I’m gay and 53. Right now I want to be neither, and it seems like not being alive is the solution.
Honestly I’m exhausted. It’s been a long road, and always a struggle of some kind. Now that I’m middle-aged, I just don’t want this. In the gay community I feel invisible, and this is after being gay separated me from my family and created friction at work. Did I mention I just want to not be gay or 53? I guess being dead is the next best thing.
My family was, to be blunt, a shit show. Dad was physically and emotionally abusive, and mom was emotionally abusive. When dad died in 2010, I was essentially disinherited despite his promise that I would at least inherit a few of his drawings, that I specifically wanted. Didn’t happen. He gave them to his friends and my homophobic brother, but not me. Going through his things (with his wife’s permission) I found neo-Nazi and white supremacist books, if that gives you some idea.
I didn’t know it growing up, but dad was molesting his step daughter. He also, during that same period, got out his bible to essentially threaten to disown me at age 12 if I “chose the gay lifestyle”. What a fucking hypocrite. Since I was 12, rather than see my father for the monster that he was, I embarked on a wild goose chase trying to please him. I had no idea that by 2010 I would still be a stranger to him, having never even bothered to step foot in my home or take any real interest in my world.
My mom began the homophobic slurs and jokes when I was 12. It wasn’t even that subtle, just outright hatred. It was advertised as if on a billboard that gays are evil, hated, perverse, and certainly not welcome in our family. If I have any reason to live, it’s to piss on her grave. And if I haven’t got that ability, I’ll get a fucking dog to do it for me.
I have a twin brother, who’s the macho sort of guy. That magical experience of growing up in my conservative home also included him holding a knife to my throat, because he thought I *might* be gay. We were about 17. I confronted him about this a few years ago and he claims not to remember.
But never mind all that. OF COURSE coming out of the closet, and living in the light is a path to wholeness and peace. Uhm. Except it isn’t.
In the workplace I’ve heard the word “cocksucker” used casually with me and one other person on the call. Both knew I’m gay. At another workplace, I heard “I just wish I could fucking NUKE capitol hill” (the gay neighborhood in my city). Never mind that I’ve done the heavy lifting on projects, while watching the “alpha male” sorts take over and build their careers on my work while I stay invisible.
From my conservative blue collar family my tech career has been a big source of irritation. I’ve heard that I’m spoiled for having a white collar job, that I “learned how to be gay” in college, that “you can’t trust men without callouses on their hands from hard manual work” etc. Funny, I thought I had done a shit-ton of work just staying alive.
And then, ah yes, that oasis of gay wholeness called romance. Or rather, that time I was raped in college, bled, and had to get tested for HIV in the days when there literally was nothing left to do except wait to die and try to prolong it with some crude drugs. Or the endless crushes I’ve had on guys that aren’t available. Or the two year relationship that ended because he wanted an “open relationship” and grew colder toward me by the day. Other “relationships” have consisted of misalignment, confusion, and sometimes just outright abuse.
I gave up on God long ago. I grew up religious, but now I don’t give a fuck. God, if by some chance you know my password and you can identify who’s writing this…FUCK YOU. God, I never wanted this “gift” in my life. God, fuck off. God, I want no part of your “mercy” if all it means is that I’ll grow even older and more invisible. God – did you hear me? I just told you to fuck off. Kiss my ass. I don’t want you.
I’ve been hospitalized three times because I wanted to end my life. The first time I was hospitalized because I tried to overdose. Oddly, those hospitalizations, decades apart, are like bookmarks of how little my despair has changed.
Dad, you can have your corner of the afterlife and I’ll have mine. You go fuck off along with God. I don’t want you. I want you to know that I would have never chosen you for a dad, no more than you would have chosen to have a gay son. For your hypocrisy I hope that you’re burning in hell and you’ve got just a small taste of the hate you represented and the people you hurt. Dad, it’s not just good that you died – it’s good when people LIKE you die.
Mom, you’ll die alone in a rest home if I have anything to do with it. Sure, you’ll have my brother and his family, and your husband. They’ll say all the things you need to hear, and I hope they do. But deep down I hope you know that you’re a **** and that cunts aren’t to be used to have trophy children. You need to go be a lonely **** in the rest home so that you can just kind of steep in your fishy, god-forsaken ****-ness. And when you’re dead, next to dear ol’ dad, I hope that certain political figures in the US aren’t far behind you.
I fucking give up. I’ve plastered my life with goddamn rainbows, moved to the gay neighborhood, had a string of one failed relationship after another, after another, after another. I’ve got the scars of an abusive family to show for my patience and my presence, and simply the memory of a lot of pain. You know what? I don’t want that fucking “gift”.
BE GAY! – BE PROUD! – CASH AND PRIZES AWAIT!
Ahem. No, not quite that outcome for me. Goddam fucking life. I don’t want it. I just don’t. The grand prize for surviving being gay is just loneliness, more of the same, and less to show for each passing year. FUCK THIS SHIT.