A 17-year-old came out to his friends but not his family, and the worry has been affecting him for years. Mariella Frostrup advocates honesty
The dilemma I am a 17-year-old gay man who doesn’t have the courage to live how I want. Being gay has easily been the most daunting thing of my life. I found out roughly when I was 14, and for the past three years it has been ruining me. At first I despised myself and I ended up in counselling, which lead to a face-to-face confrontation with my mum, telling her I would rather not be living. I slowly came to terms with it thanks to the wonderful friends I had the courage to tell. If it wasn’t for them I would have lost it. However the thought of telling my family makes me numb. The worry has ruined me for the past three years, to the point where my GCSE results were below expected.
Mariella replies What are you afraid of? It’s not a rhetorical question, but fundamental to finding answers. Telling your parents about your sexual orientation is clearly complicated by myriad considerations that are affecting your actions, but which I remain in ignorance of. Knowing how you fear your parents might respond, their general attitudes on such issues and their expectations of you would have been immensely helpful – without that my response might not be as focused as you might have hoped.
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