Actually, for some of us it gets worse

With what I think we can all agree is very good reason and the best of intentions, there are a lot of stories cropping up these days with the purpose (in case you’ve been living in a cave) to reassure younger kids suffering at the hands of bullies and/or institutionalized homophobia that life as a nonheterosexual can get better once you finish high school or college and make your way into a dead-end corporate job larger world where you can ideally locate yourself in a society (in the smaller sense, because the larger one continues to be a lost cause, sorry optimists!) that can forgive and sometimes even embrace your nonheterosexual inclinations in both the narrowest (i.e., sexual) sense, so that you will no longer be ashamed to be known as one who likes to __ or ___ (or maybe even ___ but definitely NOT ____!!!), or the broader sense, i.e., you will happily accept the reputation as one known to caress ferns or collect flower petals or whatever else it is that we gays do to raise the eyebrows of our mainstream (boring, judgmental, etc.) counterparts. And while I would never in a million years discourage anyone from telling this kind of success story, I think it’s worth pointing out at this juncture that there’s an interesting corollary to the it-gets-better tale, which is that for some of us, it actually gets worse; this too is an insidious consequence of homophobia, and one that in my experience is often overlooked (or ignored). I will now talk about myself: admittedly in fifth grade for reasons I didn’t understand at the time but which I now see as a reaction to an unconscious awareness of my fundamental and metastasizing nonheterosexual desires, I fell into a deep depression and fantasized quite regularly about (and even toyed with) killing myself, albeit in ways that were probably not too serious given that I was eleven years old, i.e., I spent some dark hours sipping cleaning products and cutting my wrists (but somewhat ridiculously, the TOP of them) because on some very murky level, I really didn’t want to live anymore (except I obviously did, such is the ambiguity of emotional development). At this time and continuing throughout my adolescence and well into my twenties, I was quite ‘popular,’ i.e., I had lots of friends, I was athletic (I played varsity hockey in high school and ran x-country in college, etc) and creative in ‘safe’ ways (i.e., I played electric guitar) and so on and so forth. In short, I was never once bullied or called a faggot or any of the similar horrors regularly inflicted upon so many unfortunate souls, and if someone had done this (i.e., called me a fag, much less attempt to physically intimidate me), I would have laughed it off, knowing that any number of frankly beautiful, desirable and popular girls with whom I had ‘gone out’ for varying amounts of time could testify on my behalf (or I would have physically fought back, which was not an issue because I happened to have the body and training to do so, this just a fact, not something I’m proud of). So by one measure, I will never again achieve the pinnacle of ‘objective’ popularity and success that marked my high-school years, admittedly a kind of elitist, private-school popularity and success (but one that remains exceedingly powerful in our country) and one that most likely would have continued for years and possibly decades or a lifetime (in the manner of such things for those who do not question it) had I not begun to sabotage myself even as I stayed on this track, e.g. graduating from NYU law school and taking a job as a record-store clerk and so on, which of course was a (still largely unconscious) means to sublimate my growing hatred for a society (in the larger sense) that would not ‘accept’ me, as well as my growing alienation from my (now previous) friends, the ones who knew me in high-school and college as something of a friendly and popular ‘All-American’ boy, etc. etc. and all of whom (without a single exception) I eventually fled (for Washington Heights, haven of lost/damaged souls), so that in effect I forced myself (albeit in very symbolic ways) to ‘end my life,’ after which I was ‘reborn’ in something closer to the form in which you know me now, an openly gay recluse/writer/asshole/complainer/misanthrope/catlover/gardener/etc. The point being, that while I’m 1000 percent behind every effort to reduce bullying and intimidation, and 1000 percent behind every person telling his or her story, I think we should also remember the kids who are NOT getting bullied, but who are suffering the effects of homophobia (which is all of them, but I refer to the nonheterosexual ones), the ones who perhaps deep within themselves have a burning fear and hatred of what they want, a fear and hatred that will later manifest in all sorts of ways both productive (novel-writing, perhaps) and not (e.g., wife-beating), who as adults are basically ‘broken’ human beings and find themselves (ourselves!) oddly incapable of love or friendship or hope or many of the things ‘normal’ people take for granted because we feel soulless and empty as we look back on our younger, popular selves (and those who surrounded us, our purported friends and ‘loved ones’) with nothing but sadness and dismay.     

1 year ago 80 notes #TLDR

80 Notes

  1. sassyteen reblogged this from matthewgallaway
  2. thethirst reblogged this from matthewgallaway
  3. shotgunsnack said: I can’t wait to read your book. You write so well. The content is ____ (not a writer, can’t come up with the words) except that I’m moved.
  4. macartney reblogged this from matthewgallaway and added:
    matthew gallaway: Actually,
  5. langer said: Matthew Gallaway you really are one of the seven wonders of the internet.
  6. redqueenxlt said: but Mattew, the middle in retrospect was worse because for you it did get better? Long road, but better? And I think its helpful to youth with no role model for a “happy and GAY adulthood” to hear testimony.