CowardKnight
wondering
- Feb 12, 2025
- 48
I know, I know this isn't the best place for this. I know I should post this somewhere else like r/lgbt or even r/Advice, but I preferred to post it here because of 2 reasons: 1. it's a bit long and reddit hates long posts, and 2. the post gets automatically flagged for some reason and it doesn't let me post it there despite doing as many corrections as possible so I got tired of it. This is the only place right now that I know I can ask for help for something like this.
EDIT: Funnily enough the post also got flagged here... amazing...
Some of the stuff I'm going to mention here I've already mentioned it on previous posts of mine, but let's be honest, I don't expect you to go through my post history to look for these posts (nor I expect anyone to remember those) so I'll just mention it here again because I believe context is VERY important for this.
I'm 20, and like any other gay person I've been dealing with homophobia all my life. My country isn't THAT horrible (gay marriage is legal here for example), but homophobia and discrimination is still VERY present and mainstream, and we also have one of the highest hate crime rates of the region so it's scary af. Somehow I've managed to cope with it well before but about 3 years ago I came to a breaking point when those hate crimes affected someone I knew personally, among other problems.
About 3 years ago I was in high school and I was in my final year. Things were already very stressful cuz I was dealing with more bullying than usual from both other students and even teachers (I was already being bullied and excluded a lot in the past years but somehow it was even worse at that time) and of course, worrying about my future, what will I do after school, studying itself and so on. At that time I was in a club/special class of sorts that was managed by other teachers (to not make this very long I'll skip the details). The point is that, there was a teacher that was, well, also gay. He gave me class sometimes, we also talked sometimes, and so on, although I was never really close to him or anything I still liked being with him for obvious reasons.
Then, he was killed.
It was somewhat confirmed that it was a hate crime because of his sexual orientation. The police at first didn't even want to take his case just because he was gay. That's how fucked up things are here. Eventually someone took the case and they managed to find the murderers, but it's still so fucked up. What's even more fucked up is that he lived REALLY close to me, like, in the same neighborhood, and he was killed in his house. And also seeing the hate online, people mocking and making fun of his death (like also with all the hate crimes like these) just fucking broke me.
And of course, the worst part about this was the reaction of my parents. To give some context, they're christian and conservative. My dad reads the news a lot, so when he read it he told me about it (most likely because it was someone from my school, and also, I already knew about it). I did my best to not show too much emotion in front of him and just overall appear indifferent, but I did appear a bit shocked and told my dad that he was a teacher that sometimes gave me class. We talked about it for a bit and then, he looks at me, not showing too much emotion either, and just says "but he has gay...". To this day I can't really tell if he was making fun of it or what. He didn't really appear to make fun of it given his facial expression/tone, but still, I don't know. It was like he was just saying a fact or something... I dunno.
But my mom, holy shit. She heard the conversation and actually made fun of it. She said "oh, well, it's known they they mess with other women' men (?) so who knows" or something like that. She actually said it in a mocking tone, smiling.
Needless to say I couldn't look at my mother the same since she said that shit.
Eventually I had to drop out of school and continue studying via an online school because I couldn't take it anymore.I managed to graduate later and so on, thankfully. But since then, I've been living in isolation and dealing with severe depression. I barely go out of the house. I'm terrified of the world. I have literally no friends and only talk to my family. I'm not working or anything either. I'm a NEET at the moment.
Now, since this started, surprisingly, my parents have been extremely supportive and understanding about it, they try to help me in any way that they can. They help me take care of myself (depression makes it really difficult to do even basic things so I'm ashamed of saying this), haven't forced me to get a job or go to college or anything, and helped me go to therapy. I have to admit, my dad especially, has helped me the most. But, of course, they don't know the real reason behind all of this. They think it's just anxiety (I was already diagnosed with an anxiety disorder some time ago) and depression.
Now, thankfully some months ago I managed to finally find a good therapist for me that works/has experience with LGBT people. I've been making good progress with her and so on, but recently I've wondered if things would be better if I came out to my dad (I haven't told any of this to my therapist though yet, I plan to next week). Because, holy shit, trying to heal in an enviroment like this feels impossible (no shit...). I thought that, maybe, having an ally would make things better. Of course I'm just wondering posibilities, I'm not going to take any decision tomorrow, nor this week, nor this month, so who knows.
Now, as you see, my mom is clearly not someone I should come out to. Not only because of that comment she made, but also because of who she is as a person. She's very christian, very very, extremely religious. She goes to church everyday, she's the lead of a pro-life group, is involved in other religious groups, she also puts a lot of religious images around the house, you name it. She's very devoted, and look, if the bible said "kill your sinner son" she would do it, and I'm serious. She also thinks almost everything is satanic, so, for example, we can't go to the cinema with her because she thinks almost every movie has satanic messaging or something.
She's so exaggerated that even my dad criticizes her for it and they sometimes get into arguments because of it.
She's also very manipulative, noisy, and overall very dangerous. If I came out to her, she would ruin my life just so that I don't "sin" (worst part is that she has already suspected of me some time ago, holy shit).
She also has some... interesting views on gay people. Like, she's aware that those people can't choose it and they're born with it, so she believes they're special and it's all a test given to them by god and that they need to live in chastity. That's how insane she is.
Now, I try to have a good relationship with her just to avoid drama, but honestly, I don't even consider her my mom. I hate her so much.
Now, there's my dad...
First, you see, before, my relationship with my dad was... complicated, and very rough. Things could get very agressive and physical between us easily, and honestly, I kinda hated him. Needless to say we weren't very close. But since this started, holy crap, he has changed a lot as a person. He's totally different from who he was like 5 years ago. He's more... calm, reasonable and patient with me. He doesn't yell at me anymore. I can't even remember the last time he hit me.
I mean, before, my mom was the one that had to stop arguments between us. But now, it's my dad who's taken that role with me and my mom, somehow.
As I said, he has especially helped me the most since this situation started, and he looks really worried for me, and it's killing me inside. Because of this, we've gotten more close.
Now, about his beliefs...
Again, he's also christian, but not in the same level like my mom. He only goes to church on sundays and that's it, he isn't involved in any religious groups or anything. He's a more decent person than my mom. He also doesn't think everything is satanic and, for example, I can go with him to the cinema with no issues because, well, he understands fiction is just that, fiction.
And, as I said, he's also conservative, although, if I'm honest, his political beliefs are kinda a "mystery" to me. Idk how to explain. The only stuff I can say is that, first, he likes to read (my mom barely reads, and if she does, it's the bible or other shitty religious books), and his favourite books are 1984 and Animal Farm. Yes, seriously. I personally haven't read them though (I plan to) but I kinda know what they're about. Anyways, to not make this very long, sometimes I've discussed what his beliefs are with my older sister (she's the only person in the family that knows I'm gay), and she tells me he's kinda like, a liberal in the closet, lol (although in my country there's not such thing as "liberal" or so, you get the idea).
I don't really know what his views are like on LGBT people are, either. But to give an idea, like last year, we went to watch a movie (it was Memoir of a Snail) and one of the main characters was gay. After it finished he didn't say anything about it. It looks like he didn't really mind it. And also, the movie made fun of religion a lot, and he didn't mind it either, in fact, he thought the movie was funny when it came to those topics. And he even laughed when watching it.
Now, I also believe it's very important I say this... you see, he's also able to change his opinion on anything (or who knows) if given enough facts/information/arguments about it, and I've already proven it twice.
The first time... as you see, I like to go with him to the cinema sometimes (and I guess he also enjoys it), and I get to pick the movies, and I love animated movies so I always choose those. Before, he had some stigma with animated movies. Basically, he was one of these people that thinks animation is just for kids and shit like that. So a lot of the time he would just ignore almost completly the deeper messaging the films had just because of it...
So, one time, while we were coming home from the cinema, we started talking about the movie we just watched (the movie was Elio), and of course, he started saying stuff like how those movies are "for kids" and how he doesn't like to waste time watching that stuff because he's an adult. Honestly I got tired of it so I talked with him about it. I asked him what he really meant by that, what he thinks adults should be watching apparently, I told him how those movies he thinks are just for kids are made by adults themselves, and basically, we sorta started discussing about it. I also showed him a quote by CS Lewis (he knows the author) that really helped the discussion, which is this one:
Long story short, he admitted I was right and changed his opinion, and I'm not joking! next time we went to see a movie (which was Princess Mononoke), he actually paid more attention to the movie and it's themes (the movie has environmentalism themes). After it ended, we discussed for a bit the message of the movie and stuff like that (he doesn't believe in climate change though lmfao, the irony)
And the second time it was about a more... stigmatized topic, which is videogames... Basically, last year, I was trying to get into my hobbies again (cuz I abandoned them because of depression), and one of these was games, so, I thought, what if I try changing my dad opinion about it? around this time I was already fantasizing with the idea of coming out to him, so I thought this was a good idea to test the waters perhaps? Of course, he, being the person he is, has a very bad opinion about games, thinks they're a waste of time and so on. But still, I wanted to try.
So, I told him I wanted to talk to him about something but it was gonna be a bit long, so it needed to be in a day he was less busy I guess. So we scheduled, and one day, I sat down with him (my mom wasn't at home at the time) and I began discussing with him, showed him sources, especially showed him a video that I found on youtube that was specifically for people like him to get them to view videogames from a different perspective. I showed him how gaming is a bigger industry than the movie and music industries combinated, how videogames are made and the art involved in them, showed him some "making of" videos of games where they make the music (the videos I showed him involved an orchestra so that surprised him), how videogames can be art, and how they're just another medium just like books, movies, shows or comics.
Long story short, he again ended up changing his opinion. Now, when I'm playing something, he doesn't bother me about it or anything anymore, he doesn't mind. I even asked him if he, in the future, would like me to teach him how to play games and so on and he was actually interested.
I have to admit, this is the thing that gives me the most hope.
...okay, that was everything good about him. Now here's the bad part.
As I mentioned, he likes reading news a lot, and he also follows some conservative journalists/figures (?) (he tends to watch videos of them when he's at home). And holy. shit. they're so full of hate. There's especially one that he used to listen to before, and it makes me vomit everytime I listen to that... thing. It has such an annoying voice, and basically, it's someone who's against, of course, abortion, euthanasia, thinks LGBT people are trying to enforce a dictatorship (like??), and other horrible things. I've had to tell him to stop putting videos of him saying that his voice annoys me to no end (I mean, it's one of the reasons). And thankfully, since then, he doesn't put videos of him anymore at home.
There's also another journalist he listens to very often (which has a slightly less annoying voice but still annoying regardless), which is also horrible but doesn't talk about these types of social issues that often and talks more about economics and stuff (I've still told my dad to stop listening to this journalist cuz it's becoming annoying, and he didn't stop, but he does lowers the volume and goes to another room when he does... which is something I guess).
And as I mentioned, although this one doesn't talk about these types of social issues that often, some days ago I kinda listened it being homophobic, and I was already having a bad day, so I kinda got a bit ill of listening to it (and honestly, I guess that's the thing that pushed me to do this post).
Also, some days ago, we were out in the car, stopped at a traffic light and at the side of the road there was a teenager lesbian couple that kissed for a bit, and my dad turned his head to look at them like they were an anomaly or something. He didn't really show any emotion in his face, he just stared at them.
Now, based in all of this... do you think it's a good idea to come out to him?
The worst part of this is how, every time depression is hitting me harder or I'm having a bad day, he asks me, very worried "what do you feel right now? how can I help you? please tell me", and again, it fucking kills me inside.
If only I could tell you, dad. But I'm scared of how you'll react.
Please, help me. Is it a good idea? What can I do to be more sure of it? How could I test the waters more?
The only idea I have right now is to, when we go to the movies, pick more movies that have LGBT characters, perhaps? For example, in October all the cinemas here put ParaNorman, and that movie has a gay character, so I thought it could be a good opportunity I guess?
EDIT: Funnily enough the post also got flagged here... amazing...
Some of the stuff I'm going to mention here I've already mentioned it on previous posts of mine, but let's be honest, I don't expect you to go through my post history to look for these posts (nor I expect anyone to remember those) so I'll just mention it here again because I believe context is VERY important for this.
I'm 20, and like any other gay person I've been dealing with homophobia all my life. My country isn't THAT horrible (gay marriage is legal here for example), but homophobia and discrimination is still VERY present and mainstream, and we also have one of the highest hate crime rates of the region so it's scary af. Somehow I've managed to cope with it well before but about 3 years ago I came to a breaking point when those hate crimes affected someone I knew personally, among other problems.
About 3 years ago I was in high school and I was in my final year. Things were already very stressful cuz I was dealing with more bullying than usual from both other students and even teachers (I was already being bullied and excluded a lot in the past years but somehow it was even worse at that time) and of course, worrying about my future, what will I do after school, studying itself and so on. At that time I was in a club/special class of sorts that was managed by other teachers (to not make this very long I'll skip the details). The point is that, there was a teacher that was, well, also gay. He gave me class sometimes, we also talked sometimes, and so on, although I was never really close to him or anything I still liked being with him for obvious reasons.
Then, he was killed.
It was somewhat confirmed that it was a hate crime because of his sexual orientation. The police at first didn't even want to take his case just because he was gay. That's how fucked up things are here. Eventually someone took the case and they managed to find the murderers, but it's still so fucked up. What's even more fucked up is that he lived REALLY close to me, like, in the same neighborhood, and he was killed in his house. And also seeing the hate online, people mocking and making fun of his death (like also with all the hate crimes like these) just fucking broke me.
And of course, the worst part about this was the reaction of my parents. To give some context, they're christian and conservative. My dad reads the news a lot, so when he read it he told me about it (most likely because it was someone from my school, and also, I already knew about it). I did my best to not show too much emotion in front of him and just overall appear indifferent, but I did appear a bit shocked and told my dad that he was a teacher that sometimes gave me class. We talked about it for a bit and then, he looks at me, not showing too much emotion either, and just says "but he has gay...". To this day I can't really tell if he was making fun of it or what. He didn't really appear to make fun of it given his facial expression/tone, but still, I don't know. It was like he was just saying a fact or something... I dunno.
But my mom, holy shit. She heard the conversation and actually made fun of it. She said "oh, well, it's known they they mess with other women' men (?) so who knows" or something like that. She actually said it in a mocking tone, smiling.
Needless to say I couldn't look at my mother the same since she said that shit.
Eventually I had to drop out of school and continue studying via an online school because I couldn't take it anymore.I managed to graduate later and so on, thankfully. But since then, I've been living in isolation and dealing with severe depression. I barely go out of the house. I'm terrified of the world. I have literally no friends and only talk to my family. I'm not working or anything either. I'm a NEET at the moment.
Now, since this started, surprisingly, my parents have been extremely supportive and understanding about it, they try to help me in any way that they can. They help me take care of myself (depression makes it really difficult to do even basic things so I'm ashamed of saying this), haven't forced me to get a job or go to college or anything, and helped me go to therapy. I have to admit, my dad especially, has helped me the most. But, of course, they don't know the real reason behind all of this. They think it's just anxiety (I was already diagnosed with an anxiety disorder some time ago) and depression.
Now, thankfully some months ago I managed to finally find a good therapist for me that works/has experience with LGBT people. I've been making good progress with her and so on, but recently I've wondered if things would be better if I came out to my dad (I haven't told any of this to my therapist though yet, I plan to next week). Because, holy shit, trying to heal in an enviroment like this feels impossible (no shit...). I thought that, maybe, having an ally would make things better. Of course I'm just wondering posibilities, I'm not going to take any decision tomorrow, nor this week, nor this month, so who knows.
Now, as you see, my mom is clearly not someone I should come out to. Not only because of that comment she made, but also because of who she is as a person. She's very christian, very very, extremely religious. She goes to church everyday, she's the lead of a pro-life group, is involved in other religious groups, she also puts a lot of religious images around the house, you name it. She's very devoted, and look, if the bible said "kill your sinner son" she would do it, and I'm serious. She also thinks almost everything is satanic, so, for example, we can't go to the cinema with her because she thinks almost every movie has satanic messaging or something.
She's so exaggerated that even my dad criticizes her for it and they sometimes get into arguments because of it.
She's also very manipulative, noisy, and overall very dangerous. If I came out to her, she would ruin my life just so that I don't "sin" (worst part is that she has already suspected of me some time ago, holy shit).
She also has some... interesting views on gay people. Like, she's aware that those people can't choose it and they're born with it, so she believes they're special and it's all a test given to them by god and that they need to live in chastity. That's how insane she is.
Now, I try to have a good relationship with her just to avoid drama, but honestly, I don't even consider her my mom. I hate her so much.
Now, there's my dad...
First, you see, before, my relationship with my dad was... complicated, and very rough. Things could get very agressive and physical between us easily, and honestly, I kinda hated him. Needless to say we weren't very close. But since this started, holy crap, he has changed a lot as a person. He's totally different from who he was like 5 years ago. He's more... calm, reasonable and patient with me. He doesn't yell at me anymore. I can't even remember the last time he hit me.
I mean, before, my mom was the one that had to stop arguments between us. But now, it's my dad who's taken that role with me and my mom, somehow.
As I said, he has especially helped me the most since this situation started, and he looks really worried for me, and it's killing me inside. Because of this, we've gotten more close.
Now, about his beliefs...
Again, he's also christian, but not in the same level like my mom. He only goes to church on sundays and that's it, he isn't involved in any religious groups or anything. He's a more decent person than my mom. He also doesn't think everything is satanic and, for example, I can go with him to the cinema with no issues because, well, he understands fiction is just that, fiction.
And, as I said, he's also conservative, although, if I'm honest, his political beliefs are kinda a "mystery" to me. Idk how to explain. The only stuff I can say is that, first, he likes to read (my mom barely reads, and if she does, it's the bible or other shitty religious books), and his favourite books are 1984 and Animal Farm. Yes, seriously. I personally haven't read them though (I plan to) but I kinda know what they're about. Anyways, to not make this very long, sometimes I've discussed what his beliefs are with my older sister (she's the only person in the family that knows I'm gay), and she tells me he's kinda like, a liberal in the closet, lol (although in my country there's not such thing as "liberal" or so, you get the idea).
I don't really know what his views are like on LGBT people are, either. But to give an idea, like last year, we went to watch a movie (it was Memoir of a Snail) and one of the main characters was gay. After it finished he didn't say anything about it. It looks like he didn't really mind it. And also, the movie made fun of religion a lot, and he didn't mind it either, in fact, he thought the movie was funny when it came to those topics. And he even laughed when watching it.
Now, I also believe it's very important I say this... you see, he's also able to change his opinion on anything (or who knows) if given enough facts/information/arguments about it, and I've already proven it twice.
The first time... as you see, I like to go with him to the cinema sometimes (and I guess he also enjoys it), and I get to pick the movies, and I love animated movies so I always choose those. Before, he had some stigma with animated movies. Basically, he was one of these people that thinks animation is just for kids and shit like that. So a lot of the time he would just ignore almost completly the deeper messaging the films had just because of it...
So, one time, while we were coming home from the cinema, we started talking about the movie we just watched (the movie was Elio), and of course, he started saying stuff like how those movies are "for kids" and how he doesn't like to waste time watching that stuff because he's an adult. Honestly I got tired of it so I talked with him about it. I asked him what he really meant by that, what he thinks adults should be watching apparently, I told him how those movies he thinks are just for kids are made by adults themselves, and basically, we sorta started discussing about it. I also showed him a quote by CS Lewis (he knows the author) that really helped the discussion, which is this one:
Long story short, he admitted I was right and changed his opinion, and I'm not joking! next time we went to see a movie (which was Princess Mononoke), he actually paid more attention to the movie and it's themes (the movie has environmentalism themes). After it ended, we discussed for a bit the message of the movie and stuff like that (he doesn't believe in climate change though lmfao, the irony)
And the second time it was about a more... stigmatized topic, which is videogames... Basically, last year, I was trying to get into my hobbies again (cuz I abandoned them because of depression), and one of these was games, so, I thought, what if I try changing my dad opinion about it? around this time I was already fantasizing with the idea of coming out to him, so I thought this was a good idea to test the waters perhaps? Of course, he, being the person he is, has a very bad opinion about games, thinks they're a waste of time and so on. But still, I wanted to try.
So, I told him I wanted to talk to him about something but it was gonna be a bit long, so it needed to be in a day he was less busy I guess. So we scheduled, and one day, I sat down with him (my mom wasn't at home at the time) and I began discussing with him, showed him sources, especially showed him a video that I found on youtube that was specifically for people like him to get them to view videogames from a different perspective. I showed him how gaming is a bigger industry than the movie and music industries combinated, how videogames are made and the art involved in them, showed him some "making of" videos of games where they make the music (the videos I showed him involved an orchestra so that surprised him), how videogames can be art, and how they're just another medium just like books, movies, shows or comics.
Long story short, he again ended up changing his opinion. Now, when I'm playing something, he doesn't bother me about it or anything anymore, he doesn't mind. I even asked him if he, in the future, would like me to teach him how to play games and so on and he was actually interested.
I have to admit, this is the thing that gives me the most hope.
...okay, that was everything good about him. Now here's the bad part.
As I mentioned, he likes reading news a lot, and he also follows some conservative journalists/figures (?) (he tends to watch videos of them when he's at home). And holy. shit. they're so full of hate. There's especially one that he used to listen to before, and it makes me vomit everytime I listen to that... thing. It has such an annoying voice, and basically, it's someone who's against, of course, abortion, euthanasia, thinks LGBT people are trying to enforce a dictatorship (like??), and other horrible things. I've had to tell him to stop putting videos of him saying that his voice annoys me to no end (I mean, it's one of the reasons). And thankfully, since then, he doesn't put videos of him anymore at home.
There's also another journalist he listens to very often (which has a slightly less annoying voice but still annoying regardless), which is also horrible but doesn't talk about these types of social issues that often and talks more about economics and stuff (I've still told my dad to stop listening to this journalist cuz it's becoming annoying, and he didn't stop, but he does lowers the volume and goes to another room when he does... which is something I guess).
And as I mentioned, although this one doesn't talk about these types of social issues that often, some days ago I kinda listened it being homophobic, and I was already having a bad day, so I kinda got a bit ill of listening to it (and honestly, I guess that's the thing that pushed me to do this post).
Also, some days ago, we were out in the car, stopped at a traffic light and at the side of the road there was a teenager lesbian couple that kissed for a bit, and my dad turned his head to look at them like they were an anomaly or something. He didn't really show any emotion in his face, he just stared at them.
Now, based in all of this... do you think it's a good idea to come out to him?
The worst part of this is how, every time depression is hitting me harder or I'm having a bad day, he asks me, very worried "what do you feel right now? how can I help you? please tell me", and again, it fucking kills me inside.
If only I could tell you, dad. But I'm scared of how you'll react.
Please, help me. Is it a good idea? What can I do to be more sure of it? How could I test the waters more?
The only idea I have right now is to, when we go to the movies, pick more movies that have LGBT characters, perhaps? For example, in October all the cinemas here put ParaNorman, and that movie has a gay character, so I thought it could be a good opportunity I guess?
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