Internal homophobia and its consequences

[BenL]

As promised, I thought this topic could use some self-disclosure and a good airing.

I was raised in a Roman Catholic household, which wasn't virulently homophobic, because the society of the 1950s and early 1960s was homophobic enough that my parents didn't need to keep reminding me that I shouldn't do stuff with other boys or men.

I knew for sure by the age of 11 that I was attracted to other boys and not to girls. I did things with some of my friends and then felt enormous, almost debilitating, guilt afterward. Depression was my constant companion. Even self-loathing doesn't begin to describe how I felt about myself.

I prayed daily for God to take away this attraction, telling him frankly how much I didn't want to be that way. I read the verse from St. Paul saying that God would never send us a burden we couldn't bear, and I believed it. But no matter how much I prayed, I found myself and my teenage hormones lusting after males.

So I did what many a good Catholic boy would do. I entered religious life. I loved the contemplative life. It was so peaceful, with its times of prayer and quiet. The order of the life lived by the monastic bell was so calm compared with the turmoil inside my heart and soul. But after four years, just before it was time to take solemn (final) vows, I succumbed again to a physical attraction. That was my lowest point in a lot of ways, but also the steppingstone to finally accepting myself years later. I left religious life, broken and a failure in my own mind.

It took years before I could thank God for making me gay. It took decades before I could accept myself as whole, just the way God wanted me to be. It was not my orientation that God wanted to purify with his love, but my behaviors. I spent a period of time, thankfully before AIDS came on the scene, when I led a very promiscuous sex life. I couldn't get enough; nothing satisfied it. I left church and Christianity behind (or so I thought), figuring that I couldn't live up to them anyways. Fortunately, God never left me behind. I eventually found the Episcopal Church and a very loving and holy priest who nursed my spiritual life back to health. He died many years ago, and to this day I consider him my spiritual father.

It seems to me that no one can hate a fag (I use this hateful word on purpose) as virulently as he can hate himself. After being told all our lives that we're an abomination, it's not hard to understand why we harbor such a deep dislike for ourselves. No one ever ranted or raved at me. I did it all to myself, taking what I heard in the larger society and laying it on thicker than anyone else could ever have done.

Healing took a long, long time. It's still going on. I'm so grateful that God never abandoned me.

[wmanion]

I, also hate myself. I knew by the time I was in sixth grade that I was attracted to guys. My brother and I, at the ages of 11, and 14, were put in a foster home. It was the home on an Independent fundamentalist Batist Minister. I learned to way to quickly to hate myself and the attration I felt for men. I was tempted and failed many times between the age of 14 to 19 but still thought God could heal me if I just lived the straight life. So I got married, fathered three children and although I loved them with all my heart, I was constantly depressed. I began therapy but it never came out that I was gay. I was not about to admit it. So I finally got a diagnosis of bipolar disease. My marriage ended after eleven years. My wife had an affair and left the kids and me. By this time I was attending a spirit filled church...the Assemblies of God...and I kept hearing the message that just reafirrmed my hate. So like the ignorant person I was, I married a second time. This marriage was a compete failure...I married because my kids needed a mother. Oh, how wrong I was. This marriage only lasted two years and the antidepressents just kept getting uped and uped.
I fianlly shut myself off to a social life and concentrated on the kids and I went back to College. I met some guys there that were gay, and well-adjusted to my suprise. That is when I actually started being honest with myself. It took a lot of years, a lot of tears, but I fianlly learned to love myself. I came out to my kids one by one and I was one of the lucky ones. My kids embraced me and stuck by my side. All my children are married now and I now have six wonderful grandkids. I still have a ways to go in my healing process and these forums have helped tremendously. The hate we impose upon ourselves is worse that any other kind of hate that comes our way. This hate almost destroyed me on several occasions, but once I conquered it...my life improved greatly. The mental illness...just seemed to disappear, my moods are stable, and I can laugh. I now have real joy and I would not trade that for anything else.

Bill

[wmanion]

I guess I should proof read before I post...LOL. Sorry about the mistakes and that first line should say...I hated myself...Past Tense.

[Zerbie]

:'(:'(

There are just no words. . . .

No one should have to live in sorrow like that.

It's true, the internal burdens the mind places on itself are harder than those that are imposed from outside. It's the way the human mind works. Abused children learn to beat up on themselves worse than the perpetrator did, now why should homophobia be any different?

When will we as a society stop lying to our own children, telling them they are unacceptable? Bill and Ben, you like so many hundreds of thousands of gay people over generations, were lied to. It's unconscionable that this is ever done. And that it is still done to today's young gay children.

The toll that this takes on so many people is inconceivable.

[scott snedeker]

Denial, the first psychological defense when humans encounter trama. It allows respite temporarily. It can be a healthy reaction if it is short and released slowly so adjustment can be gradually accept change in bite-size pieces.

Hence being closeted and embracing Exgay philosophy can be beneficial if these are transitional steps toward the next.

I experienced frustrated acknowlegement following being closeted, :mad:

then self-tolerance, :(

then self-acceptance,:rolleyes:

then appreciation of advantages, :)

then worthy entitlement,:cool:

then gratitude of being made gay,:lol:

then feeling joy, pride in realizing my lucky privilege to be born gay!:D

[Pablo Rafael]

Ben,

I appreciate that you shared this with us. Your post really hit home with me.

I prayed daily for God to take away this attraction, telling him frankly how much I didn't want to be that way. I read the verse from St. Paul saying that God would never send us a burden we couldn't bear, and I believed it. But no matter how much I prayed, I found myself and my teenage hormones lusting after males.

This also was my prayer up until a few years ago. After decades I was beginning to wonder what the problem was that God wasn't answering me. I "knew" that God didn't want me to be gay so why wasn't he changing me? I wonder how many of us prayed this same prayer as God was trying to get into our heads that being gay was His plan. My family always talks about "hard-headed Germans" (I'm half German ancestry) I guess my head was particularly hard.

So I did what many a good Catholic boy would do. I entered religious life.

Even before I admited to myself I was gay, I had thought of becoming a Catholic and entering the priesthood. That way I could get rid of the question that everyone had as to why I wasn't married or even date anyone. It's a bad reason to enter the priesthood, I know. But I did and still do have a great love for the church and the Gospel message. I am painfully shy at meeting people and realized that the preisthood (or pastoral ministry in general) wasn't my calling, and I wouldn't be good at it.

It seems to me that no one can hate a fag (I use this hateful word on purpose) as virulently as he can hate himself.

You've got this right! I suspect that many of the loudest anti-gay voices are themselves gay. Who has the greatest need to take a strong stand against the gays? Someone who is trying to drown out the desires that battle within his/her own mind. Plus I personally found that if I were vocally anti-gay, I had less fear of being found out.

Ben, I always appreciate the warmth and compassion you show to everyone here. You always bring hope and encouragement.

Tu Amigo, Pablo

[kara speltz]

As promised, I thought this topic could use some self-disclosure and a good airing.


Healing took a long, long time. It's still going on. I'm so grateful that God never abandoned me.

Internalized homophobia is something, I suspect, we all have to deal with at different points in our lives. Some ten years ago, I had been out almost 20 years and would have sworn that I had none. I was a proud dyke and an activist. But when I fell and fractured my back the day of a Gay Pride Mass I had been organizing, I found myself laying in the hospital wondering if I was being punished for organizing that Mass. The idea lingered until I saw a video of the Mass and experienced the power of the Holy Spirit at that Mass. But what that incident pointed out to me was the deep seated homophobia within me that some how could believe that God would punish me because I had organized a Gay Pride Mass.

kara

[sjbouza]

Here is a sad post from one of the MySpace forums that I post on. It is a defense of marriage forum. The guy that posted this is against gay marriage. But I think one he realized this he may be having some thoughts welling up inside of him. I think it is a sad post truthfully. Here it is...

This is a tad off topic, but once I did a MS (myspace) search for people with whom I'd graduated high school. I found a couple, but one guy came up who now lives in the Netherlands, is gay and is married to a guy (obviously)!

For the life of me I could not remember this cat and I checked my old yearbooks. Sure enough, he was in there. I forwarded his profile to a few other guys from school and nobody else remembered him either. Now, I grew up on an island (Mercer Island), it wasn't THAT big a place, lol, people knew each other. He was just totally invisible.

I actually felt bad for this guy, even now, nearly 25 years later. During a period of time when most of the rest of us were living a John Hughes film, yukking it up, I imagined him as a poor kid, just not fitting in, dealing with his teenage hormones and gayness walking the halls invisibly not being a part of things as the rest of us were joking around, chasing girls with vigor, asking where the kegger was going to be that weekend and fighting our way up the food chain of a brutal clique system.

I wonder how many other gays were outsiders like this guy. I also wonder if some think allowing them to marry would somehow eliminate long term feelings of being an outsider and make them feel more as though they'd 'fit in' with the mainstream of society.

Again, I have absolutely no idea on this one, it is purely my speculation based on one personal observation. On this I'd defer to they gay posters here who would have a much better grasp on this.

Me again...

Not to take away from this post here at all, that is not my reason for posting this. I probably should start another thread, but I do think it fits here.

Anyway, here is my response back to him on the subject. I am just wondering if anyone has anything they could add to this discussion. It seems to me that he wants to know if others may have felt like the kid he is referring to in his post.

My response...

You finally are beginning to understand more than just the rhetoric that is out there. It isnt all about the 1000s of legal rights that come with marriage, adoption, etc. It is about equality. Being treated as an equal human being. People arent doing that. People treat, for the most part, GLBT people as sub human. Not to be taken seriously because we dont fall into what society feels is the "norm". We are here no matter how many times people want to shut their eyes, count to ten in hopes that we will just disappear. In your own personal experience, you can see how many GLBT people are in life, invisible. Afraid to "stand out" of the crowd for fear of what will happen. This poor kid probably felt so alone, unloved and unwanted. I know those feelings. While he sits by and watch everyone around him have a life, he is forced into a life of utter loneliness. Most, if not all gay people are outsiders in this country as well as other countries. Society, while it is getting better, still is afraid of us. But where is that fear coming from? I believe it comes from not understanding, and not wanting to understand. As hard as it is for straight people to understand how someone could love and have sex with someone of the same sex, it is just as hard for us to understand the same of straight people.

I guess I can only offer you this advice. Put yourself in his shoes and try to imagine a life without anything. Just walking though it invisible. No one remembered this guy. That is a sad statement to make of anyone. I really dont know what else to say.

Peace and love,
Scott

[Sundance]

I had no idea, none at all, that gay people go through things like this. I can't imagine going through this, can't imagine how difficult it must be.
I've been through a lot in my life but not this. I'm so sorry.

I think if more straight people actually understood what their words and actions do, that things would change (hopefully.)

[paul]

[QUOTE=BenL;36246]

It seems to me that no one can hate a fag (I use this hateful word on purpose) as virulently as he can hate himself. After being told all our lives that we're an abomination, it's not hard to understand why we harbor such a deep dislike for ourselves. No one ever ranted or raved at me. I did it all to myself, taking what I heard in the larger society and laying it on thicker than anyone else could ever have done.

QUOTE]


Ben,
great post, thanks for "airing" it. After 35 years of this, I gave up a year and a half ago. I wasn't so much worn out as I wore out the "homophobic" rhetoric. It took a long time for me to realize that I really was trying to not be gay, but God wasn't helping me in this endeavor.

[Zerbie]

Even before I admited to myself I was gay, I had thought of becoming a Catholic and entering the priesthood. That way I could get rid of the question that everyone had as to why I wasn't married or even date anyone. It's a bad reason to enter the priesthood, I know.

Tu Amigo, Pablo

Oh wow, yeah! I forgot about this, Pablo, and your statement reminded me. I thought I was probably lesbian when I was very young, & when I started high school I was panicked as to how I would deal with it when people wondered why I wasn't dating boys. Because I didn't WANT to date boys, and didn't want to HAVE to, so had to avoid it. But what would be the official reason? I had to not date boys, while hiding the fact that I liked girls.

That was when I really threw myself into preparing for my career. The official reason I wasn't dating boys was I was career-focused and simply didn't have the time. 'course it also helped that the career prep involved so many hours of drama club. :p;):lol: Practically every boy I met was gay, so having to date them really wasn't much of an issue. :lol:

But I had forgotten this decision made in a panic at 14 years of age. Wow.

How many of us sought out an avoidance like this?

[BrentRichards]

You have no idea how much time I spent trying to figure out how to be Protestant and a Monk.

[Blockwell]

Religions of all types seem to have major draw to gays and lesbians in their teens. We see them as a place to hide, a place of refuge, or as institutions with the power to change us. I joined the Mormon Church just prior to my junior year of high school. It is still hard for me to explain (even to myself) just why I did this. This was the mid-1970’s, the Osmond’s were very popular and I was aware of their faith and their “squeaky clean image.” Deep down in my mind I suppose that is what I felt I needed, some structure to mold me into some squeaky clean person; at least on the outside anyway. Everyone thought I was such a good kid, but in my heart I knew I was sick and dirty. (Keeping the men’s underwear section of the Sears catalog under your mattress will do that you know) I was scared and alone and the church offered me a structure where if I decided not to date, it would be seen as a virtue. They offered me a structure for my life where I could easily hide the fact that I was not interested in the opposite sex. They offered me the promise of a new life too, yet it always seemed just out of reach.

I struggled for two years to make it work, but just a month before high school graduation it all came crashing down. I had gone from a physically fit outgoing popular kid at school to a fat, lonely, depressed religious zealot that everyone avoided. I had never confessed to anyone at church that I was struggling with homosexuality. I did not see any reason too. I kept thinking God would recognize my efforts soon and fix me. But every week God seemed to only tempt me even more. Every week at church I met with the 16 & 17 year old boys and damn if they weren’t all hot young men!! They were better material then the Sears Catalog! On my last drive to church in May of 1978 I began to cry. I cried so hard that I had to pull into a supermarket parking lot and let it all out. I screamed in anger, I screamed for the torment I was going through, but I no longer screamed for help. At that moment I recognized that I was not going to change, that no one in the clouds cared one way or the other that Dennis thought the other boys in class were cute. For many people the path away from guilt, shame and fundamentalism is a long one, for me it was more of an epiphany. I just stopped. I stopped believing that other people held the key to my future, I stopped believing other people had more knowledge about life, faith, and reason than I. I started to trust myself. I turned around and drove home, never to return.

Two years later I wrote a letter to the church leaders and told them the real reason why I left the church. A church court date was set (I did not attend) and I was excommunicated. The document arrived at my home and I immediately framed it. It is still hanging on my home office wall today, a wonderful reminder that I am in control of my destiny.

[BenL]

Two years later I wrote a letter to the church leaders and told them the real reason why I left the church. A church court date was set (I did not attend) and I was excommunicated. The document arrived at my home and I immediately framed it. It is still hanging on my home office wall today, a wonderful reminder that I am in control of my destiny.

Good for you, Dennis. Tough, though, wasn't it?

Actually, someone does care. God does. He/She looked at you and said as God did of all creation, "It is good." Probably also said, "About time he gets it!" ;)

As others on this thread have so eloquently testified, we can be our own biggest persecutors. I'm happy you were able to exorcise those demons and live a fuller life.

[Zerbie]

Dennis that's AWESOME!!

I'm so glad you got there by 17 or so. Took me til 27 to REALLY, I mean REALLY - get that other people do not have the magic answers, and to no longer care what they thought.

Eliminates a ton of suffering, don't it? :agree:

[scott snedeker]

Two years later I wrote a letter to the church leaders and told them the real reason why I left the church. A church court date was set (I did not attend) and I was excommunicated. The document arrived at my home and I immediately framed it. It is still hanging on my home office wall today, a wonderful reminder that I am in control of my destiny.


Their declaration that you are no part of their invalid hate mongering sacrimonious predation must be a huge relief!:)


And a truer form of flattery of you would not be possible for them. They invalidated themselves and don't even know it, which invalidates them even further. The contrast of almost anyone compared to them would appear flattering.:D

[Blockwell]

A picture is worth a thousand words.

I must confess that during the 80's (and NO, I don't this anymore) I snorted a few "lines" off the glass covering it. :D

Now you now it must very serious when the church will no longer take your money!!

[u-dog]

Their declaration that you are no part of their invalid hate mongering sacrimonious predation must be a huge relief!:)


And a truer form of flattery of you would not be possible for them. They invalidated themselves and don't even know it, which invalidates them even further. The contrast of almost anyone compared to them would appear flattering.:D


Its amazing how often I agree with you Scott! :)

[Zerbie]

Whoa. . . . I've never seen a notice of ex-communication before. That nastiness about forbidden from taking part in public prayer is incredibly, er, er, what shall I call it? - anti-God, n'est-ce pas?

Gee whiz. :rolleyes: And wow - they state Up Front that they refuse financial contributions!! Holy Moley - !!!! I couldn't possibly take their religion seriously after seeing this. . . hope it doesn't change the respect I have for my Mormon friends. . . .

[scott snedeker]

Its amazing how often I agree with you Scott! :)

I think that is because we are both Underdogs! :)

Radical faeries have abandoned society's paradigm and formed their own. I believe the radical faerie society to be evolved 100 years or more ahead of the rest of the country. I cannot wait that long, so I am making it more of my world each day.:love: