Formerly known as "The Thoughts of a Gay Mormon." I'd now consider myself a very inactive Mormon, so my thoughts are no longer from an active, practicing Mormon and I didn't want my title to be misleading. And WARNING: I write very casually and use a lot of words and slang that could be taken offensively. My words aren't intended to offend, they are just my raw thoughts put on the page.
So here's the song. No explanation needed, I just like it.
Well so at this point I'm out to most people that matter, and it feels great, but I've entered into a state of complete confusion. Like before I was out I was only allowed to think one way, but now that I can do what I want and be who I want, I don't really know what I want. I mean, it's become pretty apparent to me recently that it would be hard for me to be happy with a woman, and with the support of my parents and the weight of having to go to BYU off my shoulders, I think I'm ready to try dating who and what I want. The issue is that in my life I've always avoided dating due to a lack of interest or inability to date the people I want. Because of this I don't know how to date, or better yet how to get a date. I'm not sure Provo is the best place to learn the how to's of dating, but I really
like it here. I don't know if I should stay in Provo, if I should even go right back to school or take some time off, or what. All these issues are hitting me at once and I have no idea what to do about it. It's created a lot of confusion for me.
I think the real issue is that I'm dying to date someone. I really want the whole relationship deal, like caring about someone and having them care about me, and being connected to them more than just a friend (I'm not saying sex). I have just wanted that for a while now, and all the questions I'm asking myself that I mentioned above affect this desire to be in a relationship, and it's killing me.
I asked an engaged friend what the hell he was doing, like fuckin' a we're 20 years old man why is he getting engaged already, and his reply changed the way I've looked at relationships forever. He said something to the effect of "We'll I guess I found someone I want to hang out with more than anyone else. I'd rather sit and do homework with her, than play Halo with the boys ya know?" And like damn son that changed everything. I want to find someone that I want to hang out with like that you know? Someone that I care about so deeply.
So anywho due to not letting myself be gay up to this point I'm helplessly lost when it comes to dating or fuck even flirting? I was talking to a guy, semi-romantically and shit he was smooth man I was blushing and shit, but I had no idea how to respond or anything. I guess other than that there's no real point to this post. I just wanted to get it off my chest because it's frustrating as shit that I want nothing more than to be in a relationship but have no idea how to go about it.
Welp other than that life is plugging along I'm doing pretty well. It seems the depression is slowly lifting, some days it's really bad others it's not but I have noticed it's steadily getting better. I have a pretty close group of friends who all know I'm gay now, and it's hella awesome like I have a lot more fun now and can just be myself. All in all life is getting better and I'm pretty happy for once.
SOooo I've got more shit to post about so look for some new stuff coming soon.
Instead of doing a funny picture to end things here's a funny youtube video. I laughed wayyyyyy to hard at this.
Whenever I get really confused I say "Dude like I don't even know man" and it used to piss my mom off. She was like "I'm your mom, not dude, and definitely not man..." Anywho, the title is slightly fitting because I'm really confused about what to title this entry haha. Anyway I heard of a South African rap rave group a few years ago called Die Antwoord (pronounced: Dee Ant-voort) and liked them a bit but thought they were really strange. So I recently saw the movie Chappie and the two singers in Die Antwoord are two of the main characters, and a lot of their music is featured. I liked what I heard so I went home and looked them up. They're actually pretty cool people, even though their music is really really "out there." so I thought I'd post one of their songs to start. NOTE: IT'S EXTREMELY VULGAR AND HAS INAPPROPRIATE THEMES. It's good for getting pumped though:
Here's another amazing song from a group I been listening to a lot lately. This one is clean and more like the music I usually post. This will be long so two songs because I can.
So here we go. Shortly after my last post I realized I wasn't acting like myself. Last year I had an 8am Class I hated, and would wake up like 15 minutes before class started, and be like "Oh shit I gotta go!" and I'd spring up, get dressed, grab a muffin and run to class. I hate missing class. I could do that every day for a week on 3-4 hours of sleep a night. This semester however, I have a 10am class I really like, and I'll wake up with half an hour to get there, with 6-7 hours of sleep and I'd think "Alright let's do this, gotta go to class..." but then I'd get back in bed and go back to sleep. I didn't want to but mentally I couldn't force myself to get up. At first I thought I was being lazy, but I just didn't have the strength to face the day. After that I noticed I lost interest in tons of things. Friends would invite me to do things I love and I just wouldn't go with them, no excuse. And it's not like I was skipping stuff to stay home and watch netflix or play video games or something, I'd just lay in bed or sit at the table and think about how bad I'm fucking up my life and how there's no hope for me. I then realized that I may be clinically depressed. I consulted a friend who has been diagnosed and has been dealing with severe clinical depression for a while, and she told me I was explaining exactly how her depression started.
It's crazy, last semester I found a statistic that said 70-80% of all LGBT students at BYU develop depression at some point (not sure if develop is the right word but it gets the point across). When I read it I was like "haha bitches life is good I ain't getting depression" but damn do I regret saying that. It's like everything finally caught up with me. I finally grew some testes and went it and talked to my bishop. I told him I thought I had depression and he asked me some questions and told me it's not uncommon for college kids to get it. I then told him I liked dudes. The first thing he said after I told him was "Well that definitely is a factor of the depression then eh?" We had a good talk, tried to figure some things out, and I went on my way. We agreed I should tell my dad and see what he wanted to do about it (Get off campus medical help, or go to BYU's free mental health center). I put it off for a week or two, but finally I was talking to my dad and asked if he was free later that night, because I had something serious to talk about. He got nervous and asked if I'd done anything wrong, I said no and told him I'd call him later.
That night I called my dad up and the first thing he said was "What's wrong just tell me?" I don't really remember what I said but I awkwardly told him I thought I was depressed. He asked some basic questions, I explained how I was feeling, and he agreed I probably have an issue. He asked me how classes were going (grade wise) and I said not great. This was my biggest fear. All my life my parents have put a lot of emphasis and pressure on getting good grades. I remember my first C in college. Me mum made is seem like the world was ending. I got yelled at a bit for it. I was terrified of telling my parent's that my grades were suffering from this depression. After I told him it wasn't going well he calmly explained that if need be I could withdraw from the semester, but that we should talk about it a bit first. It was a huge relief. I could finally stop worrying about my parents reaction when I dropped that bomb on them and focus on fixing myself (getting myself back to the way I was). He then moved on to ask me what could be causing the depression. I told him about the academic pressure that the school causes, and also the pressures I feel from him and my mom, and the pressure they put on me and how it affects me. He told me that he and my mother were ok with me not doing well, and that they would support me and help me if I needed to take a semester or two off. He asked if there was anything else contributing, and I mentioned I had some personal issues that I was working through with the bishop that were obviously contributing. He asked me what they were, but I explained it was extremely personal and I'd rather not talk about it. He asked for hints or ideas, and I told him it wasn't a sin or I wasn't in trouble, but I had some stuff I needed to figure out. That ended the conversation.
It was a huge step in the right direction. We came up with a plan to get me in to see a professional, and it took a huge weight off my shoulders. It allowed me to focus more on fixing the depression, instead of how to tell my parent's I'm not doing well/how to hide the fact that I'm not doing well in school. I was blown away by my father response. I got started on the plan we made, and then rolled along this weekend. I went out and had some fun with friends Friday and Saturday, and Sunday my dad asked if I'd be free to Skype. I knew he wanted to follow up with what we had talked about, so I told him when a good time was, and Skyped him Sunday afternoon. My mom was sitting with him, and they got straight into talking about how I was feeling. At first it felt a bit accusatory but after a minute my mom cleared the air and said she wasn't accusing me of anything and she wasn't mad. The tone in her voice was concern.
My mom has always been a bit crazy (in a good way) where if things aren't going her way or the way she had planned, she makes them go her way, and for my brother and I that was always punishment or yelling or nagging till things were going how she wanted. A few times my mom had threatened to take away the financial support she was giving me. Before I came to college my parents made me the deal that if I could pay for school and my everyday expenses (food and what not) that they would pay for housing. They didn't mind helping me pay for food (they weren't going to let me starve) but wanted me to cover most of it. Sounded like a deal to me, and that's the way it's worked since freshman year. Over the years as issues with grades have arisen my mom has used taking away their support in paying for my housing as motivation for me to get things back on track. It was a huge relief when this time, when I was actually in a bad situation, she really just cared for me and didn't bring up money or anything at all. I could tell she really just wanted the best for me.
We talked a lot about therapy and stuff, and withdrawing from school, and then we got back onto the causes of the depression. My parents were incessant on knowing the reasons. I kept just talking about school and stuff, but noted my personal issues that I was working out with the bishop. They asked what my personal issues were and I said I'd really rather not talk about it. They asked if I was in trouble or had done anything wrong. I said no, and they told me that if that's the case I had nothing to fear. Now being completely honest I told them to wait a sec and ran to my bathroom and tried to phone up one of my really good friends to get his advice. Unfortunately there was no answer, so I quickly checked to make sure nobody could hear me, and walked back to my computer with no idea what to do.
Here's the thing, I'm a pretty tough person. I can't remember the last time I cried. In the last 2 years I've broken 3 bones, had surgery on one, and severely fractured the inside of my knee with no tears. I walked myself to the hospital close to half a mile with a destroyed collar bone without shedding a single tear. However as I sat down I couldn't handle it. I mean, to save my image it wasn't like a full on cry, but yo I was tearing up pretty bad and ya I was pretty much crying. I'm sure some of you have felt it before but all the pressure and everything was hanging on this moment. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how my parents would react (check some of my old posts to see how homophobic my parents were growing up) and I just was terrified.
I sat back down and voiced my want to not share my personal issues. My Mom got a bit mad and said "At this point if you don't tell us I'll be more mad at you that anything you possible could just tell me." So I decided to just go for it. I'm not good at breaking the new to people, so I said "Well, you guys get on me for not dating, what if I had a reason for not dating?" and my parents were like what is it? So I said it was a lack of interest. My dad said "That's no big deal you don't have to date..." and I said "Well I want to date.... just...." and my dad was like "Oh a lack of interest in women?" and I nodded, and my dad asked "But you are interested... in guys?" to which I nodded again. At that moment it was out. The secret I'd hid from my parents for nearly 10 years was out. They now knew everything about me. I was terrified of the reaction (I honestly thought my mom wouldn't believe it/try to fix me) but the first thing said was by my mother, who said to my father "Oh so like, gay?"
It makes me laugh thinking about it now, but that was the first thing said after I "came out" to my parents. We had a really good talk, and quite frankly I'm still blown away by how understanding my parents were. I don't know what i expected really, but man it was way better than I ever could have hoped for. We discussed leaving BYU (I likely will) leaving the church (I probably won't right now) and things of that nature. It was amazing. To end my dad said "Well you are the way you are and there's no changing that. So be yourself, and decided what will honestly make you happy. If it's leaving BYU and/or the church, then so be it. We just want you to be happy and do what is best for you." Holy shit man I mean... I'm still speechless.
So that happened like a few days ago and I'm still just blown away. I feel free. I feel like I can finally talk to my parents. I'm hiding noting. I have a good friend that wants to move in with me in the summer, and I yoloed and told him everything I was dealing with (don't want a friend to find out after living with me for a few months that I'm gay, because then there's potential for it to go really bad). He was super chill though and said nothing would change. It's just a huge relief to see that people still love me and support me. Growing up I thought if people found out I'd be disowned and excommunicated and all my friends would want to burn me, which I know is unreasonable but it's always made me scared to tell people. I mean, I just keep lifting weights off my shoulders this week it feels awesome.
Now I owe a lot to a buddy of mine who's on his mission. I emailed him about all my issues and my fears about talking to my parents and he said (and this is straight outta his email) "I love you [name], and if you can pray for the strength to talk to your dad I would do it, I think its a good idea to talk to him, I know he loves you and will want to help you too, just go for it." Me and this friend have a history of doing crazy shit together, and when I was scared to do something he'd just say "Dude just do it, yolo mate, no balls." at the end of the email when he says "just go for it" it was like he was there joking with me saying "no balls dude do it." That probably doesn't mean much to other people, but that can get me to do just about anything, and it worked here. Gotta thank my friend for the motivation to do this.
Well this entry has been written over 3 days, and is really long, gets a bit ramble-ish but I had to get it out. There's still a lot more I need to write but give me a few days. I'm going to start posting more to hopefully help get some shit off my chest and get me out of this depressed state I seem to be in.
Now to end on a lighter note ya'll have to see the movie The Kingsmen. it's an over the top spy movie about the british secret service, but man the british kills me they're all like "Don't even fink about showin ya face in here again bruv, get out ya pleb" and it's just super funny to hear them talk. great movie. 10/10 would reccomend.
So there you have it, I'm out to my parents and am trying to figure out where to go from here, but for now I feel great. Sorry for the long post, here's some funny pictures to make it up.
(that's exactly what someone who does cocaine would say...)
