Happy to be gay...

I have never wanted to change my orientation. I realized I was gay at age 11. I was gay before then, of course, but I understood my feelings for what they were at that age. From that moment on, I greatly appreciated my attraction to my own sex. It made life brighter and more exciting.

I was so withdrawn as a kid that I didn’t really know how to open up about anything. Other people had opinions and talked about their experiences. They had hopes and dreams. They had things they were interested in. But I was so stuck in survival mode that I didn’t know who I was, and I actually worried that I might not be a complete person. I felt like an outsider, and after seeing Close Encounters, I actually dreamed of being taken away by kind and loving space aliens.

I think my attraction to boys pulled me back down to earth and got me interested in the real world. I think I started focusing on school with the intension of going away to college because I hoped I might find a more accepting environment one day and that I would some day get the chance to meet and have sex with other gay guys. My attraction to boys started to wake me up to myself.

I grew up in southern West Virginia in the late ’60s, ’70s and early ’80s, and in that time and in that place, you simply weren’t allowed to be gay. I didn’t meet a single out gay person while growing up. Not one. If you were LGBT in West Virginia at the time, you just had to keep your damn mouth shut about it, and I did. As I said, I enjoyed those homo feelings, but they were my secret. I guarded them as if my life depended on it, and in a sense, my life did depend on it. It was bad enough just to have people suspect, but if I had come out back then, I’m sure there would have been hell to pay.

I lived in fear, and I think that has permanently affected my mind, worn some kind of grove that I simply have to live with. I turn 50 this year, and I have PTSD and extreme social phobia. I went through years of psychotherapy, took mountains of prescription psychotropic medications and underwent electro shock, but I still have PTSD and extreme social phobia. I’m on disability. I’ve never driven a car. I’ve never had a boyfriend. I live alone. I don’t have any close friends who live nearby, and I hardly ever leave the house except to buy groceries and supplies.