LGBTQ jellies, would you care to share something of your experience and hope about coming out?

I have a good friend who’s much younger than me, and he’s struggling with coming out.

He knows my story.

I thought if some of you would share some of the good points of your stores along with the painful parts, too, then I would have one more resource I could point him to.

Just in case you don’t know my story, I’ll briefly share some of it here:

I grew up in a rabidly fundamentalist Christian home and learned from a young age to hate everything about homosexuality especially myself. I was told as a teenager in the late 70s that if I ever came out of the closet, I’d be kicked out of the house onto the streets of the little Southern town where I was raised.

I did grow up, got married hoping it would cure me, and had three wonderful children. All the while, I drank unbelievable amounts of alcohol.

When I was 35, it all crashed, and I admitted to my wife that I was gay and came out to the rest of my family shortly afterwards. I came out at work, and now I live completely out of the closet. I’ve been out for about 13 years now, and I can’t explain the freedom I feel. My children love me for exactly who I am. I am happy when I look in the mirror, and I’m sober.

That’s it in a nutshell.