From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: Advice needed-Bad comming out experience
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 13:40:46 GMT


In article <1993Jan22.192938.27090@cs.ucla.edu>
mchan@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Ming-Hing Chan) writes:

>I have a jewish friend (almost 18) who just came out to his
>parents.  Their parents are taking it very hard, especially
>his mother. [...]

It tears my heart out, hearing stories like this.  Right
away I think of people I know (some right here) who are
parents of teenage gay sons, and whose reaction is more
or less the diametric opposite of this guy's parents.

Based on what you've said, the parents are deeply entrenched
in homophobic bigotry.  The closest I can get to an
alternative view of them is that the idea of *their own son*
being gay is so overwhelmingly threatening to their view of
*themselves* that they've willy-nilly walled out any vestige
of truth in the matter, right along with concern for their
child's welfare.

>She placed this guilt trip on him: "I have done so much for
>you in my life, why can't you just give me 2 yrs.  Just try
>dating for 2 yrs.  That's all I ask" -- his mom.

>The worst thing is that his mom is really suicidal.  She
>cries almost every time he sees her.  His father said to
>him, "see what you've done to your mom, you little monster."
>His father said that he had never seen her this way.  My
>friend is also very depressed too.

Just superficially, the mother seems to be an artist of
emotional blackmail.  One can be sympathetic (I've been
suicidal too, it's certainly a bad place to be in your
head), but I can think of no alternative to vigorously
refusing to be a party to that blackmail, come what may.

>What should he do?  He doesn't have many friends and he
>doesn't have any one close to talk to either because him
>parents made him promised not to tell anybody related or
>anyone who knows the family.  He is in a very bad situation
>with no one to turn to.  I'm just a casual acquaintance.

Sounds to me like you're maybe the kind of friend he needs.
Above all, he needs support, people he can learn to trust
who will not blackmail him, people who will recognize that
they do not own him (one of the parents' bigger mistakes),
people who will help him find his own way, even if it means
allowing him to make mistakes, people who will become
parties to his processes of discovering self-worth and
overcoming his fears, and so on.

Ultimately, he needs to declare independence, perhaps
in a manner resembling the letter Bil Snodgrass has
just shared with us.  But a key difference there is
that Bil *has* the support network in place, as your
friend doesn't.

>On top of that, he has 2 homophobic roommates who suspect
>him to be gay and constantly harass him.  He had to go home
>every weekend (I think his parents are monitoring him).

He's in a horrible situation, I think.  I wish to god there
were automatically support entities in place for people in
his kinds of binds.  He should change roommates, dorms,
whatever it is.  He should (but how?) escape from the
vise-grip of his tyrannical parents.  But it's too much to
ask him to do it all on his own, under the given conditions.

>Any advice to deal with this will be welcomed and forwarded
>to him.  Email is preferred.

I hope someone in the LA area can seek him out and try to
provide the support he seems to need so badly.  Does *he*
have an email account?  If you can't find anyone closer who
can meet with him face to face, I'm willing to give him a
call (the roommates could be a problem in that plan) and
hear him out.  Maybe you can find out if he'd be interested
in that and if so send me his phone number.

-- 
[Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin]
[Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson]
[Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888]
[---------> Discrimination, Bigotry, and Hate are not Family Values <---------]
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