r/comingout

Hi all! Hope you're all doing good. I'm posting this to ask for advice as I'm in a bit of a crisis with my family right now. I've been out since I was 17, I'm 27 now. My parents are very wealthy, and they kicked me out/sent me to a different country to "study" to cover it up (I'm from Brazil, they sent me to Canada, and I also went along with it to escape because I was young and wanted a quick fix). After that, things only got worse because they are very controlling and wanted me to pursue the career/interests they wanted and I did (out of guilt). So I ended up going to France and doing a master's at a top school there to compensate for being gay, deep down thinking that maybe then they would love me. Last year, I said enough is enough, and I came back to Brazil to pursue the career I've always wanted here, which is to be a teacher/university prof. Even though that's made me really happy, it's getting increasingly harder to be around my family because I can't talk about ANY of my interests (like music, sports I like, bands, hobbies, etc) or show any signs that I'm gay without them having a meltdown. The rest of my extended family is also super wealthy, catholic, and conservative.

Me and my dad just had a big argument, and I don't know what to do anymore. It's not as simple as cutting them off because I would still have to deal with all the internalized rejection and trauma they've caused me. I also feel really insecure and have low self-esteem because my father has somehow convinced me that I'm not good enough (even though I moved abroad at 16, got into Canada's top uni, and then France's top uni).

This has always been really really bad; when they started noticing some mannerisms and lack of interest in girls when I was a pre-teen, they even injected hormones into my body (in a weird Frankenstein way because my dad is a doctor) and were always talking about my "testosterone levels".

People keep saying that things get better and to give them time, but it's been 10 years since I told them (and many more since they knew), and I feel like as I get older and stand my ground more, things only get worse.

i (f20) feel incredibly lucky to have two religious parents that were pretty accepting. i expected more scrutiny or denial as they are both devout catholics.

my mother was wholeheartedly supportive and said that i should explore and see what makes me happy.

my dad, although more conservative, said he loves me unconditionally and that he supports me, and said he cant judge my own journey with God. he did say he does have a preference (toward me marrying a man), but ultimately understands it’s who i am. pretty cool

i feel bad that i cant fulfill their picket fence typical family + grandchildren dreams though. they deserve the world and i wish i could give them more. :( i feel very sad about that

but i feel pretty relieved that i came out! just wanted to share

So I wouldnt really say im shocked that they don't accept me, i live in a strict, deeply traditional japanese household. my mom has never been too fond of gay people, but I guess I was kinda expecting them too anyway.

My mom tried convincing me I wasnt gay, I was told I was a dishonor to my family and a bunch of homophobic garbage. I love my mom and im trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but its been hard.

Has anyone been through something similar? Any advice?

I am a 28 yo Male living in USA. I had been struggling with sexuality for the past 4 years when somebody asked if I was gay or not. After that thoughts started hitting and I couldn’t digest why I am getting those thoughts. I thought I had HOCD that these thoughts are hitting and disturbing me.

I went into a straight relationship with a beautiful, kind hearted girl as well during these 4 years. I used to get aroused around her but sex wasn’t great. I just couldn’t appreciate her sexiness during sex. She was my safe space. She knew what I was struggling with. Yet she remained with me for almost 1.5 years. But we are no longer together.

I now have accepted that I am gay. I see myself involved while watching gay adult videos (specifically being a bottom mostly). It’s a very new feeling but it aligns with what I feel. It hasn’t still fully sunken yet. I haven’t told my parents or anything. It feels sad that I had the most perfect girl (I would have had a very good life with her) but my wiring is different and I need to respect it for own and my partner’s happiness.

I still don’t know how to be romantically involved with a guy because so far I know how to be with a girl.

If anyone has any advice for me, I would highly appreciate. Thanks.

Note: I might try to convince me otherwise again that I am not gay but I hope I don’t try to flip and embrace it fully. It’s not easy but I am trying.

I’m currently out to my wife as bi and we have had an open relationship for 5 years and a sexless marriage for almost as long. She knows I’m mostly attracted to men, but doesn’t know I’m exclusively attracted to men (something I discovered only after having my first MM experience 5 years ago, which I’ve long since confirmed). My question is, especially for those who have been in similar shoes, how do I best come out as gay?

Everyone said it gets better once you're out. And it did, in the ways they meant. My family knew. My friends knew. I wasn't lying to anyone anymore.

But I was still exhausted in a way I couldn't explain. Still felt like I was performing something constantly. Still came home from normal social situations and needed to lie on the floor for an hour like I'd run a marathon.

I thought I was just an introvert. I thought some people had more energy than others and I was one of the others. I thought the coming out stuff had just taken more out of me than I'd admitted.

I was 25 when I got diagnosed with ADHD.

The diagnosis explained a lot of things I'd written off as personality. The forgotten conversations. The jobs I'd nearly lost. The relationships that ended because I was "too much" or "not present enough" - often both, somehow, at the same time.

But it also explained something I hadn't expected it to.

My psychiatrist used the phrase "cognitive load" in our second session. The idea that the brain has a limited amount of processing available, and when you're spending chunks of it on things other people don't have to think about - tracking impulses, managing attention, holding the thread of a conversation while also participating in it - there's less left for everything else.

I sat with that for about a week.

And then I started thinking about everything else I'd been spending it on.

Because here's the thing nobody talks about. Coming out doesn't end the performance. It just changes the audience.

You come out and suddenly you're managing a new set of calculations in every room you walk into. Who knows. Who doesn't. What to say around people who don't. How to exist in spaces that weren't built for you without making it anyone else's problem. How to be visibly yourself without becoming The Gay One Who Makes Everything About Being Gay.

I'd been doing that calculation on autopilot for four years without realising it had a cost.

And I'd been doing it on top of the other performance. The one where I seem like I'm following the meeting. Where I maintain eye contact for the right amount of time. Where I don't say the thing I'm thinking until I've checked whether it's appropriate to say it out loud.

Two performances. One brain. No one had ever pointed out that running them simultaneously might be why I was so tired.

I went looking for something that addressed this. Some resource, some community, some guide that understood that these two things were happening in the same person at the same time and making each other worse.

I found a lot of ADHD content that was completely silent on identity. I found a lot of queer content that assumed a neurotypical brain - steady, linear, able to execute a plan across weeks without losing the thread.

Nothing for the overlap.

So I spent the better part of a year writing it myself.

It's called UNMASKED. It's a 30-page workbook - not a self-help book, not a therapy replacement, just a practical document for people managing both things at once. There's a framework for the double masking and why it drains you. Scripts for conversations your working memory empties during. A full shame spiral section, because RSD and internalised homophobia are a specific combination with a specific shape that nobody else was writing about.

It's at dopamie.com.

I'm posting this here because this community would have been exactly where I was looking four years ago. If any of this sounds like your life - it was written for you.

Eu tenho 19 anos, sou uma mulher cis, tenho plena certeza de que me atraio romântica e sexualmente por mulheres e estou no armário. Eu amo desesperadamente a minha família e eu acho que só tem um deles que não é homofóbico.

Eu comecei a questionar a minha sexualidade aos 12 anos assistindo She-ra e as Princesas do Poder e lendo fanfics para maiores de 18 (acredite eu sei que não é recomendado mas quem nunca viu algo que não era pra sua classificação indicativa ?). Apesar do que ler fanfics com hot pode sugerir eu era muito inocente nessa época, eu não entendia o grau de homofobia da minha familia. Eu me lembro de criar uma pasta para livros LGBTQIA+, junto com outras de fantasia e mistério, e mostrar pra minha mãe os livros que eu queria que ela comprasse. Ela me questionou por que eu tava lendo livros desse tipo e eu disse alguma coisa sobre ter "curiosidade". Eu não me lembro de nada exato só dela dizendo que "se eu tivesse alguma coisa pra contar saiba que eu não aceito" e essa tem sido uma das minhas memórias mais antigas relacionadas a sexualidade.

Ela me pegou lendo fanfics algumas vezes o que só me levou a aprender a esconder melhor. Depois eu passei um tempo sem pensar nisso e fingindo que eu não sabia de nada e nada tinha acontecido. Eu não lembro bem quando as situações traumáticas voltaram. Ao longo dos anos ela olhou cadernos que eu usava como diários, mensagens no whatssap, entrou na minha conta no Instagram...e de um jeito ou de outro sempre acabava vendo alguma coisa "gay" e a gente tinha a mesma conversa sobre como eu sabia que isso era errado e que não tinha me criado assim, que é pecado e contra o que é ensinado por Deus. Nesse meio tempo eu também mudei a minha convicção de bissexual para lésbica.

Eu não posso hoje afirmar com plenitude que eu me aceito. Eu posso afirmar que eu me conformei com a minha sexualidade, que eu tenho consciência e não pretendo viver como se fosse hetero, o que acredite já é um grande avanço porque a possibilidade de viver como hetero passou pela minha cabeça algumas vezes. Mas eu que sempre fui evangélica, nasci e cresci numa familia evangélica não consigo deixar de me perguntar se eu estou escolhendo o pecado, não por "escolher ser gay" mas por não escolher "lutar contra isso" e "viver como hétero" como eu já vi algumas pessoas fazendo, e no final das contas estou condenada ao inferno.

Eu nunca quis acreditar nisso. Eu era do tipo que desabafava com Deus e hoje em dia eu não consigo rezar sem começar pedindo perdão e passar meia hora explicando como eu não sou digna.

Eu gostaria de estar em um relacionamento, eu gostaria de ter alguém. Eu não faço questão de esconder a minha sexualidade fora de casa, mas para a minha familia...Eu li umas vez pra você não se assumir por pressão, se assumir apenas quando se sentir segura. Segura é o oposto do que eu me sinto em relação a minha sexualidade. Na verdade eu vivo o tempo inteiro com medo. Medo de ver filmes, ouvir músicas, ler livros (o que eu amo muito), ler fanfics, pesquisar, olhar o pinterest, TikTok ou instagram com qualquer coisa minimamente gay porque a minha mãe tem histórico de olhar o meu celular.

Eu me sinto uma covarde. Quer dizer qual é o meu problema ? Eu tenho a impressão de que a maior parte dos LGBTQIA+ se assume na adolescência ou tem uma forte convicção em relação a própria sexualidade. Eu sou uma bagunça que nunca nem beijou alguém de qualquer sexo que seja. Eu me sinto ridícula. A minha família tem um histórico de relacionamentos amorosos tóxicos e abusivos. O relacionamento entre os meus pais e os meus avós não é exatamente o que eu desejo pra mim. Então eu tenho 19 anos e gostaria de um relacionamento mas eu me sinto presa. Eu sinto que não posso me relacionar com alguém até me assumir e não me sinto segura pra me assumir, ou seja, eu não consigo viver essa parte de mim que não desaparece simplesmente.

Eu não quero machucar ninguém. Eu realmente não quero. Eu tenho plena consciência das muitas coisas que eu tenho que resolver em mim mesma. Até alguns meses atrás a minha convicção é a de que eu deveria "ficar bem" primeiro pra depois me relacionar porque se não eu ia acabar ferindo alguém com as minhas dores. Hoje em dia eu tô tentando desconstruir essa ideia.

Eu já fiz uma postagem no tumblr sobre como era ruim quando eu lia coisas do tipo "evite o máximo possível se apaixonar por alguém que tá no armário" e como as pessoas deviam parar de dizer isso. Algumas pessoas concordaram mas nos comentários eu aprendi como é difícil pra alguém que se assumiu se relacionar com alguém no armário. Que é como se a pessoa estivesse voltando pro armário. Isso me doeu demais. Eu não quero esconder ninguém. Eu não quero machucar ninguém.

Acho que no final das contas a resposta certa é aquela que eu quero evitar a cima de qualquer coisa: eu não posso ter um relacionamento agora e se eu realmente só me relacionar quando eu me assumir e só me assumir quando me sentir segura, então isso só vai rolar depois que eu sair da faculdade.

Eu me sinto uma covarde. A maioria das pessoas simplesmente se assumiria. Mas é tão ruim assim que eu não queria que a minha familia me trate diferente por algo que eu sempre fui ? Eu os amo tanto. Eu não quero perdê-los. Eu só tenho eles.

It was not until now in my third year college that I felt this feeling for someone with the same sex. I was scared at first until I tried to explore and be more comfortable of what I realized. I've done research, I even tried confessing to my friend (bad move). Although I'm not with someone right now, I think I want to come out to my parents? The question is, how? Should I just walk there and say, "Hey! I may like boys but I like girls too?". They might disown me, they really believe that women are for men and men are for women only.