When Brooks Smith came out to his therapist mother, her support was welcomed…her questions were not.
Brooks Smith was 21 when he came out to his mother. She was supportive and accepting, as he’d hoped she’d be. She was also a therapist, liked to talk about things a lot, had dealt with a lot of different people and issues…and he felt like she applied some of that to him because of the “gay lifestyle” look at things.
He says:
“At one point, she was asking me questions, things that I didn’t want to share with her, didn’t feel like I needed to share. As an effect of me coming out, she started going to PFLAG meetings an hearing stories of people’s kids becoming affected at a young age, so there were a lot of questions to me about what I was doing, was I sexually active, was I being safe, things like that.
There was a point where I was happy that she had questions and that she was curious but not to the extent that she was. And I can remember the time she came home with a big manilla envelope full of AIDS flyers she had gotten from somewhere and she was like, “Here you go!” and I was like “I know a lot of detail. I’ve looked at it on my own.”
After a conversation with a therapist I was seeing, I had to say, “You don’t need to know this. I don’t want to tell you, ” and that she needed to be okay with that. And I said that to her and said,
“I don’t think you would have asked these same questions of my brother.”
“I don’t think that it’s appropriate that I have to share these things with you. And I don’t want to tell you.” And she just kind of went, “Ok.”
For Brooks, it was interesting to work through the awkward moments with her. But it was an experience he wished he hadn’t had.
Originally published at ImFromDriftwood.com. I’m From Driftwood envisions a world where every lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer person feels understood and accepted, and every straight person is an ally.
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