Today’s Out October Project story comes from Chris Atwood. It is one of hope, courage, and yes, rejection too, but the ability to see beyond rejection to creating a life of love and acceptance of oneself.
Catch up on all the other stories of hope, courage and love here.
I can remember thinking about men as early as kindergarten.
Minus the stint at age four where I was convinced I had to have a suit to marry the little girl next door, I never thought of marrying or loving women. In regard to my childhood stunt, I think I was trying to operate on the fact that most grownups get married, and if you’re a little boy you HAVE to pick a little girl.
I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. In my neighborhood, there was one black couple and the occasional Samoan or Hispanic doing odd jobs around the neighborhood. There really weren’t even many children, which is surprising considering the high volume of Mormons in my neighborhood. I wasn’t raised Mormon, though my grandparents and Uncle were devout followers, because my mother is an ex-Catholic and my father is an ex-Mormon. Odd combination, I know. As a child we rarely went to church, though we have family bonds most of my friends think of as strange or very dependent. To me, it’s just family. I spent time with all four sets of grandparents as a child, and enjoyed everything I could learn from farming to first aid.
I suppose you could say I had a typical upbringing; I had a best friend, Dan for purposes of his anonymity, and we were inseparable. We spent almost every day together for almost five years, starting in kindergarten. We rode bikes, went sledding, watched movies and played video games. To this day I really can’t describe how I felt in regard to our friendship except that it was one of the most important things in my childhood. I’m an only child and never had a brother, except for Dan, and even then only for a time. We even, as young boys are apt to do, examined each other as we grew up, noting changes in our bodies that we weren’t familiar with and only had a vague understanding of.
When we were ten-years old and in the fifth grade, we both entered Boy Scouts. For whatever reason, I was elected to be the Patrol Leader for our “newboys†patrol. The only person who ran against me was Dan. He was also the only person who didn’t vote for me, not that I hold that against him. After that fateful election, everything in our friendship changed. I didn’t understand why at the time, and still don’t, but he became cruel — like something in his soul changed as he spurned me for beating him. (He was a great athlete, but I was always the model student and citizen it seemed).
As we entered sixth grade, changes became apparent to not just me, but to everybody as Dan began to terrorize me. It started with just simple bullying, which being chubby for most of my life, I was honestly equipped to deal with. Both in school and at Boy Scouts, the snide comments about what I was wearing, doing or being involved in became steadily more common. He even divulged my biggest fear to anybody who would listen — that I was really gay — though I am still thankful nobody took him seriously or really understood what he was trying to tell them.
I remember coming home at night and sitting in the bathtub and thinking of what it would take to keep my head under water long enough to make it all stopped. I even, in vain, tried a few times. Luckily the body has built-in mechanisms to protect itself against attempted drowning without weights. It’s crazy the different ways you can contemplate killing yourself, though I was never very creative at coming up with ideas. Going to school and hearing comments from him and his friends used to feel like a rope around my neck or a vice around my chest. It was hard to breathe. It was so difficult to understand how somebody I thought was my best friend could turn so suddenly and wish me such ill.
I felt like I couldn’t tell my parents what he was saying that hurt me so badly because I didn’t know what gay was. I didn’t think it was good, however. Nobody I knew, except girls, liked boys or wanted to know what they looked like. Gay was an insult thrown around on the playground. Whatever it was, it was bad.
Luckily, I had an opportunity that very few had to leave it all behind and start over again. My dad got a job in Texas and asked if we wanted to go there. I knew the capital was some place called Austin, and was told we’d be moving to Houston. I had no perception about what it would be like, whom I would meet, or what would happen to me. I just figured, “whatever it is, how can it be worse than here?â€
I moved at age twelve. I thought it was the best thing in my life. Nobody knew my secret, not that I really understood it myself. My second year of middle school I even managed to score a girlfriend, though that lasted for about six weeks and I was just about as much of the “girl†in the relationship as she was. After her, I never really dated a girl again. I really didn’t think of anybody I knew except for my best friend at the time, Joe.
I held out for years, knowing I was at least physically attracted to men, but not really sure if I was attracted to women on any level. I’d never tried after my one girlfriend, but it never seemed right. Now, I can honestly say I loved my straight-best-friend Joe, but I knew it couldn’t be so I tried to bury those feelings as deep as I could. I knew he didn’t feel like I did, he wasn’t different. After trying to deal with my emotions, Joe moved, which helped, and I resigned myself to a life of solitude. I knew I didn’t like women, and didn’t have any idea what to do about men. Life alone was better than life spurned, right? I never let anybody know my secret because I was scared of encountering a Dan-like response of unbridled hate.
When I was seventeen-years old, I was pretty sure I knew who I was. I was able to say the words, “I am gay,†out loud. I made a last-ditch effort to date a girl who I thought was really cool, but she never really seemed interested. Maybe she knew? It was still a really expensive mistake for a seventeen-year old on a budget. It was silly. I knew that even if I got her into bed, I wasn’t sure I could perform. I’d avoided it successfully with a few other girls who were interested in the nerdy, cubbish types. Then I met Ben. He was the kid in high school everybody whispered about. They all thought or perceived him as gay. It turned out they were right, but it’s still sad he was talk of the town. We briefly dated, and through that experience my parents found an e-mail exchange between me and him. So now I was out to my parents, who turned out to be the most loving and accepting parents I could ask for, and their comfort level grew as time went on.
I’m not lying when I say it gets better, because their acceptance gave me the confidence to help restart the Gay Straight Alliance at Texas Tech University, I was the “token gay†columnist for the Daily Toreador, and the only one to write about gay issues plaguing the city of Lubbock, state and country. I went on to have a successful, albeit young, career and own a business. Those are big accomplishments for a kid who thought of drowning himself in the bathtub as a child.
When I came out, it got better. I decided after living so much of my life in fear, that I never wanted to be scared of who I was again. And since then, except on one or two rare occasions, I haven’t.
Life lived in fear isn’t healthy, and it is a curable condition. You have to be brave, even when you are so low you don’t have any idea how you’ll bring yourself up. Just think of what your life can be, and do what you have to do in order to stay safe, sane and alive. You’ll thank yourself for it later, I know I do.
Know it gets better guys and dolls. It’s hard — believe me. I don’t even have the worst stories to tell about the things that have happened to me, and I won’t pretend to. I had a privileged upbringing, was mostly off the radar from physical abuses all but once, and was able to get the acceptance of my immediate family and become a student leader. Regardless of your situation, don’t end it all. Take the time to help others get through their struggles, because if what I went through was hard, I can only begin to imagine what they are going through.
Remember, there are always options.
The Trevor Project: a 24-hour hotline for gay and questioning youth: 866-4-U-TREVOR (488-7386)
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-TALK (8255)