Still Kicking!

A lot can happen in three and a half weeks, so I’m going to try and condense this down the best I can, but I can tell you now that it’s still going to be a novel.

I’ll start with an explanation of what happened at that fateful counselling session. Liz and I came to the conclusion that I lead my life by following what people want or expect from me (or at least what I assume those things are). Where a lot of my stress originated from was forcing myself to do things I don’t necessarily enjoy, but since it’s what people expected me to, I did it anyway. So the solution we discussed was to find something that genuinely made me happy, not anybody else, as to boost my confidence and focus on something other than worrying about pleasing other people. I ended up misinterpreting that to mean that I was on my own to find what made me happy and that no one else could be around me since they could potentially influence what I decide to do, and the ruminating snowballed from there. And that’s what brought me to my last post.

What's New, Gumshoe?

I like rhyming.

ANYWAY, I haven’t gotten a chance to come out to my sister yet. She’s busy with final exams this week, so she’s been studying hard and is a LITTLE stressed out, so I’ve been holding off until later in the week at least, when things settle down for her. Which is fine with me frankly, it gives me some time to mentally prepare myself and think how I want to do this. Might be sort of trivial, since I might just go with the flow, but I’m one of those guys who likes to have a plan and tries to stick with it. 

I’m also supposed to be going back to counselling next week, but chances are I’m probably going to cancel the appointment. There’s been a few times where I’ve felt a little down and self-conscious, like during the weekend having to listen to my buddies and their girlfriends make plans and double dates. I’m completely jealous and wish I could be having fun with a boyfriend/girlfriend, but I know it’ll happen in time. But anyway, for the most part, I’ve still been (relatively) anxiety-free and happy, so I wouldn’t really have much to talk about in counselling anyway. And besides, each time I’ve gone, I’ve come out of there thinking I need to tell more people, and that hasn’t happened yet. I know what I have to do, it’s just a matter of doing it, and maybe once I do, I’ll have something to talk about and I’ll need some advice. But until then (probably the new year?), I’ll manage. 

In other news, I’m supposed to hang out with my friend Britney tomorrow. She’s the one I “let go” a couple years back, and we really only hang out a few times a year now, so I’m glad that we’re taking the time to go have dinner together, maybe play some video games and chill together like we used to. Although, I’m getting the impression from her texts that things aren’t exactly going smoothly in her life right now, so I might have to put my issues aside for now and just be a pair of ears for her. I’m hoping I’m wrong and everything is okay, but I’ll see. 

Last thing: I’m super self-conscious about my taste in music. I’ll listen to just about anything, but I’m mostly a top 40’s, pop, electronic type of guy. I probably feel this way because it’s probably the gayest thing about me, so fuck it, here’s a song:

Carly Rae Jepsen’s a local, and this is her latest that’s been playing on the radio a lot recently. She’s got a bunch of “feel-good” songs that I enjoy, it's a great pick-me-up on those low days. Make sure you watch the ENTIRE video (and not just for the hot guy!), I got a bit of a laugh out of it and hopefully you will too.  =)

-Matt  

My "Coming Out" Plan

I thought this deserved its own post, so double the postings tonight. Anyway, in counselling Liz and I discussed my options for dealing with my secret. We came up with three options:

1. I keep the secret to myself and continue living my life; after all, I’m not really obligated to tell anyone, but... It’s not really an option in my mind. It’s what I’ve been doing for years, and as you can tell from this blog, this method’s gotten me to great places emotionally. 
2. Get into a relationship. I thought this was an interesting option, the justification behind it was that I find someone who I can be comfortable around because they accept me for who I am, plus he becomes a valuable support in coming out. Only problem is I’m too truthful and a little too predictable/ritualistic. I don’t like the idea of lying or telling my friends and family to “mind their own business” in order to go see any potential boyfriend, because they’ll know something’s up. It’s easier for them just to know. So it’s really just down to my last option: 
3. Come out to friends and family...which is what I’ve been struggling to do all along.  Part of the reason I’ve been struggling is because I’ve been making it such a big deal in my head. Liz suggested to just slip it into conversation, which at first seemed like no easy feat. I mean, I’ve lied, faked, gone to counselling and written an anonymous blog over this secret, how am I supposed to not make it a big deal? And then Liz told me how one morning she was making breakfast with her brother, and when she asked who he was out with the night before, he replied “my boyfriend”.

“It’s as easy as that, Matt. You don’t have to make a huge, dramatic speech. People feel as if they have to react to that. Just make it as if it’s a new fact they’re learning about you, and I guarantee it won’t be nearly as big a deal as you think it is.”  

I know she’s right, nobody’s really going to be disappointed or scared or upset. Now it’s just a matter of sucking up my fears and going for it. And I may just have to try what she suggested, because really, what do I have to lose doing it that way? 

So then I had to decide who I wanted to tell next. At first it was still going to be Brian, but I started to voice my concerns over telling him: since he became an apprentice, he’s developed this “tradesman attitude” which includes a lot of homophobic remarks. He’s my best buddy and I’d love to tell him, but he makes it so difficult sometimes when he says things like “What are you, a homo?”. So then I considered my sister as a backup, and I’m really not sure why I didn’t sooner. I have a lot less to lose: she’s my sister, and she’ll always accept me as her brother, unlike Brian who could *potentially* (but highly unlikely) drop me as a friend. She’s also pretty open-minded and liberal, a bit of an activist for gender equality and gay rights. I feel really silly now writing everything out that I didn’t consider going to her first before, but I still haven’t told anyone yet, so there’s still time to make right on that. Hopefully sometime this week maybe...?  =)

-Matt

No New Conclusions

Okay, time to play some catch up. I went back to counselling last week, and I’ve got to say it really helped. I’m a lot less anxious, feel a lot more social and I’ve just been more at peace with myself this entire week, which is a nice change. I just feel like I have a plan on where I want to go with my coming out, my relationships and now I’m not so worried about everything. It’s odd though, because all the revelations I’ve made since then aren’t really anything new or ground breaking, they’re things I knew subconsciously, but I suppose I needed the “push” to actually fully realize it.

The most important revelation I made was that I really want(ed?) to be perfect. I want to be everything for everyone. I seem to think I need to be an expert on and have all the same interests and tastes as everyone else. Plus, I thought that any little flaw I see in myself needs fixing, and all these flaws seem to compound, so I can’t move on until everything gets fixed. Confused? Say if I wanted to be more outgoing, I should be more talkative, but being more talkative should mean I’m not obnoxious or conceited...and it goes on. And I started to realize that this is ridiculous; there are 7 billion people in the world, I’m not going to be able to please every single person, so what is the point in stressing about trying to impress and change myself for everyone? Just because I’m not big into sports, or someone else isn’t into cars, doesn’t mean we can’t get along or enjoy each other’s company. I keep reminding myself that people are going to look past my flaws and embrace the other parts of my personality, so I really don’t need to keep “fixing” things. I just really need to be myself.

I’m also starting to relax a little about the Lindsay situation. I think I mentioned I haven’t spoken to Lindsay in a while (probably about 2 months now?), but I never really mentioned why. The last time I spoke to her, I really pissed her off. Short version of what happened is I assumed that she didn’t care about me, when in reality she was busy with dealing with her own problems and I tried to force her into telling me about her problems when she clearly wasn’t comfortable or ready to share. I feel like a jerk now, but at the time I felt like she owed me to tell me all her problems since we were such great friends and I told her my biggest secrets. So because I wanted to reciprocate and be Lindsay’s shoulder to cry on, I ended up pushing her even further away by trying to pry into whatever was bothering her. And now I realize I can’t manipulate and force things out of her (and my other relationships for that matter), it just doesn’t work that way.  It still stings a little to not hear from her in so long, and part of me is afraid that she’s not coming back after the way I left things. I let Liz know this and she had this to say:

“She was in love with you, Matt. And now she’s realized that she can never have what she really wants, and that’s got to hurt. So let her go off for a while and lick her wounds, and she’ll be back.”

I hope she’s right. I suppose time will tell...

-Matt

I let her get away

Lately my mood’s been pretty good, a little up and down, but decent. Despite that, I still made an appointment to go see my counsellor Liz next week. Now that the intake is over, I’m sort of curious and excited to really get down and try to figure out the root causes of all my insecurities and self-confidence issues. I don’t even know where I’m going to start, but as long as some good comes out of it, I’m still pumped. Part of me is still a little wary going into it though; I suppose it’s the fear of the unknown of what she’ll say or recommend, but fuck it, I’m going anyway.

I think I mentioned in passing that part of my anxiety of this whole counselling experience was over a friend of mine from the past. It’ll make sense in a second, but my biggest fear doing this is that I’m going to be diagnosed with depression, or passed onto a specialist for some deep digging into my problems.  Anyway, Britney and I met back in science class back in the 9^th grade. We really hit it off, we both felt really comfortable joking around with each other, we had a lot of common interests, and well...our personalities just clicked. At the highest point in our friendship, we used to talk to each other every day, had little inside jokes with each other, picked out the perfect Christmas gifts for each other and did stupid things like sing at the top of our lungs in the car along with each other. Now, I swear I’m not making this up, but like Lindsay, she had feelings for me that she made apparent a couple times throughout our friendship. And like Lindsay, thinking back on it now, I had (still have?) feelings for her too and I really should have gone for it, but there was a *little* secret, that I disguised in the “I like being friends” excuse that held me back. We eventually got past all that though, and always became best friends again. 

Here Goes Nothing

Yesterday I ended up meeting with a counsellor at school for an intake appointment. Yes, that’s right...I actually went through it, and it was interesting to say the least. Anyway, this appointment was supposed to be a sort of evaluation session to figure out what kinds of issues I’m having, what type of counselling would work best for me, what I wanted to get out of this and establish that patient-counsellor relationship, amongst other things. 

I started and left work early to make it on time to the health clinic on campus. It was a tiny office that you had to ring into, in order to protect patient confidentiality, which was sort of comforting. What wasn’t so comforting was all the paperwork I had to fill out upon arriving there. Most of it was pretty general: allergies, medications you’re taking, family medical history, etc...but once it started asking questions like, “Have you or anyone in your family been diagnosed with depression?” or “How often do you have thoughts of suicide?” or “When was the last time you considered harming others?”  or warning me that “the clinic must take reasonable action if they suspect that there is a potential for you to hurt yourself or others”, it got a little intimidating. I asked myself a couple times if I was actually going to do this. I didn’t want to be looked at as depressed or suicidal or have the cops called on me by doing this, but I still carried on with the questionnaire anyway. Even more intimidating were the questions asking what issues I hoped to resolve. I couldn’t help feeling just a little pathetic writing down that I was having trouble maintaining my relationships and interacting with people. And it’s still a little unsettling that somewhere out there, there’s a record from myself in writing, which tons of medical professionals have access to, stating that I might be gay. 

Trying to move out of the comfort zone

Just a quick couple of things that have happened recently:

I had a conversation with Lindsay last week that made me come to the realization that I should probably go see a counsellor. I need to talk to someone who can be non-judgemental and who can give me objective advice in identifying and dealing with my problems. I’m still a little apprehensive about it; I got to thinking about what counselling says about me and what the outcomes of it will be. My biggest fear is that I end up being diagnosed with depression or GAD or something. I had one friend who I was very close with that had depression and it was very taxing on me and my friends that knew her. I made a huge mistake letting that relationship lapse, but that’s another story. I’m worried that being diagnosed with depression or the like is just going to stir up bad memories for my friends and I don’t want to have to put them through what I went through dealing with my friend. I’m also a little stressed out at having to lie about seeing a counsellor to my parents. I’m not usually out on weekday nights after work, so it might seem a little suspicious if I start going out all of a sudden. And if even if I tell them I’m going to go see a counsellor, they’ll want to know why, which will be tricky to handle. Despite all these worries, I think I’m going to go ahead and do it anyway. For one, I just keep reminding myself that if I feel this doesn’t work, I don’t have to keep going. I’m not being forced to do this, but I’m choosing to do this because I’m finding myself making a lot of assumptions on what people are thinking, and it’s not usually positive, so I need some help changing those thought processes. I’m planning to make an appointment this week, so I’ll keep you updated on that.

In other news, I spent this weekend trying to impress girls. No, really...my buddy Danny’s been seeing this one girl, so they both invited a bunch of their friends (his friends mostly single guys, hers single girls...hmmm...) out to a pub for some live music Friday. The music kind of sucked, so a bunch of us ended up just talking and we all really hit it off as a group. So much so, we ended up going hiking as a group today, and Danny, Nate and I took it as an opportunity to show off our feathers and be all gentlemen-ly (“Hey, do you want me to carry your bag up the mountain?! It’s not a problem...). I’m totally lost as to why I went along with this, maybe it was machismo speaking and I wanted to one-up my buddies,  or maybe it was a way to be more open and expressive about myself in an appropriate situation (how else are you supposed to impress girls without talking about yourself?!). Regardless, they’re a pretty chill bunch of people and it was a fun weekend, so there are plans in the works to hang out again next weekend. Not sure what I’m looking to get out of this, but at the very least I’ll get some cool new friends out of it.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I haven’t had any random car content for a while, and I'm sad the Mazda RX-8's going out of production, so...