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courteousMaple2483
168 M Embraced 1
PathStep 4 Compassion hearts10 Forum posts7 Forum upvotes3 Current upvotes3 Age GroupAdult Last activeJanuary, 2022 Member sinceMarch 19, 2021
Recent forum posts
Difficulty Accepting Myself
LGBTQ+ / MOGII Support / by courteousMaple2483
Last post
 April 26th, 2021
...See more I have been meaning to make a post on here for a while because I have been really struggling with accepting who I am as a gay man. I am 20 years old and have yet to figure out what I really want out of this life. To give a little bit of background, I grew up in a household with very strict parents who don’t necessarily tolerate anyone being different. As a kid, I was very sensitive and every time I would act feminine I would usually get criticized by my older brother and my parents disapproved of this as well. As the years went by, I was conditioned to believe that any form of feminine self-expression was wrong, because I am a boy and boys are only supposed to act manly. I kept this lie going for years that I was not gay, and I think that I have hid it so well that no one even suspects it. I think my parents think that I have somehow changed or grown out of a “phase” because I no longer act girly like I used to as a kid. But the truth is, I haven’t changed. I think my whole life I was in denial that I was gay and bottled up these feelings so much to the point that I thought that I truly changed into a heterosexual male. But now I realized who I truly am and who I am truly attracted to. Now each day is unbearable because I feel compelled to tell people that I am gay but I don’t exactly have a supportive group to turn to. I have a hard time keeping friendships because every time I meet people I feel like I have to put on my “straight act”. There’s no shame in being gay at all, in fact I am jealous of those who are able to freely and confidently express who they really are because I am so afraid of doing that since I don’t have the loving supportive community around me to come out. But every day is so difficult keeping my secret, so much so to the point where I lose sleep every night thinking about the future. But I’m not sure how old friends and family members would react if I did come out. I’m afraid that they’ll feel disappointed or even betrayed that I never told them the truth. I have no friends and am so lonely because I don’t exactly fit in well with my heterosexual friends and I don’t fit in with fellow gay men either, so I am somewhere in between where it is just me by myself. It has made me grow to be more and more comfortable with myself, however. But I also dream of having a wife and kids but I’m afraid that this dream will never happen because once I come out as gay, I can never go back. I want so badly to love myself and feel more confident but I don’t know where to start. Any advice from anyone to help me turn my life around would be more than appreciated.
I’ve had negative feelings relating to social media
LGBTQ+ / MOGII Support / by courteousMaple2483
Last post
 March 25th, 2021
...See more I have been down in the dumps lately because it seems like so many people out there on social media are so against LGBTQ+ people and make offensive jokes and it just makes me wonder why people feel so strongly about it. It’s really sad because there are people who are so open about expressing that they don’t like our community and I just can’t figure out where all the hate comes from like we are just people trying to live our lives and they want to come tear it down. Will there ever be a day where there will be no discrimination against LGBTQ+? We deserve love just like everyone else so why is that so hard for people to understand that and why does it matter to anyone anyway? Does anyone else feel this way as well?
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