Kulindahr - Archived Blog Posts

[Kulindahr]

I got told I should keep a journal of my experiences coming out, by a counselor who gave me a hand one day in Portland when I wanted to step off the overpass above I5.

I got told by a dude from gay.com I should have a home page where I can post things so people can keep track of how I'm doing.

Together I guess those can be a blog, or a blog can be them, or whatever. So...

I've never done a blog, or even read one -- call me lame [pause for you to call me lame]. So what I do here is gonna be all me, uninfluenced by experience, wisdom, or intelligence, pure unadulterated Kulindahr.

If this was a journal (I said it will do, so it is), I'd end there because I like to keep entires small.
Be patient; more's coming.

 

[Kulindahr]

Hi again, world!
Or at least that part who give a shit.
Yeah, I'm feeling lonely and cynical -- so blow me.

No one has asked, but I would have: where'd that crazy SN come from?

Well, glad I asked.

I used to be totally into fantasy RPGs, and not only ran a campaign, but got deep enough I had a meticulously detailed hand-drawn globe of the game world, a model of the solar system it was in... got it? And when I had time to kill, I fleshed it out with mythology, history, whatever. Printed, the "background" material for my campaign -- not rules, not records, just background -- filled two file drawers.

Aside: thinking back, there was one of my gamers I'd love to have gotten into; Aaron was HOT!

Aaron has something to do with my SN, so that wasn't TOTALLY irrelevant.

Somewhere in that vast archive of material there was a legend of a guild of weaponsmiths who'd devised an alloy of surpassing excellence. Aaron (bud of surpassing excellence) had a character who totally deserved a superb weapon, but for game reasons I didn't want him to have a magic one (yet). Into the archives.... <digdigdig>
It was just the thing: I sent his character on a quest for a blade of legend, a weapon of ages past. "Kohlantar" was the name they learned first, but when they found what they were looking for, they learned -- because it was inscribed on the sword -- it was Kulindahr. They never learned whether that was the smith's name or the steel; what they did know was that the blade, though its storage had crumbled away, was unrusted, unmarred, and the most elegant weapon they'd ever seen.

So that's where the SN came from. Why'd I pick it? Um... NEXT!!

 

[Kulindahr]

If this is going to be a log of my coming out, there are posts from here that belong in it. So little by little I'm going to import them from the forums. Here's my first:
= = = = = = =
in Not Out? No Problem! Discuss Safely Here forum,
February 1st, 2006:

Help!
Loneliness like a radioactive desert

I don't even know how to start here... but I gotta pick somewhere, so....

Picture a desert. I'm not talking about one with scenic dunes and some mountains in the distance and an oasis or two out there somewhere; picture bare stone, rough and jagged, with small random dunes of pebbles or sand. There aren't any cacti, no oases anywhere, and it doesn't have mountains on the edge, 'cause it just keeps going.
The sun beats down by day, but night lasts a lot longer, and it's a very cold, dry night, so dry you're sure you can feel your body drying up and withering away. The whole place is infected with veins of uranium ore, the neutrons from it eating into your flesh, violating you clear down to your DNA.
No birds fly over, no insects fly or drift by: you're alone, in a place that makes "desolate" seem like somewhere to go for vacation. The only hints of life are contrails from aircraft you never see.

Make that personal, apply it to your spirit. If it could be written down, that's my address right now, the place I find my soul.

I'm not up to putting down details right now. I gave some in my first post here, a couple of weeks ago or more.

Yeah, I'm hurting. Pals here to communicate with would be kool, but I need friends up close enough to smell.

My physical location, where my soul stubbornly clings to my body, is in northwest Oregon. Anyone here?

 

[Kulindahr]

Same thread (Loneliness like a radioactive desert), two days later, after some wonderful responses:

Re: Loneliness like a radioactive desert

Just have to say this: I saw my own post where I confessed to crying over Stischer47's message, and it hit me: I have NEVER had a group of guys I could tell I cried over something and not get weird looks or lectures about "be a man".

Can I cry again?

- - - - - - - - - -

Comment:

I haven't stopped crying much since then. The smallest things set me off. As an example -- I turned one into a bio line for chatting on gay.com one night:

I'm NOT emotionally sensitive; I ALWAYS burst into tears when I get the wrong kind of soda!

 

[Kulindahr]

This was February 5th:

Re: Loneliness like a radioactive desert

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stischer47
Cry when and as much as you like. I was raised that a "real" man cries for legitimate reasons. Check documentary films of soldiers in war when their buddies got killed, when countries were invaded or liberated, etc.

Once again from SA. Glad you had the chance to visit (and spend your money ) Life and friends move on...rather than holding on to what you had (that no longer exists), experience the excitement of something new. Who knows what you might find.



Since I got back from the bar ninety-some minutes ago, I've hardly been able to stop crying... the pain comes from talking to dudes I wanted so much more with than just talking.. and from not knowing if I was wise to take it easy, or a coward for not being up front with stuff, or....

I said in one of my first posts that for me this is like turning 13, 16, 18, and 21 all at once. I feel like I've crossed into some parallel, slightly off-center universe where all the rules are new, and I've been turned into someone else, so at the same time I'm trying to figure out rules, but the "me" who's learning the rules keeps changing, so learning doesn't help, I just have to do it over and over.

I don't think I'm trying to hold onto what's gone. I DO want buddies to fill the void of all the friends who left me and the family who turned their backs. I think everything I do is colored by that, and it's twisting everything into strange shapes. Sometimes I feel like I'm made of computer code, all set down on paper, but I'm exposed to a force four hurricane and the pages are being ripped away, and soon there won't be a me. And I feel and think, if I just had someone to hold on to....

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Comment: I could put that down for today, without much difference. Crap.

 

[Kulindahr]

Last night was wonderful, until the end when a dude was urging me to have more to drink... then the bartender cut me off.

Loneliness has driven me to supersensivity over what others think, to the point it took me seven drinks before I could really let myself dance. It might have taken more, but....

There's a dude I sat and watched one night there, several months back, totally enthralled by his dancing. I call it dancing because that's the behavioral category it fits, but for the sense of the thing it would be moire accurate to say he was making love to the music.
Last time I was there I got the guts to tell him how inspiring it had been, watching him, and told him he's my inspiration. Last night I got the courage to tell him more: that watching him, something inside me broke and I understood on a gut level that it's not only okay to enjoy my body, but that bodies are for enjoying; that dancing had almost always seemed awkward and artificial to me, but after watching him it seemed not just okay but proper, in the old sense of the term as fitting, right, belonging to... almost "required".

So last night I got open, and got a hug, and opened up more. I even got the guts to ask if he had plans for after, and he said "Can't tonight, but I'll probably be here tomorrow."

Do I dare interpret that as encouragement to, um, "pursue" him?

Huh -- a question. Maybe I should throw that out in a thread.

 

[Kulindahr]

There are things a guy just can't put in a blog.

What's important is that right now I have NO ONE I can talk to about all the crap going on in my life. Coming out is just part of my personal hell; the rest -- well, I can talk about some with one person, some with another, some with no one at all. It's killing me.

For any who read here: if you think you're up to it, if you're someone who can be trusted... I need buddies I can put it all together with and talk about some truly serious shit.

 

[Kulindahr]

Over and over again I'ved gotten to where the pain is too much.
I'm still here.

I guess I inherited my grandmother's Swiss "cussed stobburnness". I feel like giving up, I want to give up... I don't know how to give up.

Sometimes that's it's own form of hell.

 

[Kulindahr]

The heading is overstated, but I like it; it's catchy.

Something snapped inside me today while I was chatting with a dude much younger by the calendar but much, much older in social experience. It's like something blocking my system broke and circuits are connected again. So, on a general level I'm now doing much better.

Thanks is due some of you JUBbers who gave positive feedback and encouragement.
A curse is due at least one who apparently is very shallow and unfeeling.

Time will tell on this adjustment, but my doc told me it could happen, and I've been through similar things before: the pain and hurt and loneliness are all still there, but my mind slipped past the horror of it to a something reasonably functional. It may or may not last; either way, the crap is still there and needing attention; for now I just tread carefully so as not to disturb it.

Having the ability to laugh a little and be 'way less serious feels good.

 

[Kulindahr]

A big piece for getting my life more coherent is about, finally, to fall into place. I'm not holding my breath, but the word is my truck just rolled into the shop for the final work before I can have it again. That's supposed to be in a little more than an hour.


A tale of the importance of a truck

Once upon a time I actually had money to buy a decent vehicle. I got me a 1989 Nissan 4WD King Cab PU with a 3" body lift, It did for travelling, work, camping, hunting, exploring, and pulling Fords out of the sand at the beach and dunes.

While I had that truck, I went through several different addresses. More than once I was effectively living in it. So it became more home to me than any physcial address has been in a long, long time. It gave me a freedom I'd never known, and as time went on, a big dose of confidence. On a long-recommended trip south to Baja one winter, I named it "Mi Burro Pequeno", and that "Burro" became almost a friend.

Things wear out, of course. But the Burro died on me rather noisily and permanently one evening on my way from doctor's appointment to my mom's birthday dinner. In the midst of struggling with lost friends over coming out, trying to get my feet in my new world, etc. etc., I was suddenly without my place of refuge.

The reality of it took a while to catch up. When it did, that just fed into other things, maybe being the burden that tore through my walls against my family walking out on me at Christmas.

In the midst of that perfect storm, I got myself off to find a new truck. I found one I settled for that was more than I needed, paid more than I could afford, but having a truck again was like finding an old friend I'd thought lost forever suddenly show up on my porch.
Then it started going bad. Four days after I got it, it was back in the dealer's shop, and has been there a week. Having to hitch a ride when I learned it woulodn't be done as promised, hearing every day "It'll be tomorrow"... well, those of you following my journey know what I've been like -- unanchored, unhinged, over-sensitive, panicky. It was like I'd settled into my corner of hell and mostly adjusted, when suddenly the internal police came and moved me.

The new truck won't be my old one, but it will still be a refuge, and in actuality, pretty much my home, since I have no place of my own. Just having it should give me a jolt of stability.
And it will let me go see people, pick up where I left off (except the few who've bailed in the meantime).

It's a bright canary yellow 1999 Dodge Dakota Sport 4WD "Club Cab" long bed with a two-inch body lift. The V8 is 'way more motor than I need, but even while it was running on five of eight cylinders, it was getting mileage as good as the Burro did. Maybe I'll call it "Mi Burro Pequeno Amarillo", with fond memories.

With luck, before my six-month anniversary, I'll get to have some fun in it with a cute guy or two... hopefully cute buddies. Some people christen things with champagne, I want to use....




<bouncing around nervously until the beast is really ready>

 

[Kulindahr]

I really do need to write in this more often.

I met up with a guy tonight who was one of my "guides to the gay community" around the end of my first month out, then after another month or so we lost contact. It brought back memories -- he took me to my first bath house (scary!), my first park where the cops don't bother people having sex in their cars (interesting... kinda unsettling), my first adult book store (WOW -- surprising and shocking) with arcade (shocking and exciting).

We went back to the bath house together; it seemed like a sort of symmetry to me, starting my second half-year out with a kid who was a patient guide back at the start -- not really wise at what he was exposing me to, but patient and understanding. This night was very boring compared to the first, with hardly anyone at the place, relatively.

And... <sigh>

If I told my mom I'd been at a gay bath house, she'd cry and chastise me... my dad would just look at me a moment silently and write it out of his awareness, my best buddy would say "I don't want to know those things"....
But there are a couple of people, pals on the way to becoming friends, who I can tell, and they'll understand.

 

[Kulindahr]

A couple of times a month I go back to my home town from wherever it is I'm working. If it wasn't for the fact that my parents accumulate things they need done and can't do themselves, I'd avoid it more. It's home, but... not any more.

See, in the last six months before I came out, three different dudes that others decided were "queer" got:
each and every rib broken
beaten till black and blue everywhere
knifed


I guess this is another piece of my pain in coming out. It's cost me almost all my friends, most of my family, my church... and my hometown. Unless....

Unless I play the game I did without thinking about it before I even let myself know I was attracted to dudes. It was an easy game then, because I believed I wasn't much attracted to anyone, so pretending I was attracted to chicks wasn't hard. But now...

Now, every time I drive along one of those streets, I feel like there are eyes on me, waiting for just one slip. Every time I talk to someone, I'm frantically watching my behavior, hoping I'm not giving any signs. I swear my blood pressure goes up from just driving into town.

And it affects me after I've left. A dude I don't know too well noticed the difference and wondered if I was regretting coming out of the closet, the way I was "covering" -- I hadn't realized I was doing it. Generally, it just makes me uncomfortable any time I'm planning to go back, desperately anxious while I'm there, and stressed afterwards. Coming out is bad enough, but this in-and-out business is torture.

So... I got no ideas. Help?

 

[Kulindahr]

Sounds to me like you're not only dealing with the fact that your hometown was your reality, but that you're also trying to deal with your hometown as you are now.

Congratulations, you now know the meaning of "You can never go home again."

That's what that saying means. Your hometown hasn't changed....you have.

So what makes you feel more comfortable in one town that could be viewed as others, the same way that you feel about your hometown? The two can, and probably are equally as dangerous.

It's all a matter of perspective.

But it was the reason that San Francisco and New York became became "Gay Meccas" in the 1970's and early 1980's for gay men and woman everywhere! In a large city they could be "anonymous." In a small (and not just in population numbers) town everyone knows your business.

I'm one of those guys who left "homosexual bar raiding" city of Dallas, Texas when I was 17 and saw the world (outside of the Dallas suburbs at least. ); San Francisco, New York City, and Boston.

Years later Dallas, Texas has several elected "gay" and out concilmembers, a city-wide non-discrimination policy, one of the largest Gay Churches in North America (Metropolitan Community Church), an international recognized gay choir (Turtle Creek Choral) a gay neighborhood (or ghetto depending one's perspective ), and one of the most active Gay Communities in the Nation (Host to the Human Rights Campaign "Black Tie" dinner every year, which raises tens of thousands of dollars for that organization!).

My old hometown became the place that I was running to.

~BUT~

I left all of that for a 24 acre farm 70 miles south of Dallas, near a town with a population of less than 2,000 people. I lost my boyfriend along the way to homophobia, and crystal meth.

So I, too, am alone.

However, when I'm in Dallas I'm me! I have a wonderful group of supportive gay and straight friends, (some who think that I was nuts to sell my historic home in Dallas' inner-city, and "move out into the sticks! ) and family near my farm.

Coming out isn't a "one-time" event. It's something that I now do (or not) everytime that I meet someone new.

I like to call it "self-preservation."

So, just recognize that your hometown isn't your home anymore.

Also, give yourself a big pat on the back, and if you and I were face to face I'd give you a big , because you survived all of that!

From what I've read of your posts, "You're a good man Charlie Brown."

 

[Kulindahr]

Thanks.
I have to say I envy you that circle of supportive gay and straight friends. In spite of all I've done in five months and nineteen days (yes, I'm counting -- counting down to six months), I don't have that. I have LOTS of well-wishers, mostly on-line, but... well, all I can handle about right now is needing buddies; it dominates my thinking no matter what I'm doing, to the point that quality is down in every aspect of my life. The hometown deal is just a piece, one I became agonizingly aware of last time I was back home, and realized it wasn't really home at all, but a place of hostility were I to be known for myself.
And just as I see no hope in my home town ever becoming that accepting -- no, I'll settle for "tolerating" -- place, I can't see any hope I'll ever get buddies. Yeah, that's cynical and bitter, but the pain of each week thinking I've found a buddy, and either getting used or dissed or dropped cold when I want to go beyond exchanging electrons and photons on a glowing screen, precludes my risking myself at this point. It's crippling, and may be feeding a self-fulfilling prophecy cycle, but my heart won't handle actually hoping, any more. Glimmers of desperate hope poke through, but they scare me; I don't want to be hurt any more by the "community" I was given to believe would be "welcoming and supportive".
Well, at least I had no such illusions about my home town; that's why I didn't come out there, instinctively.

 

[Kulindahr]

Hey kulindahr, I hear what you're saying. Your coming out experience in your home town is nothing short of awful. I think it serves to remind all of us of how brutal a world this can be. While we rejoice and are relieved when a coming out goes well, and loved ones are accepting, it doesn't always happen that way and sometimes friends and family let us down royally.

There have been several threads on JUB--and I believe this forum even--on the topic of making friends. Other people's experiences have pretty much mimiced my own in that lasting friendships have usually formed on the basis of common interests--be they, sports, hobbies, cars, reading, etc. I have, though, made some pretty good friends in gay bars over the years. It was a slow process, though, as I only go out about once a week. But, seeing the same faces week after week gradually became familiar. When I was alone, this was harder for me to do because I'm pretty shy and don't approach people easily, even when I was desperate for a friend. Since I've been with my partner, it's a bit easier for two reasons--1) he's much more out-going than me and makes friends more easily; and 2) people knowing that we're a couple removed the "come on" aspect in gay bars--people knew that conversations and overtures were merely friendly in nature without an underlying motive of getting someone in bed.

I know, from your other posts, that you have family obligations there in Oregon. Is that what keeps you there? You seem very unhappy there, and perhaps not necessarily rooted there with a job. I also know you have a very good gay friend named Eric in the Midwest (Indiana?). Is there any chance for you to relocate to where Eric is, or a different part of the country where you don't have so many bad memories? If that's not possible, have you tried somewhere a little more distant, but still "in the neighborhood" like Portland or Seattle? I've been to both cities and found both beautiful and friendly, with an active gay community.

Kulindahr, there have been times in my life when I was really lonely and really wanted a good friend. At those times, being shy and not out, were very difficult because everyone seemed to either have someone, or were full of mind-head-games that I didn't have the patience to figure out. Sometimes I felt that the world was "taken" and I didn't have a place in it--I was like this alien bystander without hope or purpose and generally, "in the way." Those were awful, clumsy-feeling times of my life.

Looking back on it, it's almost ironic because the harder I tried to make friends, the harder it was to do so. Maybe I was coming across as desperate to people, I don't know (you can't be both the observer and the observed). It seemed that I made the most friends when I wasn't necessarily looking to--but that they evolved naturally over a common-something and I had a I-don't-care-if-we're-friends-or-not attitude. It just seemed when I backed off, they came to me. Maybe it was luck, or timing, or serendipity, I don't know.

You're obviously a man of many talents--writing being among them. I suspect you're also an avid reader (most good writers are). You also have the capacity to feel and are in tune with your own feelings and needs. You are light-years ahead of many others out there. In other words, you have much to offer as a friend. Get out there, be available, and let it happen. It will, but unfortunately, we can't necessarily predict the timetable.

 

[Kulindahr]

I got the invitation from a dude I'd met on line, who'd shown me my first adult bookstore with an arcade... which was astonishing, because I'd never imagined the things human beings could invent for sex, and exciting, because -- well, we put on a little bit of a show in one of the booths, guys watching from both sides, and I discovered I liked being watched, at least where it felt safe. Anyway, since I'd enjoyed being with him, and he said it would be fun, I believed him and went for it.
Okay, my first reaction was, Wow! I get to walk around naked, and it's kool! and then, All these dudes, and no one cares if I check 'em out! and then it was just very refreshing and freeing to be able to chill in a place where about the most anyone wore was a towel, and the ones who liked being looked at it just draped theirs over a shoulder. The place has a regular TV lounge, with good Hollywood movies playing 24/7, and it was awesome to flop back on a couch and let it all hang out -- later I came to appreciate the TV lounge 'cause it's pretty much a "neutral zone" where a dude isn't automatically fair game.
My first shock of the night was when we got to the room we were sharing with a friend of his, and the guy said we'd have to stay away once another friend of his got there, because they'd be fucking. I'd NEVER heard anyone talk about sex that openly, not even on sports teams in high school and such, and definitely not standing there buff and oiled and naked while I was stripping. It took a few seconds before I adjusted and decided that was really kool, to be able to just be open about it. The idea of two guys fucking seemed disgusting, but the openness rocked.
So I watched TV, and wandered around -- found the smoking lounge, the porn theater, the sauna, the steam room, talked to a few people. I got to feeling lost and isolated in the strangeness and when B, the stud with the room, came by at one point I caught him and told him I was feeling a little strange, and would it be okay just to sit in the room for a while. When he said sure, I got bolder, stroked his back, and asked if he'd enjoy a massage. Pretty soon I was sitting on his bare butt, balls tingling from the contact and hard as a rock. When I finished his back from head to toes and he rolled over, I didn't get to sit on his hips, though, which was disappointing because I'd always wanted to feel my crotch against another guy's, naked. But he enjoyed the massage, and it relaxed me, and off I went to face the... world.

 

[Kulindahr]

Quote:
Originally Posted by averageguy
Hey kulindahr, I hear what you're saying. Your coming out experience in your home town is nothing short of awful.

I know, from your other posts, that you have family obligations there in Oregon. Is that what keeps you there? You seem very unhappy there, and perhaps not necessarily rooted there with a job. I also know you have a very good gay friend named Eric in the Midwest (Indiana?). Is there any chance for you to relocate to where Eric is, or a different part of the country where you don't have so many bad memories?


I have to post a quick reply to correct something here.
Eric is straight as they come.
He's also part of my pain right now, too, because he can't handle me talking about any of this. He called last night when I was at the bar and asked what I was doing.... I decided to be honest, and told him I was watching this incredible dude who'd just shed his shirt which told me he was going to go dance, which I intended to watch.
Eric told me "I don't need to hear that."
I told him why I wanted to watch the dude, that it was poetry in human form.
Eric said this made him uncomfortable.
I got mad. I told him he'd known three years sooner than I did that I liked dudes, so he should be more comfortable with it than I was, because he'd had time. I said I figured he ought to be able to be helping me through this, because he'd been able to watch me stumble my way toward accepting that I have sexual desires in the first place, that they're heavily toward dudes; that he'd been the first I told and he hadn't backed off, but hugged me and said "I know". Then I told him that I really wanted to get back inside and watch this dude make love to the music.
He was silent a long time, and finally said, "Well, that's who you are." There was more I don't remember, because it hurt that I'd gotten angry at him, hurt that I'd felt I needed to, hurt that he's so fucking far away when I need those strong arms here, angry that he hadn't been more supportive.
I think I need to call him.... maybe?

 

[Kulindahr]

Here's my take on the situation, Kulindahr..

You're clearly very depressed. What you've been through is enough to deeply hurt anybody, and the fact that you're able to get out of bed every day and go out to bars and try to have a good time shows that you're far stronger and more resilient than most people would be when faced with your situation.

However I can't help but think that part of the problem you've been facing with these guys you meet, and especially your existing friends, is caused by your clinginess. Please don't take offense to that, I don't mean it as an insult, and after being abandoned by so many people around you I can TOTALLY understand that you're looking for support and that you are in a very vulnerable position.

For instance, take the situation with your friend Eric.. I know it's upsetting that you feel like you can't talk about your feelings with a longtime friend who is otherwise accepting of you. But based on what you said, he wasn't rejecting you or anything; he just said he's not comfortable talking about how you felt when you were checking out a half-naked guy. That's really understandable--since he's straight, it's not like he can really relate to finding other guys attractive. I know it sucks that you can't share all of your feelings with him, but I can see his point of view.

Look at it from his perspective. He probably feels like you're basically saying "I don't care about your boundaries or that you're uncomfortable when I talk about good looking guys. YOU HAVE TO HELP AND SUPPORT ME ANYWAY!" I'm sure that wasn't your intention, but it's easy to see how he could have perceived it that way.

Generally, people want to support and help others when they can do so on their terms, while feeling comfortable with the person. When they feel like they're being forced an awkward situation and that their support is demanded rather than requested, they won't be very willing to help.

I think you would have been better off sparing him the details, or when he said he was uncomfortable with the topic, you could have said something like "Yeah I'm sorry, I know you don't swing that way, I wouldn't be too interested if you started telling me all about some hot half-naked chick!"

I know you're really hurting, it's completely understandable, and you're doing a damn good job coping with the situation. I'm not trying to insult you or make you feel worse; instead I'm just trying to help you understand what your friend's point of view may be, and help you to work with that and hopefully have an easier time of getting the support & companionship you need. I wish you the best of luck.

 

[Kulindahr]

Thank You for sharing a very painful story. I am going to make a number of very hard suggestions. First and foremost, you must start drawing boundaries in order to project yourself. I don't know what you do for your parents. But I am sure that they can learn to do it for themselves. But if I am mistaken about that, then I would just visit then for the day. This immediately focuses your mission in your hometown while casting aside these trips down memory lane that you keep making. You visit your parents for the required time in order to help them and you leave. By making this move you empower yourself. And that is a very important thing for you to do.

It is one thing to be wanted. That is perfectly natural. It is quite another, though, to be so caught up in being wanted that we let others hurt us because at the very least they want us. So you literally have decide that you can do without those folks from the past who used to want spend time with you. None of this is easy.

But since you say that you live in another town, then one thing that ought to be happening naturally is that you are forming ties that replenish you--ties that nurture you and have their own weight in your life. It is striking to me that you did not speak of such ties. All the weight seems to be in your hometown. And that suggests to me that you have not cut the social umbilical cord. Some don't have to do so. But obviously you are not one of those.

I would further suggest that you distinguish between people who accept that you are gay and people who relish the gay lifestyle. This, in effect, is Ummagumma's point. When I am in the states, as I am at this moment, I don't expect American men to go for the kiss on each cheek. Some have seen me do this in France, but that is not what they are into. In fact, I am sure that you will accept what some gay men do without relishing it. I know I do: fisting, for example, is out for me; and I don't want to hear it described. As I have said, this is really Ummagumma's point.

They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting the same results. You knew from the outset that your hometown would not be accepting of you. You had no reason to think that you would be the exception. So your disappointment here is uncalled for. There is no greater cause of emotional pain than acting with the hope that things would be different when every ounce of available evidence made it absolutely clear that they would not be. It is, of course, horrible that your hometown will not really accept you. But your continually wanting it to at various levels is part of your problem. Your moving away ought to have also been a letting go; and this, I suggest, that you set about doing by forming rich and fulfilling ties where you live. Rather than living for the past, I suggest that you start living for the future.

I do not know how old you are, but it sounds like you are no teenager. At this point in your life, your constant wish for approval from your hometown is giving those folks there far too much power over you. And in this respect, you have become your own worse enemy--and not the town folks. Obviously, nothing can fully replace the loss of those with whom we shared our formative years. Yet, we can move on and surround ourselves with those who provide us with psychological and moral nourishment. And this is what you must do in order to be psychologically whole. Your parents are not incapacitated; and they apparently do quite well when you are absent. I suggest that you are using them as an excuse to hold out hope for approval from your hometown. Stop doing that, and you will thereby change your life. If you have any further questions, feel free to send me a PM.

Sometimes in life, we have to take charge of our own psychic healing. This is absolutely so in your case.

 

[Kulindahr]

Quote:
Originally Posted by GreatZeus
Your parents are not incapacitated; and they apparently do quite well when you are absent. I suggest that you are using them as an excuse to hold out hope for approval from your hometown.


Incapacitated -- well, neither of them can lift anything heavy, or use heavy tools (which for them would include a shovel). They get along when I'm absent, but stuff piles up that needs done. They can't afford to pay anyone to do it.
I don't care about "approval from [my] hometown". I care about the torture of going back and having to watch over my shoulder. And it isn't just there; that's just where the duality hit me. In Oregon, pretty much any time you get more than 25 miles from I5, things are like that -- and for most of the length of I5, even a mile off is dangerous territory.

Quote:
Originally Posted by GreatZeus
Sometimes in life, we have to take charge of our own psychic healing. This is absolutely so in your case.


I no longer have the energy. Last night I made one last gasp at reaching out to someone... it went nowhere, and today I'm just numb.