't work. I have liked him for so long so it's not a new thing. It's bad though because he is my only friend in town and he's a good mate and I hate that I have feelings for him. There is also mixed signals from him and I think he likes me back but is scared to say it. I have done this before in school where two guys liked me and I liked them back but no one said any thing. It wasn't till they come out that I knew they liked me back and that we could have been in a relationship. 

I feel bad that I like him but I always ask what if. What if he likes me back and no one acts on it and we both miss out. Or what if I do come out to him and he feels strange hanging out with me and I lose him as a mate and go back to how I was. And of course i'm scared that he will leak and tell some one else. 

I am kind of out but not to my family. I come out to a mate a while ago and it was so hard to do. It took a while to say it but when I did and he didn't care that I was gay,it was so good. The feeling of telling some one my secret was so amazing. But it really hit me hard that this is real. It truly didn't sink in that I was gay and what it would mean until I told him because it had all ways just been my secret.I have come out to a lot of people but no family yet. I just don't think they will like the idea as most of them are really anti gay. 

I really think my mates bi but i'm too scared to ask. Again what if. What if he feels bad about it and closes up about it, or what if he thinks i'm asking because I like him and that could also wreck our friendship.Our friendship is good and it's always one on one. We hang out,go for big drives and just do stuff together and it's been good. There is also signals there but I don't know if they are real or i'm just wanting him to like me so bad that I make them up or twist them to how I want it to be. 

I really want to come out to him because I feel like i'm just lying to him all the time and it's not the real me. I'm also scared that he won't like the gay me and that he will feel uncomfortable spending so much time together. It's a difficult thing to deal with and I feel really bad about the whole situation.

Any help would be appreciated. I'm starting counseling soon but thought I would try here as well. Thanks

[JessF]

Hello bear cub, firstly good on you for taking the initiative and going back to counseling. It must be so hard dealing with these feelings on your own.  Love and romantic feelings are so powerful, I can't imagine what it must be like to have to keep all of that bottled up. 

One positive thing to start with: you told a friend and the world didn't end. That is great news.  I don't know how old you are, but you mention leaving high school so you are probably in your early twenties perhaps?  Are you at university at all?

The reason I ask is, now would be a good time to start expanding your circle of friends. If you are on campus then there will probably be some gay social groups you could join.  This isn't to say that you should only have friends who are gay, but even if it's just a coffee night once a week or something similar, to be able to go to an event where you don't feel the pressure to be 'keeping a secret' I imagine will be very liberating for you. It will also take the pressure off feeling like the mate you are falling in love with is the only connection you have in the whole world.

There's no way of knowing how the dice will roll. Gay or not, it's always a risk when we have someone as a friend and we tell them we like them more than just as a friend. It could change the friendship. This is something that will happen to you throughout life, but it feels very intense for you now because of everything else going on around you, not being out to family, etc.

It sounds to me like you have some safety concerns around coming out, like worrying if your mate will tell other people if things don't work out.  That's why I think it's important that you surround yourself with good support before taking the plunge.  Enjoy your friendship for what it is right now, but don't let it be your whole life, and don't trick yourself into thinking that this is the only person you will ever have feelings for.  Let things develop at a natural pace.

I hope this is of some use to you, please don't feel bad about the situation you are in, or blame yourself.  Our ability to love others and have feelings for them is a wonderful part of being alive, even though sometimes it hurts like hell.  But you are not alone bear cub.

[bear_cub1]

Thanks for your reply. Yes i'm in my early 20's and no uni yet. I would like to go but I have no self confidence or money and an anxiety disorder. But yes i'm trying to expand my circle or friends. It's just very hard to meet people in a small town and here is seems like there isn't many activity's to choose from.

I went to my mates house tonight and it was nice to hang out. It's still very new to me but it was fun. I really think that he knows i'm gay but isn't quite sure yet. I'm scared that if I do confirm his suspicions that things will change between us. He knows all my family pretty well and I fear that he might tell them or just slip up one day and accidentally spill. 

I don't think my mum would care but like every mum she wants me to grow up, have a gf, get married, have children and I don't want to wreck that for her. It's just a hard thing to judge. I know that we grew up being told that gay people are bad and that most "gay" things where screened out of the house but that was nearly all my dads doing. 

I know the rest of my family will hate the idea. Yes some of my extended family will be ok with it but I just know my immediate family hate the idea. They have picked up that i'm gay before but I all ways manage to through them off. I'm not the stereotypical gay guy but being my age and not having a gf,female friends ect just sends off a big red flag. I think they know but like my mate they are un sure and I think once I confirm it, then it will be bad. Right now it's just a thought to them and not a real thing if that makes sense. 

It's just a dificalt thing to go though all the time and also to guess what peoples reactions will be like. I have told a lot of friends on social media and they have all been very supportive. It doesn't really come up in conversation any more but they all don't mind 🙂 

It still anoys me to a point that I have to come out to any one. Like they don't come out to me and tell me they are straight. I really hope for a world where you can just love who ever you want in reason and not be judged by it. I know that it will never happen though. It seems like coming out in my town is this massive news story and every one talks about it. I don't really know of many gay people at all. I know that it's always big news and people talk about it when some one does come out though and I would really like to avoid that. 

I would like to only tell a select amount of people and that's what I have been doing so far. It's all ways hard to judge how people will respond to the news. Some people I have told are kinda shocked by it and don't really know how to respond. 

Also no news from when counseling will start. It's definitely in the process though but things like this take time to set up with so much paper work.I think I would benefit more from counseling this time so i'm keen to start. I have a new problem though.Should I get a male or female councilor? I think that I will talk better with a guy and feel more comfortable but I don't want any "feelings" to get in the way. So I think that a female will be best in that respect but I wouldn't feel comfortable with her and I think feeling comfortable and being able to talk to them is what it's all about.

I will just keep working on things and try to find a way to come out to my friend. I really want to tell him because it's just torcher trying to analyse my feelings and what his response will be. I get all keen to tell him and then I back out or it just feels like a bad time and then I feel bad again that I didn't tell him. I have all ways come out to people in messages because the anxiety is limited and I feel more comfortable but I really want to try to come out to him in person. It's scary but it needs to be done so that I stop guessing what will happen if I do tell him. 

Thanks for your response 🙂

[Scotty2013]

Hi bear_cub you said it.." It still anoys me to a point that I have to come out to any one. Like they don't come out to me and tell me they are straight. I really hope for a world where you can just love who ever you want in reason and not be judged by it."

Does the topics of dating every come in conversation?, curious if so how do you respond.  There is no easy way to do it, if we break it down most of it is really just fear of others response/acceptance. JessF has a good point, expanding your network of friends, i think that's a good idea, right now it would seem magnified due to just having him as a friend. Try to remember all these "What If's you think are just that, 9/10 we are wrong on what we think the reaction might be. Let's hope one day most peoples reactions will be just so what your 'gay'..cool, I thought it was something more lol..Bye for now.

[bear_cub1]

Hi all. I haven't posted here in a very long time. Just an update and maybe some lessons for others to learn.

So back to where I left off. Will try to keep this as quick as possible but it's a long story. So my 'best friend' drama went on for a while and I couldn't take it any more. The feelings I had for him were lust if any thing. I made a plan way back then about how to go about this whole coming out process. So I told my little brother first thinking that if my mate didn't like me coming out and spilt every thing then I at least got in first.

I told my brother on a long car trip and it sorta just happened. He asked me and i said yeah. We talked for a bit and he didn't like it but managed to keep cool about it. He kinda knew and he calls them 'red flags'. Things that I just did as a kid which i felt was normal but now i find out it really wasn't. I was a very out door rough kinda kid but still liked toy kitchen sets and arts and crafts, bit of acting and singing over football and just having a strange interest.

So then I told my mate. I have a habit of trapping people in cars and coming out to them, they can't run from the convo that way tho 😕 But we were talking about this girl we were both friends with and that she liked me a lot. Long story short he said why don't you like her, and i just said... Cause she has a vagina lol -_- He went, oh.... OHHHH! wow ok. And then that started a massive talk. It was ok. I said at one point that I liked him a lot and that was awkward. He didn't like me back but that's ok... it happens. It really did rock or friendship around tho and caused some problems.We over come them and are still good friends.

The next part of this story is my "coming out" which wasn't the fairy tail.. mum,dad, i'm gay... and then we all hug it out. Things normally never work out like that.

[justinok]

Hey mate, I'm really sorry I missed your story first time round. It looks like I joined this forum maybe a month after you first posted. Really cool you've come back a couple of years on to tell us the next chapter. You sound like you're a lot more confident and happy than you were back then, lots of water under the bridge, hey? Hope you'll come back and post what happened with your parents, that didn't work out so well for me either but hope it wasn't too bad for you.

[Gruffudd]

Hi there,

Thanks for returning and the update. I like that strategy of catching people in a car, seems to work. So I'm guessing it was awkward with the parents. You are right, it doesn't always have the fairytale ending. Like Justin said, it seems like things have gotten better, you are happier and confident - I like that.

Rob.

[Paul]

Hey bear_cub - so far so good (after a bit of work on your friendship)

I wonder how you're feeling at the moment - some things exhaust me to the point of just being a bit empty for a while.

How are you feeling and what's next for you?

Paul

[bear_cub1]

Hi all. continuing on from the last post i made. So after all that drama I felt more comfortable with my sexuality but still very much in the closet. So my coming out was an explosion of events that caused lots of problems. To keep things short as possible. I met this guy and started dating long distance,trouble of a small homophobic town. It was odd for me to stay over night some where and when I got home my mum asked a bunch of questions about where I was. It felt like she knew something and wasn't just speculating. I managed to dodge it all.

That night my brother called me and was very angry. He said that mum had called him and that he didn't want to hear about any thing of my gay life and that she asked him and his gf where i was. I had told his gf where i was going and she just told them i was fine. He was very angry and just blurted out 'mum knows,she read your facebook!!' And hung up.

Of course i was defecating bricks at this point, he wouldn't answer the phone etc so i drove to see him the next day to get the full story. I talked to his gf and she said that yeah she read it and told them both while on a walk oneday. So I checked the story with my brother and he wouldn't say much about it but confirmed it all.

So I had a long drive home and so many thoughts going though my head. I confronted my mum and asked her if she had read my facebook. She said no and i asked several times till i lost it in the biggest way i ever had and started a good 6-7 hour argument about the whole thing. Long story short she said she had seen one message to my friend talking about my 'mate' and that's all. There was no way that it was just one message. I later figured out her tablet was saving passwords and the one time i logged in to it, she had copied it and would log in for look round. So I asked her if she had told any one and she said no. I guessed that she would have and said that some one told me you did and before you go off make sure it's the right person. So she told me who and that made me really upset.

So that Christmas I heard the extended family having a big old chat about me and my then bf and just some really nasty rumours so obviously they had been told as well. The whole family got split into groups. Some supportive, some who would act like they were but spread stuff round,others who hated me for it etc. After this all happened things were even worse at home and it was impacting my relationship a huge deal.

[bear_cub1]

Continued : I ended up going to help my bf of sorts move over the weekend. The next day I was planning to go back home but insted I got a call from my mum saying that I wasn't allowed to come home that day and if i did the police would be called and that she had arranged for me to stay at my uncles because he was away. There was many reasons why, maybe some I don't know of but she felt that was the right thing to do.

So that was a bit of a shock and put even more stress on me and my relationship and three days later it ended. It honestly felt like my life was over. And to be honest it was. I stayed in that house for a week and just cried and I can't even remember if I ate or what happened. After a good week I was still scared being in a big city but decided that I would prove every one wrong and get my poop in a group and be happy for once.
I had my cousins up the road so they were a huge help. I started just driving around at night when I felt most comfortable and started finding my way around, getting confidence and trying to feel better. I end up going further each time, then during the day and after a week or two was feeling a lot better. I end up moving out when things started to get bad when my uncle would come back and rushed into getting a share house and started rebuilding my life. It wasn't easy at all and that struggle is still on going but i'm a lot better off where I am now.

In the last year I have got a lot more comfortable with my sexuality and been my true self. Is said that my life was over because it was. That sad hell I lived in died. It was a brand new start and I took advantage of that. This last year has been crazy. I was happy in my house, I made a couple of new friends,met the most amazing guy whos smart and funny and amazing and we are great together. I got a part time job, we moved out into our own place and I ended my job and started my own small business. We have a bunch of great friends and life's been a lot better.I'm more social and over all feel much better.I still I have a lot of problems and I think most of that is from my past, still have really bad days and in contrast are much worse because I know i'm better then being sad all day and staying in bed. Still have anxiety and panic attacks,feeling awkward in social situations etc but overall my lifes gotten drastically better. I will add more to this another time. Thanks for your comments