Week 8 - Post 3

When I was younger I was no stranger to distress. I’m so thankful that it’s not something I struggle with now, but it has hit my life and several points and when it did it totally consumed me. Just as was described in our book, I experienced a lot of stomach upset during one of the worst bouts. That should have been telling to me, but instead I couldn’t see it. I underwent countless invasive medical tests to find out what was wrong with me and they were all inconclusive. They told me that I should evaluate any stress in my life and try to reduce it but I was still oblivious to the issue.

In that particular case it was actually the same relationship that I described in my post on forgiveness. The fact that Sean cheated on me certainly ended the relationship but there was a litany of other reasons that the relationship needed to end. I wasn’t being true to myself. I’m not cut out for an open relationship and of course there’s also the fact that I’m gay. I hadn’t come to terms with it at the time because I had bought the stories that were told to me by my family and church: that kind of life could never be a happy one. I was making myself miserable trying to avoid misery. Life hasn’t been perfect since coming out but the predicted misery and unhappiness has simply not been true. Not only am I being my authentic self, but our world has changed and misery is no longer the certain outcome that it once was for the LGBT community.