2016. április 23., szombat

Need advice about dealing with parents

I know this is very long!! This first part is context, basically my life story, jump to the next bold text if you want to go to where I actually ask for advice!My parents found out I was gay for the first time when I was at the start of ninth grade, about five and a half years ago (I’m 19 now). They found out I had kissed a boy and then the next day I didn’t go to school and I never went back to my high school and never saw my friends again (until this past year I’ve seen a few again). My mom, a couple months ago, told me that me being sent to a Christian school was entirely unrelated to me being gay, although I was sent there as soon as they had found out I had kissed a boy. But, sure, entirely unrelated.They found out I was gay the second time a couple years ago in my junior year of high school when my mom grabbed my phone and saw all my texts and found my tumblr (which didn’t have any porn on it, to clarify, it was literally just shitty memes and me being myself). At this time I told her it wasn’t changing, because the first time they found out I, of course, tried to change myself (again). I told her I was who I was and it wasn’t going away. We didn’t talk about it.On July 2nd, 2014 I got a boyfriend. He lived in New Jersey then so we were long distance. On August 15th I moved into my dorm and was finally separate from my family. The next week my boyfriend came down to visit (I live in Kentucky) and we had a great week together and it was amazing. I worked at an embroidery shop owned by some Christian people at the time and I was ready to start living my gay life so I went with my boyfriend to my place of work and introduced him to my boss. She didn’t seem surprised when I said I was gay, she gave me a hug and told me she would always love me and I went on my merry little way. That night I got a phone call from my dad screaming at me for being a liar and my mother was crying and I had ruined their lives and I was going to destroy my life and blah blah blah. The usual stuff.Quick and fun story, the following day I went with my boyfriend to Starbucks because he’d never tried a fancy coffee drink (not that Starbucks is that fancy) so I had him try an espresso based drink (a white mocha) and while we were there my dad called and we had a conversation that went like this: “Where are you?” “I’m at Starbucks.” “[with contempt] Is HE there?” “Yeah.” “Okay… well listen. Just say yes or no, he can’t hear me, so just yes or no. Are you there of your own free will.” You got me dad. He kidnapped me, then took me to Starbucks, then bought me a five dollar drink, and he let me keep my phone. He’s such a kindhearted kidnapper.Any way, back to the main story. After a winter break at home with my parents full of their passive aggression and my contemplating of suicide I realized I could never ever live with them again. Especially not for an entire summer break. My boyfriend and I had talked about him moving down and us living together so we decided to put that plan into action.He moved down in March of last year, so we’ve lived together for a little over a year and things are going absolutely fantastically. Still very much in love and both convinced we’ll get married one day. I mean, look, I know I’m 19 and I know it’s ridiculous for me to think that I know I want to marry someone but I’ve known precisely what I wanted out of a relationship since I was 8 years old and this guy is the one. I knew within a week of speaking to him that he would be a huge part of my life, because I just knew there was something with him. We’ve been together for a year and a half and lived together for a year and I’ve yet to have a single reason to think he isn’t literally perfect for me. I mean of course we’ve bickered and had a couple fights, but we’re always honest with each other and committed to each other and we both want the same things out of life and we just work together.Sorry, got side tracked by love, back to the issue I’m here about.A couple months back my mom sent me a link to a website with a bunch of helpful tips about gay sex. Because if I’m going to choose to live the lifestyle I’ve chosen then I should at least know the “unbiased facts”. Website was a bunch of scare tactics with misinformation owned by a conservative organization. At the top there was a literally a tab with testimonials from people explaining how gay conversion therapy really worked for them. Obviously not unbiased.I, of course, was pissed. I’ve had a lot of people read these conversations because I wanted to verify I’m not the crazy one and to verify I handled it well, and I really think I did. Every text I’ve sent to her, excluding maybe three or four over the two months this happened, were level headed. I explained to her what was wrong about that site, how it was biased, how it used outdated and out of context information, and how it was offensive for her to send it to me.One thing I’ve learned from all of this is that if you can’t always teach someone who is willfully ignorant. I had attacked her, I was coming for her, she was just trying to help. Etc etc.For about two months I received increasingly aggressive texts from her. By the end of it they were purely hateful, insulting me and my boyfriend (someone she has never met and knows literally nothing about). I had to block her phone number because, for my mental health, I couldn’t handle it.A few weeks ago I wrote an article for my school newspaper where I’m interning. An editorial piece on nuanced homophobia (if you want to read it for context it’s here ).Another screaming phone call from my dad. I’m ruining everyones lives, what if my brother and sister find out, anyone could read that, how dare I personally attack my mother. I explained that it wasn’t meant as an attack, that I was trying to tell my story and to share a greater lesson about how you can unintentionally hurt someone, how just because you say something doesn’t mean someone can’t feel hurt by your actions. It was meant to be more universal than homophobia.This is the part where I ask for adviceSo now I’m in a pickle.During those horrid two months of speaking to my mom before blocking her phone number and her becoming increasingly hateful she claimed that she wanted to be in my life, and I told her I wanted her in my life too. I asked her to meet my boyfriend. To just have lunch with us or something. She told me that she wanted to meet with just me first because we had some things we needed to discuss. I told her that if she really wanted to be in my life she had to prove it to me, because I don’t think she wants to be in my life as it is, and I told her she could meet with me and my boyfriend or not meet with me.Now after my article on homophobia (read by approximately three people (and that’s counting both my parents)) they’re saying I should meet with just them, and I’m standing my ground. However now they’re saying that if I meet with them then we can talk about telling my younger brother and sister I’m gay. I don’t want to budge, but I want my brother and sister to know I’m gay and then I can tell my grandparents and then I can be out on Facebook and then I can live my life as gayly as I want to without worrying about who knows and who doesn’t and living my life how they want me to live it because for two years I’ve been telling them I want to come out and they’ve convinced me to wait.I want so badly to be publicly out, and I’m struggling so hard getting there. Trying to maintain bonds with my family but to come out on my terms without waiting as long as they want me to (which I’ve discovered is forever).And I just don’t know what to do.Oh, also, on the phone with my dad last week he said I need to meet with just him and my mom first because if he meets with me and my boyfriend he knows he’s mad at me and he would probably take his anger out on my boyfriend and beat him to death.You know, because he’s sane.Any advice is welcome, anything I didn’t explain well enough I can clarify, and if you want to hear more ridiculous and often hilarious stories about my parents I can tell those too.Thanks, everyone.

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