Every time we celebrate pride I’m encouraged to reflect on my own journey and the fortune I have to be around supportive people and in a (generally) tolerant country. But long after I came out I still felt uncomfortable talking about it publicly or referring to myself as gay and it isn’t always safe. After seeing so many rainbows around of late I felt proud and inclined to write about my journey to this point.
You see, sometimes it’s hard to be proud of who you are when society has been asking you to be something different all your life. Even the inadvertent family ads featuring a husband and wife, and the assumptions of ‘he’ when you talk about your partner – it doesn’t have to be explicit to be continuously reinforced.
I’d always wanted to please people, I wanted to make my parents proud and achieve the approval of anyone and everyone; my family, friends, partners, bosses, teachers. I would change myself and my desires and sometimes even my opinions to fit into whatever mould was required at the time.
I spent years following the norms, trying to fit in and trying to be who I thought I should, trying to fit the mould. Dating men and wondering why it didn’t work, settling down with a male partner and wondering why I was unhappy.
Interviewers often ask me “what was it like living a lie when you knew deep down that you were gay?” It wasn’t that I was consciously living a lie but had something buried so deep within I wasn’t even aware it existed. It wasn’t a case of choosing not to share it because I didn’t know there was a choice or, for many years, that I had something to share.
For many years it was buried so deep it didn’t even exist, I was so unaware, but I still couldn’t figure out why relationships with men didn’t work. But even as I started to gain some self-awareness and begin to put the pieces together of who I was and what I wanted feeling this and actually accepting it were two completely different things.
I’m from a small rural, conservative English town. There weren’t many gays at school and those who were got bullied. My family are from a traditional Christian background where homosexuality was not acceptable and women were expected to grow up, marry men and have a family. I was so worried that, not only would my family be disappointed but, they would love me less. I was worried that my colleagues may treat me differently, my friends would disown me and that those around me would disapprove. I struggled to come to terms with who I was as it didn’t fit the version I’d been sold of who I should be.
It was tough, one of the toughest things I’ve done (that’s why it took me 10 years) but in hindsight not a tough as living a lie would have been for another 10 years. Once I knew of course I had to do something about it, I had to be true to my authenticity now I’d discovered it - but that’s easier said than done!
The ironic thing of course is that no-one did really mind and some weren’t even surprised. Apparently the only person I’d been keeping it a secret from was myself! When I look back now and wonder why it took me so long I can see it was fear of judgement, disappointing people, feeling like an outcast. All these things keep me hanging out in the closest hoping it would go away and I’d be ‘normal’ until it becomes unbearable enough that I had to break out only to find that no-one really minds, in fact they all kind of knew already. It’s taught me that everyone’s scared of something, we all have to face fears and build our courage what ever it is we’re facing.
I feel comfortable in my own skin, I’m no longer living a lie. I know who I am and can share this with those I care about at last. I no longer feel the need to accommodate others and have realised the people who love you will accept you just the way you are. I love myself and know that people love me, for who I am not who I’m pretending to be.
If we do not live a life true to ourselves and feel as though we have meaning and purpose we’ll never be happy. In fact the suppression will lead to an unhappiness that can impact on our health. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, suppression of our true self is damaging but it’s just as hard sometimes to allow it to shine through. Especially if it’s different to the expectations society has placed on you.
I remember reading Brene Brown’s Gifts of Imperfection before I came out and this excerpt really stood out. “I think we should be born with a warning label similar to the ones that come on cigarette packages: Caution: If you trade in your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.”
These days I’m lucky to have a partner and friends who make me feel like I fit in the world just as everyone else does and that I can be accepted just as I am, but most importantly I feel like i fit in my own skin at last. I’m also fortunate to live in a place like Wellington where people rarely bat an eyelid when I refer to my partner using the pronoun ‘she’. This is how it should be yet I’m aware so often isn’t.
I know there are others who have a very different experience of this and still live in places where the acceptance and freedom is a distant dream and the discrimination and sometimes risk of life a daily reality. I know we’ve not all had smooth journeys towards coming out and that hate and violence still exists in all corners of the world, so I consider myself very lucky and my heart goes out to those who are not as fortunate.