Painful gay adolescence? Yeah, I think I can add to that.
First there was the idea that being gay was bad, a sin and that God was going to kill me for being gay. With that came the internal struggle with my feelings. And since I was a pubescent, my body was "betraying me", you know, too many hormones. Since I was two years ahead in school, I was always the youngest, and since I am gay I was seen as weak. So to cope the only thing I did was to isolate, and when I wanted to socialize, I had to put up with abuse from the bullies or being ridiculed for being gay.
Every day school to me was a battle ground. Me against my attraction to the boys that were abusive towards me.
Then I started feeling less isolated and less bad when I noticed that some of those boys started to approach me for sex. I always said no, because I didn't want them to start telling everyone in school that I had sex with them (until my very last day in school, when I knew I wasn't coming back. I had sex with Jesus
. Well, that was his name). I realized that it all was more a game of how things should look instead of how they really are. Turns out that the most popular boy (athlete, tall, intelligent and with all girls behind him) was gay and wanted to have sex with me!
So I became a typical closet case. I resolved to avoid anything that remotely "looked gay". That gave me acceptance. The closet thing didn't last much because of the way I am. I found stupid and unnecessary to hide my own sexuality. So my last 3 or 4 years of adolescence was more like a process of getting out of the closet. I entered my adulthood in the process.
Of course, with no knowledge of what being gay or what the "gay lifestyle" or "gay scene" is, it was the start of my journey of self-discovery. I found a gay community that wasn't exactly to warm welcoming or anything I wanted to call family, but that's material for another post.
In a nutshell that was my gay adolescence. Shame, struggle, deceive, and acceptance. Looking back, what feels painful is seeing me strugglig to fight against my own self, feeling ashamed of who I am, and feeling so lonely. Since I'm a survivor of abuse, I also felt that it all was my fault. Now I see it all as a story of survival, strive and acceptance.
