Coming Out? (Kind Of)

Not all coming out stories look the same. Sometimes coming out happens gradually over a span of time. It’s not always pinned to one revelatory moment. 

My coming out story feels like it needs an asterisk, maybe two. 

I came out to my parents during the summer of 2015 via video. By this point in time, I was in the middle of one of my darkest periods of depression. A majority of which was driven by the anguish over my sexuality and the fact that I faced it alone. 

While I was in college, I talked to my mom on the phone at least two or three times a week. One night during our call, my mom asked a question that threatened to burst the dam I’d built to hold everything inside. 

“Are you doing okay?” she asked—in that special way that mothers often have, almost as if they already know the answer. 

“Yes,” I answered without hesitation. The response had become second nature, even to the people closest to me.

Then came something I didn’t expect: “Would you tell me if you weren’t?” 

I quickly gave my best exasperated, “Yes.” She said, “Okay.” And the moment was over. But once I hung up the phone, I couldn’t get that question out of my mind

“Would you tell me if you weren’t?” No. I wouldn’t. And I hadn’t. And as much as I was petrified by the idea—I desperately wanted to open up to someone. 

I knew that I wouldn’t be able to say what I needed to say in person, so I opted for a video filmed Trisha-Paytas-style on my bathroom floor. With the distance of the camera between us, I spilled my guts with tears streaming down my face. Not the cute, one-tear sliding down the cheek kind either. Full-on snot, shallow breathing, the works. 

I spend an inordinate amount of time making decisions, but once they’re made—I act. I made my “coming out” plan and jumped in headfirst. 

I called my two best friends over to my apartment, one after the other. After coming out to each of them, I got in the car to drive to my parents’ house. I didn’t know how the video was going to be received so I parked in an Eggbert’s parking lot about 15 minutes away from home and sent the video. 

I had my first ever panic attack while I waited for a response. Anxious minutes passed where I tried deep breathing while compulsively checking my phone. 

Then the phone rang. It was my mom. With emotion coloring her voice she said, “Come home.” 

She wasn’t mad. She loved me. She wanted to see me. 

I can’t imagine what my parents felt watching that video, but they were ready to have me home and in their arms. I felt shaky with relief (also from the newly experienced panic attack).  

My dad met me in the driveway and pulled me into a one-armed hug. I threw both my arms around him and held on tight. “It’s okay. It’s alright.” 

He hustled me into the house with an arm around my shoulders. My mom was waiting for me in the kitchen. There’s nothing like being wrapped in a mother’s embrace. I don’t know how long we stood in the kitchen hugging but I felt a little bit like she’d squeezed me back together. 

I don’t think they were prepared for the depth of my pain. I had held it in for so long that everything spilling out was at a ten on the emotional scale. 

The three of us had a tearful, awkward conversation in the living room. This part is fuzzy in the way that dreams often are. A mixture of adrenaline, shock, and relief had me overwhelmed. I don’t remember how we got there, but at one point my dad faced me square on and asked, “Is that what you want? To be with a man?” 

I could tell that it took effort for him to take the emotion out of the question.

“No,” I answered haltingly. In a microsecond, my mind threw up the idea of saying yes, but it was regarded and dismissed faster than I could even process. 

I knew that being gay was “bad.” I knew that my parents still loved me even though they knew. I knew exactly how I was supposed to answer the question. 

With that question out of the way, we moved into what I call Fix-It Mode. As parents do, my parents wanted to fix whatever was hurting me. 

They were operating in crisis mode. And honestly, it was warranted. I had tortured myself for years over my sexuality. I took out all of that frustration and anger out on myself. I was in a very bad place mentally. 

My therapist recently told me that sometimes depression is anger turned inward. I had internalized everything that angered me about the world I was living in and decided that I was the problem. I was the one that didn’t fit. I was the one who needed to be fixed. 

I had suffered through depression for two years as quietly as possible. So when my parents suggested going to the doctor, I agreed. 

I sat criss-cross on the exam room table while my parents waited in the lobby. I was nervous, yet relieved that I was finally doing something. Informed of the situation, my mother’s doctor had been willing to see me on short notice. 

This doctor had a way of asking questions and listening to your answers like she was just on the verge of figuring you out. It felt more like a therapist's office than any doctor I’d ever been to before.  

“So your mom told me that you said you’re attracted to men.” She sat back on her stool, head tilted, staring. 

“Yes.” I tried to pretend that this felt like a normal conversation to have with my doctor.

“Have you tried being with women?” 

“Yes.” A drunken kiss counted, right? 

“And? What did you think?”

“It wasn’t really for me.” 

“You know, I have a niece and she told the family that she’s a lesbian now. I think she’s doing it for attention.”

I don’t know who came up with this stock answer that kids are choosing to be gay now because it’s cool, but it had to have been a straight person. Culture has approved of and celebrated homosexuality, so kids say they’re gay because they’ll be popular?

I don’t know what upsidedown world that person was living in, but every day gay kids are bullied in schools across America. Even though Hillary Duff tried to end homophobia while I was in middle school, it is still very much alive and well. 

The rest of my exam felt equally strange—in part because I wasn’t used to being open and honest and because I knew whatever I was going through wasn’t being understood. 

I left the doctor’s office that day with a prescription for Zoloft and a distrust of talking to doctors about my sexuality. 

If I could do it over again, I would have handled coming out so much differently. But I didn’t have the tools or the knowledge to do anything but what was set before me. I was convinced that I was choosing the only acceptable way forward after coming out. 

No one else knows when it’s time for you to come out. No one else gets to tell you how you should come out. You shouldn’t let anyone else dictate your path because you are the one that has to walk it. 

When it comes to coming out, your safety (mental and physical) comes first. If it’s not safe to come out, go ahead and give an Oscar-worthy performance. During my acting days, my favorite lines included: “I’m too busy with school.” “I’m focusing on myself right now.” “I’m waiting to find the right person.” Sell it. 

This does not make you fake. You are protecting yourself until it’s safe to come out. (Now the subject of bringing other people into your romantic life as an unsuspecting beard starts to cross some lines. But within reason, if needed, wear the hetero mask if necessary.)

There is a difference between safety and comfort. In the beginning, coming out was very scary for me, but I knew that my parents loved me, wouldn’t disown me, and certainly would never physically harm me. 

I feared that our relationship would change. (In some ways, it has.) I feared that they would be disappointed in me. (In some ways, they are.) I feared that they would be angry with me. (They weren’t.) 

Whatever path you decide to take in coming out, however, and whenever you decide to do it, realize that you need some kind of space and outlet where you can really be yourself (even before coming out). 

I completely shut down any healthy way of dealing with my sexuality. I didn’t talk to my friends. I didn’t tell my parents or my brother. I didn’t reach out to a teacher or an adult that I knew would keep my confidence. 

Sometimes there may not be an obvious way to find that outlet. You don’t even have to tell people that you’re gay. Maybe you’re not. Nobody knows but you. 

You can tell them you’re not sure. That you’re figuring it out. That it’s confusing. Whatever lets you open up that door just a little bit. 

Maybe your way to express yourself is the music you listen to or the stories you read. Maybe watching a show or movie where you can see yourself and your situation represented is what you need to feel seen. 

I recently rewatched my coming out video for the first time since 2015. It has sat in my Google Drive for almost six years and I couldn’t bear to look at it. I watched myself at the lowest I have ever been. It was just as painful as I remembered it. 

But this time, I felt anger and protectiveness for this person with tears streaming down their face who repeatedly said how embarrassed they were. How they didn’t know how they were going to look into their parents’ eyes after they watched the video. 

Coming out, only to accept my gayness as something that needed to be fixed, felt like walking out of the closet straight into another one. And to be gay here meant using words like “struggling” and “same-sex attraction.”

Not once did the people around me sit me down and say, “Blake, you are good. You do not need to fix yourself. I love you exactly as you are.”

I don’t think that a single one of these people had bad intentions. And that’s why I finally understand the saying “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

Regardless of their motivations, the path set before me led straight to death. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, so I decided to turn around.

But first, I thought it’d be fun to take a long, winding detour on my way out.

Conversion Therapy enters stage left.