Archive for 'General health'
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: PARENTS REACTION
This highlights the importance of the gay community as an alternative or supplemental family. Bill said he had been fairly cynical about the gay community at first. ‘I thought the whole scene was really superficial and forced. I used to keep pretty much to my small group of friends. When one of my close friends developed AIDS I was deeply upset. I wanted to do anything I could to help, so I got into some volunteer work. Over the past year I have seen the supportiveness and the strength of the community trying to cope with so many young people dying.’
Any person coming out invariably throws the family into crisis. Loving parents often want to be supportive but don’t know how. They will need accurate information and support too so that they can genuinely help their child.
It helps to try to get in touch with why you are having trouble dealing with your child’s choice. Have you never been able to talk about emotional things? Graham is thirty-four and told his mother only three years ago. ‘She said, «For God’s sake don’t mention a word of this to your father. You know how conservative he is.» I had no intention of telling Dad because we had never talked about anything more deep and meaningful than the stock market results. Pick any other subject and we would get into an argument about it.’
Strong objections based on religious beliefs can be hard to shake. The old trinity of guilt, shame and fear are pretty powerful emotions. The discomfort they cause forces you to reassess your own sexuality and for some parents this can be an intensely confronting experience, especially if it brings up aspects of their own past that might have been forgotten or suppressed, like adolescent experimenting.
Some parents say they feel like failures … ‘Where did I go wrong?’ … and there may well be a concern about how their own friends, colleagues and relatives might react. Hopefully their child’s need for support will be more important at the time.
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