As I said in another thread, I first realized I was attracted to other guys when I was 12, courtesy of a rather attractive video game character. Having been raised in a very devout Mormon family my entire life, this blew my pre-teen mind, and I quickly hopped into the closet and slammed the door shut. I turned to religion to solve my 'problem'--I prayed, read scriptures, read church materials... the whole shebang. Needless to say, none of that really worked out (no matter how much I prayed about it, I just couldn't help but crush on Riley...
); hence I ended up with an awful bout of depression for about three years.However, things started to change when I was sixteen. I worked at Toys R Us at the time, and as I passed by a lady and her friend shopping for Barbies, I overheard their conversation. One of them mentioned to the other how she shouldn't buy some pink toy she was holding in her hand for her son (not a Barbie toy, though I can't recall what it was), joking that it would turn him gay. This lady then turned to her friend and promptly informed her that being gay is completely natural, biologically determined, and that she would perfectly okay with it if her son did end up that way.
I know it's insignificant, but that remark really changed the way I thought about life. Up until that point, I had only thought of being gay as a sinful, horrible thing caused by Satan himself--yet here was a stranger with a far more reasonable assertion. I mulled over that conversation for a while, finally realizing that I'm gay, there's nothing I can do about it, and moping about life will just make things suck.
...but that realization didn't stop me from making my life suck for another year and half as I reatreated further into the closet. The next year, I was applying for colleges as a senior. I applied to a few--Stanford, Harvard, and BYU. I know that they're kind of strange choices, but BYU was my backup plan and things were going well with my Harvard application; in fact, the guy who interviewed me during the whole admissions process said he would give me the highest recommendation possible. Unfortunately, I didn't make it in to either Harvard or Stanford, and I ended up at BYU during the media frenzy that was Prop 8.
All of the pro-8 posters, speeches by professors, and talks in church got to me within the first two weeks of school. I reached a new low. I mulled around there for another week or two, keeping my head down and generally hating life when I came to the realization that I needed to tell someone, get this weight off my shoulders, and start living again.
I decided to tell my best friend from high school, a girl named (for this story, at least) Ashley. Now, I knew that she'd had a big crush on me since high school, but I reasoned that she would value our friendship more than any crush. I now realize that wasn't exactly the best move on my part, but I digress. I came out to her, and she didn't take it nearly as well as I'd hoped. Things were rocky for a long, long time--in fact, only in this past September has she finally accepted that I'm gay and been totally okay with it.
Anyhow, her mini-meltdown left me desperate for more people to talk to. I also wanted to give Ashley some people to talk to, to figure things out with. Hence I told three more friends. One of them took it well, though to the point of being overbearingly caring about me, and the other two flipped out. One of them sent me several text messages a day for the next week about why being gay is a sin, and the opinions of her family and friends on why people are gay while the other just stopped talking to me for a long while.
That's when I found the GBL Forum and started to post there. Though I was never terribly active, it gave me a chance to talk a bit with other gay people and see what they were really like. It helped me tremendously.
A few more incidental comings-out and one school year later, I was staying with my parents at the end of May, as I was in-between apartment contracts. I was alone in the room with my mom one night when she asked me why I wasn't an elder yet (That's a calling in the Mormon church. Generally men become a elders when they're 18, but I didn't, for obvious reasons). I didn't want to lie, so I merely pushed her question aside with a non-answer. However, a couple of hours and a few probing questions from her later, I found myself coming out to my mom much to my surprise.
After telling her my story and talking for a good while, I told her she could talk to my dad if she wished, and she did the next day. My parents then wanted me to go to a therapist recommended by Evergreen International, a group which professes to 'cure' gays, which I declined. They also asked me to go on a mission (in the Mormon church, 19 year old men are sent to various areas of the world to preach for two years), which I declined. Since then, they haven't discussed the issue at all apart from constant requests that I go on a mission. It's putting tremendous strain on our relationship.
This all brings us to early last week, when I finally came out to my brother. After I told him, he did nothing--he didn't look at me, cry, or even move a muscle. All he did was think for a moment, and ask "When did you come to this conclusion?" I told him my story, and at the end, all he said was "I know this sounds hypocritical, but all I ask is that you stay close to the church." I asked him if he had any more question, as everyone else I've come out to has asked me things for an hour or so; he said no. He then told me I'm his brother and he'll always love me--I told him he can go ahead and talk to his wife about it if he wants, and that our parents also already know if he wants to talk to them.
Anyhow, that brings us to today. I haven't talked to my brother since then, which is odd given that we usually talk at least twice a week. I want to talk to him about it, but I don't know if the time is right or if he'll even listen to anything that I have to say. My parents are coming up for a birthday dinner for him and his wife this Saturday, so I'll see him then; in the interim, I'm just worried that I've now effectively alienated everyone in my family.
Whew! Didn't expect to type that much. Sorry if the story is disjointed or if it has a couple of typos, as this was a stream-of-consciousness post.
Anyhow, that's pretty much my story up through now. Any advice on my family situation?
