Fed Up with Parents

Hi Readers,

I feel like I need to post some conflicts I've been having with my family on here, so I can get it off my chest.

My relationship with my parents have slipped back into the fog. This summer, after the numerous conversations I had with my parents regarding my homosexuality, I was satisfied that they finally understood me, and more importantly - that they finally respected me. Not because I was gay, but because I finally became an adult, in that I was courageous enough to tell them that I cannot conform to their conservative ideals and live a lie. I thought I had finally gotten through to them, and maybe I did for a little bit, but I guess they would rather live a lie than to face the truth.

On a recent phone call, my parents asked me if I was too busy to make enough time for a girlfriend. At first, I thought it was a joke...but when the punchline didn't come, my heart sank like a stone and my head fell into my hands. I really thought that this summer was the turning point, but instead, the vision I had of my family since April had come tumbling down. I wanted to just punch something and scream. Scream that I was never going to get a girlfriend, that I was so tired of having the same arguments, that I wish I were normal so I would live up to their expectations, or that maybe if I committed suicide then they would accept the fact that I was gay. But I swallowed it all and said in a monotone voice, that I was too busy with schoolwork, and that academics was more important than girls. It sprang so easily to my lips, a lie I had perfected throughout my life. I could feel myself dying as I said it, a phrase I thought I had never needed to use again in my life.

I wonder if they could hear the death in my voice.

My parents gave birth to me and raised me for 18 years, and they provided every material necessity I have ever needed. I love them for everything they've given me, for not throwing me out onto the streets to become an orphan, and for putting in their time, their money, and their life to raise me. I know I have an eternal debt to repay to them, and I am gladly paying it.

But how could they do this to me?? I have been nothing but the best son during the all those years they raised me. I worked my butt off to make sure I fulfilled all of their expectations. I excelled in everything I did, not for myself, but so they would know their efforts were not wasted. I asked for so little in return, always trying to save money so my parents could start living their own lives when I became independent. I didn't ask for games, or clothes, or movies, or whatever else other kids asked for. I gave them everything I had in me, in the form of time and effort. But when it came to actually asking them for love and acceptance, something that the real me never got, they turned their backs.

They don't understand me at all. They don't respect me for who I am. They would rather willfully keep themselves blind than to accept me for who I am. It's getting harder and harder to see them as family. The gap between us is widening yet again, and I don't think I have the energy or willpower to close the gap any longer.

Whoever said that things get better was lying. Nothing gets better. Things just get left behind.

On the issue of my sexuality, I am leaving my parents behind me. They can choose to join me or watch me disappear into the distance. I just don't care anymore.

-FCDH