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It sucked. Actually, it worked but it still sucked.
For 17 years, I was numb, yet alive, living on an IV of deceit, yet portraying truth. After coming out to my parents at 19, and then consciously and unconsciously going back into the closet, I allowed, what is now known as gaslighting, to guide my life.
I had become so manipulated by religious dogma, societal definitions of manhood, and a false sense of self, that I took a supporting actor role as a heterosexual, believing that I just might win my own version of an Academy Award for living the life others wanted me to live. My psyche was convinced I was more than just sexually attracted to men, yet my logic fought with a vengeance to deny that truth, out of fear, fear, fear of what would happen.
In the midst of all this turmoil, my uncle passed away from the gay plague – AIDS – and that cemented for my family that there was no way I was going to be gay. While that concreted their decision, it truly didn’t create a firm foundation for me that I wasn’t gay, but hey, who am I to stand up to an overbearing father, religious convictions that seemed kind of right, and why fight what society saw as an abomination towards the human race. After all, if you can’t procreate, you will be the reason the world will die…but that wasn’t the death I was experiencing.
The crucifixion I chose, somewhat begrudgingly, was to allow my most authentic self to wither away, or to at least fade into the background. It was rather easy because it was the early 80’s and being homosexual was a laughing matter. Jack Tripper on Three’s Company was the chuckle that reminded us that gays were, quite honestly, simply a joke. Ellen wasn’t even on the horizon, Queer as Folk was a pipe dream, and the possibility of the White House being lit up in rainbow colors during LGBTQ Pride month was a blasphemous thought at best. Heck, the B, T, and Q weren’t even part of the equation at that point.
So, I slithered into my little, comatose life. Sure, I was living. I made money, I climbed the professional ladder, I met the woman, got married, had two beautiful daughters – well I didn’t have them, but I contributed my sperm to their existence – and life seemed just as everyone had planned it, except for me. The majority of this contrived existence wasn’t me. In fact, all that was me was my career, being a father, and having a long-term relationship. Those things were real, even the long-term relationship was with someone without a penis.
It was all FAKE NEWS well before FAKE NEWS even existed. Every move I made should have been headline news fodder for the check-out line gossip magazines. All it would have taken was someone tapping into my secretive life in AOL chat rooms, following me sneaking into adult bookstores as I silently watched gay porn in little cubicles of video arcades, and capturing me in my hidden hook-up life with men. Men just like me afraid to be who they were. All of us denial yet accepting that we were gay-straight because that is what we had to be.
Sure, it sounds easy, from those who choose to ask the question, “Why couldn’t you just be honest and not enter into a false relationship with a woman?” Isn’t that the million-dollar question. Shall I repeat? Societal pressures, misguided religious beliefs, perceptions of manhood, and the list goes on and on and on.
Yes, if you’ve never stood in those confused shoes, it seems very easy to say, “Why, why, why?” So, try those shoes on. What if you were told you couldn’t be heterosexual? That it was abnormal, a sin, an abomination to society, yet in your heart of hearts, you knew that you are who you are, and it is your normal. Please, go ahead try on that outfit and see how it feels. That’s exactly why I did what I did. I was attempting to feel normal until that normal was replaced with a new normal.
The duality of living two lives was daunting. Being one person when I was away from my wife and kids was like a drug. It evoked the highest highs and the lowest lows. Any time I was able to explore my gay life I embraced the elixir of truth and glowed, only to feel the ache of guilt and shame penetrate my very being.
A constant weight of crossing my “T’s” and dotting my “I’s” to make sure my stories always matched up and ensuring only my most trusted insiders were given a glimpse inside my true world, caused me to constantly question my sanity. Yet, on the outside, the mask did not crack. Success, fatherhood, devoted husband prevailed. Lies, lies, lies.
From extreme weight gain to an ever-growing dependency on alcohol, marijuana, and discreet sexual encounters I was living my worst life. Although it was a recipe for disaster, it was also the drug of choice that kept me alive, so to speak.
Each day the fears of being found out mounted. The thoughts of hurting my wife and kids knocked constantly in the dark corners of the closets of my mind. How could I come out and do this to them? Wouldn’t it be easier to and less painful to just kill myself? Sure, they would be hurt by that, but at least they wouldn’t know the truth…or would they. Suddenly I entered the contentious arena of which is worse – living the truth or living the lie. Daily the contenders battled it out, subjecting my heart, mind, and soul to a never-ending battle of may the best real man win.
Call it a chance meeting or meeting Mr. Right, I met my savior. He was a man that showed me I could have more than just sex with another man. Simultaneously, I had been marching forward, yielding my sword of authenticity, truth, and confidence. Slaying the gremlins of guilt, shame, expectations, and misdirected religious convictions.
The perfect storm moved me from the arena, and to the victors stand. My gold medal life was going to come from hard work, sacrifice, and pain. Yes, I was going to hurt. Yes, others were in the path of my destructive choices, and no I was not the least bit proud. Yes, I was afraid of the unknown. However, it’s the unknown abyss that more often than not is where we find our answers.
Operating strictly from the euphoria of a night spent with a magical stranger where there was no sex, I fell in love, and I fell apart, I discovered that FEAR no longer owned me. FEAR empowered me to do what I most needed to do – come out of my closet.
Fear showed me I was all right. Fear guided me to be a better man. Fear lit the way to sanity. Fear became my friend. Fear taught me to trust myself to be myself.
Fear invited me to never, ever again, slip into the false sense of living outside of my truth because in that space there is no comfort.
When fear is allowed to rule your life, you have no life. The greatest thing that fear can do is make you realize, in fear, you are living a dual existence. One driven by fear, and one driven by what’s on the other side.
I chose to be on the other side of the closet door, and now know, life is a series of closet doors, all just waiting for us to come out and be our authentic self.
What do you choose? A dual life of shame and guilt, or a singular life of living authentically?
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