How I Broke Up With My Parents
By: M Rose
Tags: LGBT, Inner Strength, Coming Out, This Happened To Me, Life

To give you some context, I am a fourth (out of six in my country) year med school student, and I’ve been dating my boyfriend for nine months now. I used to like my life, even if I could not tell my parents about the amazing relationship I am in, that I had to lie to them every time we wanted to go out or go on vacation, or that I had to endure the daily question of “Why don’t you have a girlfriend yet?”.

The decision of coming out of the closet came gradually to me. I was getting fed up with lying to them about everything, it did not feel right for my sister to lie to them about my sexual orientation, too (she’s known for two or three years already), and I sincerely see this relationship becoming something very big, about which they would have found out eventually. About five to six months into the relationship I had my mind set on coming out.

I had asked him to tell me how his parents reacted when he’d told them three years ago, all the feelings and discussions he had, and all the little details that had helped him get through this great period of stress, blackmail, and emotional abuse.

An interesting thing that I noticed once I came out to my parents was the fact that the vast majority of the reactions, lines, and arguments of my parents were a carbon copy of his. This observation only has been of great help for me to get detached from the situation. It allowed me to hear and see what was going on, but not be affected directly, emotionally; instead, I was able to analyze what was going on, and understand why they were reacting this way, and what my next best move should be.

I realized I had lost my parents. The ones that had taken care of me for 22 years were always kind, nice, and supportive. The people whose house I was living in were extremely homophobic, tried to blackmail me into becoming straight, were always angry, were physically abusing me.

I had become an orphan.

So I decided to move out of my family’s house, I could see clearly that my parents were incapable or willing (probably the latter) of accepting me the way I am. One day they were out, I packed the essentials (some medical books, hospital scrubs, and some clothes), and I moved in with my boyfriend.

I wish I hadn’t done this while my parents were absent, but I knew it would not be possible to have a calm conversation with them on this topic and move out peacefully in their presence. I was afraid I would get beat up again or somehow be restricted from ever leaving the house again.

I’ve been living with my boyfriend for about a week now, got a job in a call center so I can support myself, and I am attending lectures and studying for exams. Medical school and my career have remained my number one priority.

I told my parents via text message all this. They probably cried or shouted or both. They are probably grieving. But they decide to suffer over my decision of committing to my true self.

What have I learned from this experience?

I thought my parents would always be supportive and cheer on me until they didn’t.

My boyfriend, to whom I am extremely thankful for all the support, inventive ideas, and good thoughts that have helped me survive this mess, is still a distinct person from myself, and cannot be there for me 24/7.

My sister, who has tried very hard to mediate the dialogue between me and our parents, lives in a different country.

A lot of my friends have offered me a place to stay in case I become homeless; still, they do not know all the misery I had to go through in the last couple of weeks.