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Personal woes *UPDATED* ( Dealing with Trauma )
Talkc
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Ill start off with the background of the past 2 months. Followed by some more extensive background info as needed.
I dated a close friend, who was much older than me, for a few weeks. Then he left me to go crawling back to his ex wife, and she told me to stay the fuck out of his life.
This is on top of a larger more dire situation. Ive lost a lot of my old friends in the past year, due to a really bad fuckup on my part.
You see one of my friends is either gay or bisexual, but he cant admit to either because he has been pursuing a career in the military. He in fact, just got assigned at the local air force base after being elsewhere.
We had a series of one night stands. And he explicitly told me not to talk about it to anyone.
Which introduces my childhood friend and on again off again lover who we will call [k]. I made the mistake of confiding in K that i had sex with my air force friend. He then spouted off to 2 other people who spouted off to more people... and it took literally 2 days for it to come back and bite me on the ass.
Now my military friend wont talk to me. And my other more loosely associated friends know about the incident and despise me.
I walked into the local gaming store in September and was told by my friends i wasnt welcome there. Even worse... K.. whose dad runs the shop....told me to stay out. I told him fine... he just lost roughly 400 bucks a year.
Since then K went off to college in fucking Oregon of all places, and i dont really have any reliable friends in town anymore.
Which leads to last week. Which was spring break for K. He flew home for the week.
Now me and K go waaaay back. He was my only friend at a new private school. I experienced a lot of firsts with him. My first kiss... my first time making love.. I also experienced being thrown out of a christian school for kissing him on the playground. We even lived together for the better part of a year.
So last saturday i call him up before he heads into town. Im looking forward to meeting up with him.
Monday, the day we were supposed to hang out... he is a no show... i call him, his cellphone is turned off. I try calling the store, and one of the employees tells me that they cant give me that information.
I find out sunday when i talk to him online.. that he was already back in Oregon. He says he went down to Mexico on a spur of the moment trip with some of our mutual friends... including my former military friend.
So basically he ditched me... didnt even stop by or have me come by for a single hug.
I told him that made me really upset. He said it isnt a big deal. He would be back all summer. I told him it wasnt fair, maybe i would have liked to gone to mexico.
We got into an arguement. He brought up the time we got kicked out cause i kissed him. I was fine after the incident. He however had to transfer to a public school after being outed. And further more he DID get beaten up a few times over it.
He has always been super closeted before and since then. And i found out why he is angry with me and i think its bullshit.
When K told fucking everyone about me and military guy, Military guy went around spouting about how both me and K were gay. No big deal to me... ive been out since i was 16. But K wasnt. And now he is... including to his Dad.
So i inadvertantly outed two of my best friends.
The worst part is... Military guy got K to hate me.. or gave him a reason, when he is the asshole who went around saying K was gay.
So its 5:34 in the morning. Im on my 5th glass of wine.
And i simply wonder... where do i go from here?
I dated a close friend, who was much older than me, for a few weeks. Then he left me to go crawling back to his ex wife, and she told me to stay the fuck out of his life.
This is on top of a larger more dire situation. Ive lost a lot of my old friends in the past year, due to a really bad fuckup on my part.
You see one of my friends is either gay or bisexual, but he cant admit to either because he has been pursuing a career in the military. He in fact, just got assigned at the local air force base after being elsewhere.
We had a series of one night stands. And he explicitly told me not to talk about it to anyone.
Which introduces my childhood friend and on again off again lover who we will call [k]. I made the mistake of confiding in K that i had sex with my air force friend. He then spouted off to 2 other people who spouted off to more people... and it took literally 2 days for it to come back and bite me on the ass.
Now my military friend wont talk to me. And my other more loosely associated friends know about the incident and despise me.
I walked into the local gaming store in September and was told by my friends i wasnt welcome there. Even worse... K.. whose dad runs the shop....told me to stay out. I told him fine... he just lost roughly 400 bucks a year.
Since then K went off to college in fucking Oregon of all places, and i dont really have any reliable friends in town anymore.
Which leads to last week. Which was spring break for K. He flew home for the week.
Now me and K go waaaay back. He was my only friend at a new private school. I experienced a lot of firsts with him. My first kiss... my first time making love.. I also experienced being thrown out of a christian school for kissing him on the playground. We even lived together for the better part of a year.
So last saturday i call him up before he heads into town. Im looking forward to meeting up with him.
Monday, the day we were supposed to hang out... he is a no show... i call him, his cellphone is turned off. I try calling the store, and one of the employees tells me that they cant give me that information.
I find out sunday when i talk to him online.. that he was already back in Oregon. He says he went down to Mexico on a spur of the moment trip with some of our mutual friends... including my former military friend.
So basically he ditched me... didnt even stop by or have me come by for a single hug.
I told him that made me really upset. He said it isnt a big deal. He would be back all summer. I told him it wasnt fair, maybe i would have liked to gone to mexico.
We got into an arguement. He brought up the time we got kicked out cause i kissed him. I was fine after the incident. He however had to transfer to a public school after being outed. And further more he DID get beaten up a few times over it.
He has always been super closeted before and since then. And i found out why he is angry with me and i think its bullshit.
When K told fucking everyone about me and military guy, Military guy went around spouting about how both me and K were gay. No big deal to me... ive been out since i was 16. But K wasnt. And now he is... including to his Dad.
So i inadvertantly outed two of my best friends.
The worst part is... Military guy got K to hate me.. or gave him a reason, when he is the asshole who went around saying K was gay.
So its 5:34 in the morning. Im on my 5th glass of wine.
And i simply wonder... where do i go from here?
Talkc on
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Posts
1. Make new friends
2. Find new hangouts
3. Don't tell your new friends in your new hangouts that you're sleeping with someone not out to their friends and/or family
If you've apologized, it's basically all you can do. You can't make them forgive you, and people don't want to spend lots of time around people they don't feel they can trust. And you can say it's the other guy's fault all you like, but the buck has to stop somewhere, and unfortunately that's with you because he wouldn't have known anything about it to tell if you hadn't shared. You did, and so it's ultimately your responsibility.
So now, you go and find new friends. You're pretty much going to have to start over here. If you leave it alone, perhaps some of these people will come around... but don't count on it. In the mean time, meet new people, do new things, keep confidences, and don't participate in gossip at all if you can avoid it. It can be difficult, but it's the best thing.
Barring that though, I'd say the damage has been done no matter what the outcome, and it's time to find new friends and hangouts. And definitely follow the third rule: don't ever feed them after midnight...er... don't tell your new friends in your new hangouts that you're sleeping with someone not out to their friends and/or family.
Good luck - and it's not the end of the world for you so put down the bottle of wine, grab some sleep... and enjoy that potential hangover you have later
At this point im just thankful i dont own a gun.
And before people start spouting off that i need professional help... i go to therapy, im on psychiatric medication.
Its just i havent felt this miserable since i was young.
Some more backstory.
When i was 8, i was moved up a grade from 2nd to 3rd. At the same time some guy named "j.k." was moved down a grade.
I was literally given his desk in class.
And he was a really popular dumbass too.
From that point on i was made fun of for being smart every day. Within a year i was being beaten up at school and outside of school. I was spit on. I had 2 friends, and both of them refused to be seen with me at school, for their own safety.
It got bad. Really bad. In 6th grade, i was ganged up on walking home from school ( latch key kid ) 6 fellow students gathered around me, kept me from running, then grouped up and held me down... while "John" who had bullied me for 3 years, beat me unconcious with a pipe.
Because i could not for 2 weeks provide reliable witness, nor could i name anyone but one person... no one was held accountable. When intereviewed all the kids defended John and the others. And honestly if i remembered then, i dont remember anyone else but john.
So when i returned to school at the end of the year.... i attacked and strangled john, which got me expelled from the entire school system.
Thusly why i attended a private school, and how i met k and blah blah blah. I was a neurotic mess until i was 14.
I used to think it was a bad thing to be intelligent. Mainly cause for the 3 years i was bullied the thing i heard the most was "You must think you're so smart".
And that is why it is so hard dealing with this. I cant swallow that ive ostracized myself. I really dont want to. If it were possible to keep one friend that would be all i need.
But right now, my only friends are online. Which i suppose is pathetic, and my real problem.
I head back to college in fall. Maybe ill make more friends then.
this is going to sound incredibly fucking stupid.. but i dont know why i have a knack for getting people to hate me. I mean i do and i dont. I cant wrap my head around it.
Most of my lovers hate me after a few weeks. Its like i intentionally wreck everything around me either through abject stupidity or just sheer detestability.
I know my mistakes this time. I know what i did wrong.
But i honestly need to know one or two positive steps to take, before i start languishing in pity and depression. I dont want to be some intolerable emo twit.
I guess its pointless to ask, but other than moving, and trying to find new friends and hangouts, what can i do to make amends? I apologized, many times. Is it really a lost cause?
If they come around, then that's great, but at this point, I'd say it's better for you to not linger on it any more and move on.
Im not going to be bitter about it though. So they hate me. Thats fine. I hate me too sometimes.
At least im a big enough person to get over it and forgive myself.
Yes. Stop apologizing and give them as much space as they want.
If your relationships all end up like this, you need to not get into another one (including fuck buddies, one-night stands, or anything else involving another sentient being) till you've figured out why. From your posts, my money would be on horrible insecurity (if quite understandably so, from your childhood), which in my experience tends to be behind most cases of blabbermouth: you share way, way too much with people.
Best of luck with your therapy; work on it as hard as you can before you do anything else.
limed for truth
also, stop sleeping with your friends (or at least, be very cautious when converting a friendship into a relationship), as it often leads to losing them as friends and partners
I'm not saying its your whole problem, but maybe you should having relationships with people that have to be in secret.
You should apologise for those mistakes (which you say you have), ask what you can do to make things right. But they should have the decency to forgive you (which it appears they haven't). Sometimes there is a clear delineation when people stop being friends. You need to accept that, because its out of your hands.
It's not your fault the world (both in a personal sense and a larger sense) is this way. At the end of it all everyone must reconcile themselves to who they are, no matter what the consequences might be.
A lot of this situation seems entirely your fault dude
Also, I can tell you from being in the military that being outed, or being suspected of being gay, is fucking terrible; it affects all aspects of your career, from how you get promoted to how you get perceived by your chain of command to standards of treatment
Oh, and just for funsies you might've endangered your military friend's life. There's a lot of evil motherfuckers in the military who would take any excuse they can to beat the shit out of a "fag"
Is this right? Of course fucking not, it's fucking evil and DADT is a fucking stupid-ass joke, but if I were gay and you outed me to my chain of command when I explicitly asked you not to, possibly affectting career advancement and my personal safety, I'd hate you too
So, yeah
Just my $0.02
QFT... have you considered having relationships with people that actually accept that they're queer? What kind of relationship quality did you expect while dating a guy who is married TO A WOMAN, a dude in the homophobic military, and a guy in the closet?
<edit> and you need to realize that they don't hate you b/c of who or what you are, but b/c you made them face reality which they're trying to hide from
honestly, i couldn't imagine living like that... i'd immediately move to a queer friendly locale... NYC is great according to my queer friends
It seems like the root of the problem you originally posted is that you spilled the beans. Just from personal experience, I've found that if you feel like you have a talent for making people dislike you a good exercise is to try not saying very much when you're interacting with people. It can seem fake to you and it can be tough to clam up, but really what you're doing is forcing yourself to evaluate and re-evaluate what you were going to say, develop some filters, and really consciously choose what to say when you do say something.
I have a pretty awful temper and some of my core values/reactions are a little off kilter from what other peoples' are, so when I start feeling like "why does everyone always hate me?!" then I try to close myself down during interactions and whenever I want to start to say something I clamp my mouth shut and tell myself, "Don't you say anything right now, don't even f-cking open your mouth! Think quiet! Just listen! If you can only say 1 thing during this conversation, is that really what you want it to be?"
Many times a few minutes later, the conversation moves on or someone says something that makes me really glad I didn't say what I was going to say, and then when I do actually say something it's more thought out because I've been sitting on it for a while and people are more likely to listen.
I didnt go around telling everyone in the world about me and "military guy" ( swear to god typed his name out ) .
I told one person... whom prior to telling them this was grilling me about the nature of my relationship with military guy, cause he suspected something.
I told someone... whom i told not to repeat it and after telling him explained why you couldnt.
I told someone i trusted more deeply and intimately than anyone else in the world.
And i was stupid for doing it. But he didnt have a reputation for gossip. I was really appalled that he went and told people.
And you know why he suspected? Cause "Im not bi or gay or whatever" Military guy had his arms wrapped around my waist in the middle of the gaming shop. Which nice as it was... was blatantly and obviously homosexual affection.
I recently heard that military guy was somewhat outed at the afb. Mainly because his friend and fellow airman found him in bed at his home... with another guy. Military guy called K up about it and blamed it on me, blamed me.... for his homosexuality.
I know i fucked up. And i have told him 4 times before he hung up.. that im sorry. But the more i think about it.... he was looking for someone to bash on to vent out his own insecurities.
SO FUCK HIM.
Followup -
K for halloween 2007 - Went in drag. I guess if it hadnt been halloween someone might have seen that as fruity.
k today at 9 am, emails me... cause apparently he is too heartless to do it over the phone... and this is a followup to the previous arguement, writes and says he would appreciate it if i just "Forgot" His cellphone number.
So i guess... its as simple as that. Its over.
I remember the sweet young boy i used to share a bed with in sleepovers.... who gave me my first kiss.. who seemed so brave, and made me feel that it was okay to be who i was. And he never blossomed himself.
On a final note i havent slept since Sunday night. This weekend i found out that my father was A Still alive as of the 14th... even though i hadnt heard from him in 13 years. B I have a half brother.... and c. my father redecorated the living room of his new wifes house with a revolver and the back of his skull.
In the letter i recieved... it described how horrible his alcoholism was and the history of suicides in my dads family.
I really have nothing to say.
Im not looking for pity, as im sure this being the internet, someone will invariably say im feeling sorry for myself ( i was, now i dont give a fuck ). At this point im just making a record of how unbelieveably unfortunate the last week has been.
Also continuing some backstory.
I have a lot of guilt. Particularly over one incident. In 6th grade i strangled someone who had beat me with a pipe. I strangled him so thoroughly that i crushed his larynx.
I thought long and hard about that kid. For years. And the icing on the cake is that his mother approached me 5 years ago with his suicide note... in it, he stated very dramatically that he hoped to see me in hell someday.
Ive put flowers on his grave every year.
I say this... because you need to understand what K meant for me. K was my only friend in a new school where i had this reputation of severely harming another student from my previous school. I had a nickname "Killer". It was not funny.
The grief i felt was so tremendous that i made 3 very close attempts at my life in the years following his assualt on me/ my assault on him. And i dont mean cry for help either, ive had to have surgery on my chest and arm for nicked or severed veins and arteries.
My mom... worked for a living. She kept us afloat. But she was never there for me emotionally. She would close the door to quiet down my sobbing when it got real bad. At least she learned to hide anything sharp.
Now i say all this.... because K.... was what kept me alive during these times. When i was 12 and i first knew him, i had my first major breakdown. Something those lovely private school kids got a riot out of.
I missed school for a month. I was incapable of leaving the house. K came to my house everyday after school for that entire month, and spent the entire weekends with me.
My first kiss? Well the first time anyone other than my mother kissed me... was when k used to kiss me on the forhead and hold me and rock me and make me feel better. When i was psychotic and hardly lucid, he took care of me.
He made me feel some pride. Some self worth. It took him years of working with me. He went to therapy with me cause it helped so much. He let me know that it wasnt some horrid sin to be intelligent. That having a vocabulary was something to be proud of. He cared and nurtured over me until i was a strong, well balanced ( relatively ), stable person again. He did this from the time i was 12 and i first knew him, until i was 18.
I feel like... i owe him the world. i am in debt to him in a deep serious way.
And over the years ive fucked up. Maybe im just a pathetic , weak willed, low self esteemed bastard. I dunno what it is. Maybe i am stupid, i used to entertain the idea of being stupid as the phrase always went that ignorance was bliss.
But really... its just a small series of unfortunate fuck ups that i cant seem to do enough to fix or repair.
If i were to describe what k looked at me with the last time i was face to face with him.. it was dissapointment. And that is god awful unbearable.
Its unfortunate, but i think i ruined the foundations of one of the greatest things in my life.
But as others have said, if they cant forgive me... its on them.
And they are right for hating me. What i did was inexcusable.. especially in west texas.
So... i close this chapter of my life ( that sounds so cheesy ) and i move on. Maybe ill find someone who doesnt care that i do stupid shit. I dunno.
Also... i learned very quickly this morning that you dont take meds with alchohol, especially lithium and diamox. Both of which are partial or complete diaretics.
Cause i peed myself.
What a night.
Is there another game store in your area that you can go hang out at? It's incredibly easy to make new friends at a game store because generally, you're all there to play a game and have fun. It sucks that the game store you used to hang out at is a no go, but there are always more hangout spots. Is there a LBGT alliance group in your area? Maybe you could meet people there too. Caveat: You need some straight friends though, gay people are notoriously petty and it takes a while to find one or two that are really genuine. Find some females that you can hang around with, you'll have more luck at finding a reliable friend in a girl because they won't be intimidated (since you're gay) and being friends with straight guys might lead to...unwanted crushes (which I believe you are already aware of).
you have consistent relationship problems that it would probably be best to have evaluated with the perspective of a professional
you might have some issues with addiction as well
when dealing with a therapist be perfectly and brutally honest
he/she won't be able to help you unless you tell them everything
best of luck, and remember that difficult times can be what helps you do what you must to have a healthier life, healthier friendships, and to find the kind of love and affection that you really need.
I go to a therapist WEEKLY. I see a psychiatrist monthly. I see a neurologist 4 times a year.
Im heavily medicated, and in progressive therapy.
Is that not good enough?
I think he might have missed that. Still, with this past history you've given us into your life, it sounds like you have good sense by taking those steps already - just bad luck and habitually doing things that aren't thought all the way through. Can't prevent the former, but the latter can be, it just takes time and experience.
Holy crap. I thought I had a lot to deal with in life...
The best piece of advice I can offer you is to realize that things change. I know thats an overly blanket statement, but in my life I've come to realize that nothing is constant. Relationships that I had developed with friends during middle/high school that I promised myself would be lifelong have all either disintegrated entirely or have or have changed 180 degrees. Thats just the way life goes unfortunately. Another thing that I have noticed is that people all don't grow up at the same time. Maybe your friends still have a little more soul searching to do before you are all on the same wavelength emotionally.
I wish I had a more profound manner of speaking to let you know that everything will alright, but all I can say is that it will. Everyone has hurdles to jump over in life (lord knows I've had my fair share) and you just have to use those experience to the best of your ability to grow as a person. So as hopeless as it seems don't let your problems consume you (I know that sounds easier than it is) and you will come out stronger.
Did that make sense? I hope so.
You confided to him (a person you were sleeping with) a secret you had and told him not to tell anyone else. He then went off and told a bunch of people and then got pissed off when HE was outed? Hint: if you want to keep the fact that you're gay a secret, don't tell people "hey, you gotta hear what Talkc told me about this other gay guy while we were fucking the other night..."
Stop apologizing to your friends. Maybe after a bit of space and not hearing anything from you they will give it up and stop caring.
All I can say for your friend in the military is that it looks like DADT is going to be going away in the near future.
Completely forget about beating yourself up or making amends to people you feel you have wronged. You need to get your head sorted before your apology will help them at all (if it is even needed, which I don't believe it is.)
Don't spend a single minute thinking about the past, except in therapy. It is holding you down like a ball and chain on a drowning man.
This is all the advice you need in this thread. Do this, forget about the rest, and the whole incident preferably.
but they're listening to every word I say
It really does sound like you've had it pretty bad, and I'm sorry. BUT the reality is that none of it excuses the behavior. You are not a blameless victim in the particular situation on which this thread is based because you opened your mouth at all. It doesn't matter who was prodding you or what anyone else did, this was your part in things. If you don't say anything, no one can honestly say you did. XYZ's behavior in public is bad, but it doesn't matter because you said something to anybody at all after being asked not to. This gives XYZABC a place to point fingers other than at themselves, and they get to because that's your part in their bad situation. You made your role as scapegoat possible, and gave them an out to duck responsibility; people in dire straits are going to take that out.
So this is the core of my advice: For the sake of your own safety at this point, as well as any relationship (friendship or otherwise) you may have down the line, do not repeat a confidence for any reason in the future - any reason at all, unless somebody is going to come to serious harm if you don't. If you can't handle that, don't let people place these confidences in you; don't listen to things you don't think they would be comfortable with other people finding out; neither let yourself become a secret for people to tell.
And yeah, you're going to have to make new friends. It doesn't really matter whose fault it is anymore; this is something you'll be wanting to anyway if they're willing to do said scapegoating. Try to learn something, and then move on; it's all you can do.
Until you realize that, you can say you're "Sorry" all you want but they're just hollow words until you realize K was just as bad as you and ultimately, you are to blame for military guy scapegoating you
Also, the rumors probably started flying after K started shooting his mouth off leading someone, possibly his friend, to play amateur private eye on Military Guy's life
Seriously the military can be that homophobic, one whiff that you might be gay and someone'll dig really fucking deep to find out whether that shit's true or not
Even in the worst cases, you've done what anyone would have done. You fought back against the bully, one on one in a fair fight, after the school admins totally failed to handle the situation responsibly. Some people would have run through the halls with automatic weapons. I think most people would have done nothing and continued to take the beatings, but out of weakness and fear, rather than any sense of right vs wrong. It's unfortunate what he did to himself later in life, but it wasn't your fault. That kid was born fucked up, as sure as the sky is blue.
With your current situation- you slept with someone, and told one person about it. Your best friend, who you have every reason to trust. He's a closet case himself- you'd think he'd understand the importance of keeping it secret. And he had to pry it out of you- you weren't volunteering the information. Dan Savage says closeted homosexuals are drama addicts, and this whole situation seems to support that. You technically didn't do the right thing, but given the circumstances, I just can't fault you.
In both cases, your actions weren't perfect, but they were human. You're remorseful and sympathetic, and accepting responsibility for your actions, unlike anyone else in these tales. Previous suicide attempts aside (admittedly that's a big aside) I think you're remarkably well adjusted considering the crap hand you've gotten. It's natural to feel shitty now, but I hope you can get over it in a few days and bounce back.
As others have recommended, getting out of town and meeting some new people would probably be the best thing for you. After college you can have a fresh start in a nice city with a healthy gay community, where you can have an active social life with openly gay people (and straight people too, but seriously, stop sleeping with closet cases, for your own good). For now, summer sublets for apartments are generally pretty common in college towns- maybe you can find a cheap one and a part-time job where you go to college, if you don't want to wait until the fall to go back.
(Also, it sounds like K was a great friend. I think it's likely that he knows that he has no one to blame for his current situation but himself, but he's very upset right now and blaming you. I hope, in the future, he comes around--and comes out--and you two can be friends again.)
I have no personal experience to draw from, but I always hear cook and dance classes are great places to meet new people.
The local university has continuing education classes for younger people as well as older people. I could always try one of those.
I had honestly thought about heading back to college locally.... but after some research ive come to find there is no LGBT or Gay and Lesbian Alliance at my local college. Which is bullshit for a college of that size. I mean if there is one, they are keeping it a secret and off the internet, and i was never aware of one when i went before.
Im thinking, even if i have to take out some hefty student loans, and quickly get a job, i might go to college elsewhere.
I am really sick of living in this place. I used to love this city, until i realized that im one of only a handful of openly gay people in the city. Everyone here is so closeted, and so god damn afraid of being out.
I had one friend for a while who was gay... but he moved away from here like any smart homosexual man would.
The more i think about it.... the more i really want to skip town.
Also, this evening i had a seizure. Its a horrible reminder of the brain damage ive recieved. I really am tired of all this.
New advice needed... colleges and universities in gay friendly areas. Go!
Sepcifics - Offering degrees in Sociology and Human Life Studies and Writing.
I'm an IU grad and I loved all four of my years there. During the '04 elections there were only two blue counties in the whole state, the one that contained Indianapolis and, you guessed it, IU. The GLBTQ community is huge, and the support/funding that it recieves is a big deal. IU is also a "public Ivy" meaning it's Ivy-League education at public school price. The local community is amazing, every nation is pretty much represented, even the Dali Lama's cousin lives there. The Lama visits the Tibetan cultural center every year or so.
I can't shout the praises of this University enough. As an RA there for three years, I had weekly interaction with the GLBTQ community, they're as accepted as any other group, club, etc. Training for all university staff actually inlcudes several courses and lectures from GLBTQ groups and leaders every year.
i went there and all the chicks constantly complained that half the guys were queer
except in the Comp Sci department which was a damn hetero sausage fest... and meant it wasn't that easy to pick up chicks
But it has to be done. You have a learned way of obtaining friends, and you had a core support group to fall back on. It was comfortable for you. And you'd really like to be able to maintain that. But you can't. You HAVE to move on. Your old friends are trying to move on, and the only way they seem to be able to do that is by cutting you out of their lives. That's how heartbreak works. I'm not gay, but I have a feeling that some of your direction in this is probably screwed up because your friends were also lovers. With that being the case, something that broke their heart like this, can only amount to one thing: Time. And that goes hand in hand with distancing themselves from you, severely.
But, you can't sit there and wallow in your despair while they slowly mend themselves. You need to move on, and get some positive in your life. Whether that's actually physically MOVING, or finding a new way to meet people, whatever.
Talk to your help about this. I can almost guarantee that they will tell you the same thing. Ask them, in your next session, "What do I do now? I need a change, but I don't know what to do?" They're there to evaluate your mental health, treat you, and give advice. Some counselors and shrinks don't give advice, they just show you the road to advice, and hope you take it. Be forward with them about this. You're miserable. You fucked up. You have a lot of anxiety over a couple of suicides, too. "I NEED SOME FUCKING DIRECTION" might be a few words that need to come out of your mouth.
Don't be hesitant to boot your shrink for another, either. I had to go see 6 counselors before I found one that was worth a shit. A lot of them do the casual, "How was your week?" BS, where you sit there venting with them for an hour, and they give you no direction at all. You need someone to help you plan out what you're going to do, what you're going to try and fix, and give you some perspective on what's going on. Leaving you to vent for an hour, and then come up with your own conclusions, CHANGES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FOR YOU. You could do the same with a puppy. And you can cuddle those.
But, speaking as someone who also once thought they had the worst life on the face of the planet, and attempted to end said terrible life...you do want to live. You may not think you do, but you really do like living. You fucked up, so what? We all make a ton of fucking mistakes in our lives. Some of them seem irreparable, some of them ARE. It's life experience. It's what we use to better ourselves and the people around us too, by teaching them what NOT to do. I know that if and when I have kids, a relationship, other friends, I WILL be there for them in their times of need, because, dammit, I don't want to see anyone else take that road. That road sucked. It was windy, unpaved, and the guard rails were missing on the bridges. Nobody else needs to take it. I'll do my damnest to ensure it stays closed off for my future family and friends.
Recently, I had a talk with someone at work, who was excessively depressed. I took her to a local bar, and had a long talk with her about what I went through. What I did, how I fucked up, all of it. The repercussions for my mistakes took me an hour to go over with her. And then I said, "Look at me now. I'm happy. Because I want to be. I fucking love being happy. Fuck the rest of it. It's out of my control now. What happened, happened, and it made me who I am today. And I'm pretty fucking awesome."
I don't know if it inspired her, or if it did anything at all for her. All I know is, after that day, she was smiling a hell of a lot more. I recommended a counselor for her to go to, and I'm letting her do what she wants from the information I gave her. I told her she could talk to me any time about it, and she has a few times since then, with some AWESOME perspective on her life now.
And it's a pretty awesome feeling, for me. To have fucked up as severely as I did, and still have a positive influence on people, is too rewarding. I would give anything to go back to my former self and say, "Look, it doesn't have to end here. This bad shit, can turn into really really really awesome shit for you. You're going to help people be happy, because you're so miserable now. And you're going to be happy FOR it."
I'm not saying you should be a shrink later on in life, or anything like that. I'm not saying that you should look forward to telling people what a fuck-up you are in the future. I'm saying that living through this, is going to make you an excessively strong person. You're going to go through some tough times in your life, and breeze through them like they're nothing, while all the lucky people in the world sit and cry on the couch because they think their luck ran out. You're going to take future heartbreaks easier, while the guy who got dumped for the first time in his life, is throwing his life away to "show her how much he cares".
How's that for a positive step in your life? You've already taken one, and you didn't even know it. Now go talk to some of your professional help about how to make the next one happen. And, that if they don't give you any direction, you'll go see someone who will.
Sorry that this was so long. I ramble a lot. Being a Christian, I'd love to share with you what my faith has done for me as well, but I don't like shoving that down people's throats.
Ive looked around for gay and lesbian friendly forums... one reason im at Penny Arcade is because no one outside of SE++ gives me guff for being gay.
But i dont know of any forums that are active that have primarily gay members. And its frustrating cause i have such little exposure to my own kind. Ive known 6 gay people. 3 were all older guys who i didnt hang out with. And then i knew K, Military guy, and my old friend "S", who got kicked out of hs home when he was 18 for being gay and moved to Abilene.
If i could talk to someone, on a regular basis, who was gay, someone i could relate to... it would help a lot.
Never been there, just did a google search of 'gay forums' and checked out the front page, looks like what you want
No one in SE will give you shit for being gay unless you take teasing too seriously. There are gay and trans regulars over there.
it can be a hard thing to find out that you don't agree with much of the world around you. there's no honor in reacting with insecurity when you could just get out. the wait will suck but... at this point what more can you do until you finish college?