BETTER THAN NUMB

I realised something today about myself that I do not like. It is about how I think about my brothers. I don't think about my father. I don't care what he thinks, he has no hold over me.

I found out that I do care what my brothers think and I am ashamed of that. I am shocked that I do care. I don't like either of them, certainly have no love for them. My elder brother I think little of, never have liked him. He is self-centred in the extreme, compassionless, nasty, spiteful and cold. His capacity for denial is greater than that of either parent. I do get he had the same parents and his denial and hatred of me is his way of not ever having to face the truth. The exact same applies to my younger brother except that he has on two occasions shown me compassion. The last time, in 1994, he also contacted me and he was very very distressed. He wanted my forgiveness for not having spoken up when I was put away in a nut house, for not telling the truth of what he saw happen to me and to us. Then he went and ruined it. He went and confronted my father on my behalf with an event that not even I thought had happened. Of course good old ME got the blame for that! My brother made it up, told my family, and I got the blame! But of course, as I am Devil's Spawn, they just lapped it up as more evidence I was evil and they could carry on hating me and keeping me as their scapegoat. 

I got over what he did. I might not have, had he not written two letters to me. I kept those letters because I knew I would need them. I was right. I don't mean I need them to show anyone. No. Just for my own benefit so I have proof for myself the whole debacle happened and that for a brief time, he was there with me in the truth.  It didn't last and he went back into denial and soon the 'you're evil' phone calls and years later, e-mails resulted with the same 'you are evil theme'.( My John has of course read the letters and he has met both brothers and is not as kind about them as I am.)

Troublingly, he now travels the world conning people out of huge sums of money for his 'therapy' and 'channelling'. I would like to think he is also conning himself rather than deliberately conning those poor people that he can help them. 

When he was young he got very very involved in a Xtian cult which is where me being demon possessed came from because I was the easy target. I was out gay even then, completely unaware that BOTH my brothers were also gay. They let me take all the shit and rejection whilst they sucked up to our abusive parents and colluded with them against me. Me being gay was the perfect thing for everyone to hang all the family troubles on. I was the cause of it all. It was thus a very short step before they had Biblical backing for me being evil and of the Devil.

So I discovered today that I would hate for them to know I am basically crippled by physical pain and my life is therefore limited by it physically. It would just be proof positive to them of my inherent evil just as my mental health issues-the OCD, anorexia, PTSD etc - were.

However, I have worked very very hard and overcome all the mental health issues, the self worth issues, the fear stuff and the religious clap trap stuff. I would NOT change a thing about my life. I happy within myself generally.

I think it may be just my pride that would not like them see me as I am. My success is not obvious.

My biggest success is that I am happy, I am not like them, I am the ONLY one in my family to have a good and successful relationship. Neither of my brothers have and whilst my parents had a long marriage until my mum died, it can hardly be called successful. My dad was remarried within a year!

It may seem petty to think as I do about this. It just came to me, I am not sure what triggered it. It twisted my gut as the thought of either of them seeing me in my wheelchair or hobbling along with my sticks or in a pained state. I know they would relish it. They will blame me. 

It pisses me off royally that I even think of them! But it's the truth. I don't very often and I can't recall what triggered it-something I heard this morning did.

I guess some things run deep and do find a way of rearing their ugly heads from time to time. Like I have said many times, abuse survivors never completely get rid of the shit BUT we can and do live very very well if we face it and deal with it.

I have done that and I have an excellent life, one I never thought possible. I am incredibly grateful for it, for it is one beyond my imagining. I certainly never dreamt of a life like this. I only ever wanted to be numb. To me that was most I could hope for. I am so glad I discovered I could have so much more. Feeling good is not longer feeling nothing.

It's being alive in every sense.
Appropriate

THE TRUTH ABOUT PETER LABARBERA

A man who has devoted his life to the propagation of Evil.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS

I wrote the following on the Brothers and Sisters Facebook page:

I have just finished watching season four on DVD. I feel that the show has gone downhill. The first three seasons were excellent. This season had the Schmaltz laid on far too thick and what is with the loud music playing over dialogue? During what would have been some rather moving scenes, like the one between Nora and Kevin in the kitchen on his birthday, were completely ruined by a schmaltzy song playing over their speaking. We are not stupid we don't need a sad song to tell us that this was a moving scene! I am a sucker for a moving scene and tearjerkers but honestly this was just laid on with a trowel. It felt patronising. I will still watch season five but am not surprised to read that season five is likely to be the last. Let's hope that in season five they cut back on the schmaltz the loud music over the dialogue and cut the patronising of the viewer.

I was disappointed with this fourth series. Obviously I had really enjoyed the first three. I have no idea why they decided to over-egg the pudding for series 4.

The other thing that really has made me annoyed is the fact that Kevin and Scotty get yearly HIV tests. Does no one believe that gay couples can be and are monogamous? John and I have been together for 30 years next July. Not only do we not practice safe sex we also do not take HIV tests. We have no need to. HIV tests are necessary for those men and women who have unprotected sex with other men and women that they are not in long-term monogamous relationships with. Note I said men and women. Their sexuality is unimportant in this regard. Anyone who practices unsafe sex outside of long-term monogamous relationships are at risk. (It is my understanding that the only people with a high degree of safety in this regard are homosexual women.)

I also object to the decision to make 70-year-old Saul HIV positive. Yet another gay character who can’t possibly be healthy and happy! Grrr! I am not at all sure that I would consider the fact that shows now have openly gay characters in them to be a positive thing when such characters are never allowed to be happy healthy and fortunate!

GIVING OFFENCE

It is quite a frequent occurrence for fundamentalist Christians who either read my blog, read my e-mails on a number of knitting this that I belong to, or read me on Facebook, get indignant with me and go off in an offended hump.

I communicate with anybody.  As long as they remain civil with me and respectful I will continue to do so. 

However, let me tell you something: I am deeply, deeply hurt and offended by these people. Their arrogance and their self-centredness appals me.  They simply have no idea how hurtful and offensive they are and I should think they do not care because they firmly believe they have right on their side.

I have to say that as these people would prefer that I do not exist, I don’t quite understand why they want anything to do with me.  I imagine the way I feel, the amount of trust I have these people, would not be this similar to the way a true would feel toward their ‘friends’ who held to the Nazi ideology.

My knowledge and experience of Christianity, especially the fundamentalist kind, tells me in no uncertain terms that the followers of such ideology want me and others like me to not exist.  In my case on two counts: I do not believe in their ideology and I am homosexual.  In their eyes are both these things guarantee that I am an evil person destined for Hell.

I know that some of these people would protest that they love me and do not want to see me dead but they are lying even if they are also lying to themselves.  They do not love me because they hate homosexuals.  They will say that they do not, that what they hate is homosexual behaviour.  In their ignorance they believe that one’s sexuality is purely about sex.  It is not.  If I were not homosexual, I would not be Colin.  The Colin that you and I know would not exist.  In just the same way, my heterosexual fellows cannot help but behave heterosexually! Likewise, if they were not heterosexual they would not be who they are and therefore they would not exist because they would be somebody else.

So if you hate my sexuality, then you hate me, and you prefer that I do not exist.  How on earth can you expect me to be okay with that?

Imagine, though I doubt that you can, being brought up in a society that condemns you for your feelings of love and attraction.  Imagine growing up being told that you are sick and evil just for being who you are.  I think perhaps the closest any heterosexual people can get to this feeling is those who have fallen in love with unacceptable people.  By this I mean imagine a Jew falling in love with a Muslim. A white person from a racist family falling in love with a black person, or a black person from a racist family falling in love with a nonblack person.  The people who are involved in this way KNOW that their feelings are not wrong but that does not mean that they will not suffer the pain of rejection and condemnation of those around them who disapprove.

It is very difficult to live in a world that you are not welcome in.  I know that I have a small number of true friends who truly accept me as I am.  However there are 6 billion people on this planet and the majority of them don’t want me and others like me to exist.

I wonder if anyone understands how it feels to be taught about the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust and not also be taught that homosexuals suffered the same fate. When one digs deeper one discovers that not only was this the case but homosexual survivors were not compensated as other survivors were because we deserved it.

Really, the offence taken by some because of my attitude towards their ideology is nothing in comparison to the offence pain and suffering they cause on a daily basis to millions of people. I really could not care less.  It is their ego that causes them to feel aggrieved.  It is their choice to believe in evil.  It is their choice to be self-righteous.  It is their choice to spread hate.

When I hear the Religious Right (interestingly here fundamentalists tend toward the left politically) speaking their hatred in the name of love I am reminded of the words of the man they profess to follow;

FORGIVE THEM FATHER, FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO.

In the world today, with the rise of religious fundamentalism, I feel increasingly fearful and wonder if I will reach old age.  I fear another Holocaust.

A FEW QUESTIONS FOR YOU

HETEROSEXUALITY QUESTIONNAIRE
(Attributed to Martin Rochlin, PhD, January 1977)

1. What do you think has caused you to be heterosexual?

2. When and how did you first decide you were a heterosexual?

3. Is it possible your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of people of the same sex?

4. If you've never slept with a person of the same sex, how do you know you wouldn't prefer it?

5. Isn't it possible your heterosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of?

6. Isn't it possible that all you need is a good gay lover?

7. If heterosexuality is normal, why are a disproportionate number of mental patients heterosexual?

8. To whom have you disclosed your heterosexual tendencies? How did they react?

9. Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex? Why are they so promiscuous?

10. Do heterosexuals hate and/or distrust others of their own sex? Is that what makes them heterosexual?

11. If you were to have children, would you want them to be heterosexual knowing the problems they'd face?

12. Your heterosexuality doesn't offend me as long as you don't try to force it on me. Why do you feel compelled to seduce others into your sexual orientation?

13. The great majority of child molesters are heterosexuals. Do you really consider it safe to expose your children to heterosexual teachers?

14. Why do you insist on being so obvious, and making a public spectacle of your heterosexuality? Can't you just be who you are and keep it quiet?

15. How can you ever hope to become a whole person if you limit yourself to a compulsive, exclusively heterosexual lifestyle, and remain unwilling to explore and develop your homosexual potential?

16. Heterosexuals are noted for assigning themselves and each other to narrowly restricted, stereotyped sex-roles. Why do you cling to such unhealthy role playing?

17. Even with all the societal support marriage receives, the divorce rate is spiralling. Why are there so few stable relationships among heterosexuals?

18. How could the human race survive if everyone were heterosexual like you, considering the menace of overpopulation?

19. There seem to be very few happy heterosexuals. Techniques have been developed that could help you change if you really wanted to. Have you considered trying psychotherapy or even aversion therapy?

21. Could you really trust a heterosexual therapist/counsellor to be objective and unbiased? Don't you fear he/she might be inclined to influence you in the direction of his/her own preferences?

22. How can you enjoy a full, satisfying sexual experience or deep emotional rapport with a person of the opposite sex when the differences are so vast? How can a man understand what pleases a woman, or vice-versa?

MISOGYNIST!!!!!!

Me. Yes that’s right. I was accused of this today by a person whose own homophobia she is not conscious of.

I had said, quite factually, that in my experience on knitting lists, whilst some may want experienced and opinionated knitters to respond, a female voice is much more readily heard than mine. I know this because I have been on the receiving end of some really vicious attacks for writing when a female has not. Some of these attacks have brought up my sexuality.

The misogynist label pinned on me is ridiculous. Other than John and a couple of other males, ALL my close friends are now and always have been female. I prefer female company.

Never mind that. Misogyny is a label often hurled at gay men by homophobes who wrongly assume that because we don’t want to sleep with them, we must hate women!

GROW UP!!!!!

The list is question is usually quiet and friendly. Once or twice I have had nasty comments made about my knitting skills which I chose to ignore. Right now the venom being directed my way is because I have advertised my sock dyeing hobby on the list. I have done so for months. Suddenly a couple of vipers decided to swipe at me. The fact they are so clearly fuelled by whatever resentment toward me they have seems to pass them by! It has nothing to do with the ads and everything to do with their dislike of me. In itself so stupid as they don’t know me! It is their prejudging of me that leads to their bile toward me but of course they won’t see that. Why am I so sure of this? Partly because of the lies in their emails sent to defend their attack upon me. Daily adverts, daily giving of opinions, frequent misogynist statements. When a person resorts to such lies, you know their agenda is not the ads! This is a quiet list where I post infrequently and where traffic is very low.

You know I ought to have come here straight away and written this instead of rising to the bait as I did.

IN DREAMS AND BIGOTRY IN SPIRITUALISM

First of all with regard to dreams, it is said that we enter REM  (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep approximately 90 minutes after going to sleep. I start to dream the minute I close my eyes, wherever I am.

I dream vividly and have good recall. My dreams have been prophetic and have also been instrumental in showing me areas of myself that I need to look at. I had a dreadful dream in ‘07 that heralded the pain and anguish I went thru toward the end of that year which led to my epiphany and the freeing myself from my past.

I have dreamed of other people, of specific things happening to them and they happened.

Last night I dreamed of a famous man, married with two children, sons, who was in fact gay. The dream was all about freeing him from the lie he had woven for himself. I seemed to be his mentor but I didn’t want to be. As it turned out our conversation was overheard by a woman friend and so the cat was out of the bag and it looked as if he wasn’t going to have to tell his wife after all.

Weird dream and I was glad to awake from it. I am not suggesting this is a prophetic dream. I have no idea what it was about.

I recall dreams from many years back, right to childhood.

In the 80’s I woke one morning to see a mushroom cloud rising up. I saw this through my kitchen window. I vividly recall the fear I felt. Then I just knew that the bomb had gone off in Iran(maybe Iraq) and not London so my fear was lessened.

I dreamed, when I was sixteen, of a family friend carrying me in his arms and he placed me in a grave. I turned into a cat and ran away. This man had in reality, paid for me to see a private doctor. I had thought he did this because he could see how I was suffering and I thought finally someone was going to help me. Not so. This was because he figured out I was gay and the private shrink was all about straightening me out. What a betrayal. Not even the doctor saw I was deeply disturbed and an abuse victim.

One dream I had, changed my life. I had tried to end my life and I put myself into a coma. When I awoke I had a drip in and mask over my face. I proceed to pull it all off, especially the drip. For some reason I recall how that hurt going in several days earlier.

Anyway, during that period of unconsciousness, I dreamed I was walking in darkness toward a group of people who seemed to be standing a in a misty glowing light. As I got closer, I could see one of the people was my Aunt Jesse (who had died in 77 I think). She held her arms out to me and I was hugged by her. She told me I had to go back, that I could not stay.

I knew then  I could not escape this pain, that life did not end with physical death. Far from it bringing me peace it filled me with fear and rage. It turned out though to be the beginning my journey to recovery. It also brought about the understanding that I had a gift, all my life, called mediumship. It took a long time before I accepted this as a good thing. To me it was just another thing to feel shame about.

All through my growing up, I had ‘weird experiences’ and with no one to share them with, I hid them away and was ashamed. I often though was unaware of it working. When I said things that were true, and it discomfited the adults around me, I just assumed I had been told by someone and had forgotten. I never thought about spirit people then as I didn't know about it. I had friends that I ‘ made up’ but hey were real enough to me. I often  talked to myself, I am told. I ma not one of those who can say I saw and spoke with spirit all through my growing years. I was ignorant of such things.

Today it is a different story of course. I know who and what I am. I use my gifts. I give talks and demonstrations. Not many as Spiritualists are as bigoted as anyone else and many find me unacceptable so do not book me. Why do I know that? Well one booking secretary told me outright I was not approved of and I also know it isn’t because I don’t give good evidence. I do. I also tend to speak of power of though and belief and personal responsibility, the corner stone of Spiritualist philosophy, but it isn’t approved of by some. Nor is my telling my story of how I was raised from the gutter to the life I have now. Strange how they object to that.

DEMON, THY NAME IS HOMOPHOBIA

 I was born to parents who had a set idea of what they wanted in a child. I wasn’t it and this I knew from as early as I can recall.
My first years are dark and mysterious. I just remember an all encompassing darkness. I knew there was something wrong with me. I didn’t know what. I felt my parents shame and especially my father’s disgust.
We had a pet rabbit. One day, my father dragged me and my two brothers out into the garden to view this dead rabbit. It’s eyes were white with some gunge. He told us it was out fault it was dead. I was about 6 and my brothers about 3 and 9.  I knew guilt and shame from a very early age.
I know I craved attention back then. I was afraid. I wanted to be held and soothed. I don’t know exactly what I was afraid of. I loved school, it got me away from my parents. However, one term I turned up at school to find my teacher was a man. My world was destroyed. Gone was my haven.
I do not know why I was so afraid of men. In answer to a question put to me as an adult, I said I had been sexually active as long as I could recall. Yes even at 5 years of age. I didn’t know that I wasn’t and i had been abused. I do not recall much at all about this age. I know I had a best friend. I know I saw him killed in a racist incident. I was told, so I don’t know if it is true, that there was confusion as to who had been killed, me or him. I don’t recall him at all. I don’t recall his death that I witness. I do recall the newspaper’s front page headline: THE BOY WHO DIED OF HATE and his photograph. I am told I never spoke of him and denied even knowing him. When shown the paper and asked who it was, I relied ‘me’. Strangely I do re call that.
I first tried ending my life then. I was 7 thereabouts.
As I got older, I began to understand that what was wrong with me was that I liked girls and I liked girl things. I liked a doll called Tressy whose hair grew. I was fascinated by that. I also loved long hair and would want to brush it.
I still had boy best friends. I was still young enough to get away with not being a proper boy. As I grew older, it became increasingly obvious to me that I was not acceptable. My fathers violence toward me grew. His disgust of me was palpable.
As I got to 11 – 12, I became less and less acceptable to other boys and men. I became very lonely and I was bullied.
I had been accosted by a man in the jungle (I lived in Singapore at the time) and he sexually abused me. I was terrified into silence. I stopped drinking milk as it made me gag.
I kept my silence until something happened to the neighbour’s daughter. I then spoke up.My mother slapped me and told me I was bad and that it was my fault the girl had been attacked.
I had Action Man dolls. I removed all their uniforms and had them replaced with ‘flower power’ clothing, made by the girl next door. My father was a soldier in bomb disposal. I used to hope he wouldn’t come home and my sense of guilt and shame grew.
During this period his violence toward me became dangerous. It is only luck that I am still alive.
The bullying at school became worse the older I got and less like the boy everyone thought I ought to be. I had been very good at needlework and such but of course I stopped doing all that. I tried to be a boy the way they wanted me to be. I failed. I was not tough. At least not in the way they wanted me to be. I know now that I was indeed very tough for how else did I survive?
Religion played a big part in my life too and I grew to to be terribly afraid of God and Hell. I knew I was going to Hell. I knew that the nuns and priests were referring to me when they spoke of the abomination.
I was called pansy and queer and poof. I didn’t know why. I didn’t know I was homosexual. I thought I was called these names because of what those men did to me and because they agreed with my father that I was to be despised.
This is difficult to write, not because I am still suffering or caused pain by it. I am not. I am free of it. No. It’s difficult to write about because so much was going on it isn’t easy to write it in a way that makes sense.
When we first arrived in Australia, within weeks, I had been befriended by a paedophile teacher. He made porn films and photographs of me. In his house he showed them to me and once his son was there and I felt so ashamed. I felt great guilt. I thought it wrong that his son should be involved, Me? Oh I deserved it so I didn’t feel bad for me. It was my fault.
It was also the reason I thought I was bullied and called names. I thought I was the dirty old man in the raincoat I heard people warning children about. I just thought someone had told the children I was having sex with the teacher. I really had no idea. Despite all that was in my life, I was naive.
By 14 I was cutting myself. I didn’t get into it seriously but enough fro the scars to still be visible. I had been using food-specifically starch and sugar-since I was about seven to numb myself. Bingeing was a way of life. I felt bad, I ate. I did not know my feelings nor did I understand them. I know I was scared and I know I hated myself.
Religious fundamentalist had me in their clutches too and their abuse of me just compounded everything else. They told me I was not acceptable to God and unless I repented I would suffer in  Hell for eternity. Again I just thought they knew about what I did with those men. They didn’t of course. They just saw me, a boy who wasn’t a boy in the way they thought was acceptable. They recognized I was homosexual event though I did not.
I didn’t know I was until I was 16. Then it dawned on me. I never hid it. I suffered further abuse.
In my 17th year I started to have contact with psychiatric services. I was suffering from anorexia/bulimia, I was suffering from OCD. I didn’t want to live.
What followed  was two years spent in mental hospitals, being further abused, not being helped, being the victim of homophobia. You see every single shrink and the nursing staff, because of their homophobia, thought my problem was my sexuality! None of them recognized my PTSD. None recognized I was an abuse victim. They couldn’t see it because they saw only a miserable pathetic homosexual who need to either stop being homosexual or to accept. Those who tried to get me to accept it and thought there was nothing wrong with it, were just as homophobic as those who thought I ought to be str8.
The hospitals were hotbeds of abuse. Of course they were.Some staff were nice but in effectual.Others were bullies. Suicide was common place. I saw people being held down and punched and kicked by staff and drugged. I had it happen to me, being  held down while largactil (chlorpromazine) was injected into my arse.
I managed to escape all this physically  but not mentally. I was still lost and very disturbed and was still abusing myself. People say not all abuse victims grow up to be abusers. I thought this was true as I did not sexually molest children. Now I know it isn’t true. I did grow up to be an abuser. I abused me. I have  never met another abuse victim who did not abuse themselves.
I tried and tried and tried to get help. All I kept getting was homophobia. I was also looking for help for the wrong thing. I wanted help to become a good person. I didn’t talk about the abuse because until I was in my 30’s, I didn't  know it was abuse. I thought I was deserving of all I received. After all I was not acceptable to my own parents and their abuse of me just proved I was despicable.
I did, in my late 20’s tell the local vicar and his wife about the teacher who made porn from abusing me. They held a special, healing service for me. When I arrived for this, they all sat there and prayed for ME to be forgiven. I walked out and that was the last I ever had to do with religionists.
At the very root of all the evil I have experienced in life has been the insidiousness of homophobia. There will be people reading this whose own homophobia will be not be recognized by themselves. They will think I am homosexual because I was abused. They will think my ‘feminine’ interests are because I am homosexual. They will ignore the fact the my partner was 1. not abused and 2. is as masculine as they come. Homosexuality has nothing to do with any of that. It just is and some of us are feminine some of us ultra masculine and most of us are just ordinary and you cannot ell us apart from str8’s.! The same feminine/masculine is seen in heterosexual men.
There will also be those reading this who believe I am evil am destined for Hell. I know I am not today. I have been to HELL. A Hell created by the demon of homophobia.
Homophobia resulted in me not getting medical treatment needed. For physical reasons. My present health problems were long ignored because it was put down to stress and depression caused by me being homosexual!!!!!
Homophobia destroyed my family. I have none. I have two homosexual brothers. Homophobia has ad a far worse effect upon them than me. They colluded in my abuse, in my being the scapegoat. They kept quiet or flatly denied the abuse from our parents. I didn’t even know they were homosexual until well into my 20’s. When I was receiving all the flack at home because I was out, my elder brother was living with another man and he kept quiet and let me continue to suffer alone. My younger brother was a religious fundamentalist who continually told me I was evil and possessed my demons. He drove me batty.Literally.I had a breakdown and was convinced I was possessed by demons. I hallucinated. I recall the terror vividly today.
Perhaps my anti religious stance is more clearly understood. I think such ideas are evil and result in suffering for millions. It isn’t harmless. (BTW, how can one repent something that isn’t wrong?) Such dishonesty is at the very root of all this. People say they are against us because their religion tells them to be. It is in fact they who are responsible for holding such prejudice and they choose their religion accordingly. If their religion didn't fit with their mind set, they’d reject it. They believe evil ideas because they don’t see the devil in the detail. They choose their religion according to custom and according to what is already inside them, not the other way around.
Last year, it was reported in the news that a 10 year old had hung himself to end his misery. He has been an effeminate boy and was mercilessly bullied. His school did not protect him and the religionists blamed him for being queer. He was TEN YEARS OLD. He was hounded for being himself, for not being boy enough. He HUNG himself. Have you seen what this mode of dying does a person? I was so distressed. I know he was me. I knew I could have gone his way.
I am very very fortunate. I survived to live a good life. I don’t just exist, I LIVE. I love my life. I love myself and I love others.
The people around me were very fond of saying that people were possessed by demons. The demon of this and of that. Of anything they didn’t like. If such things are real, then I would suggest it is very clear that millions, religious or not, are possessed by the Demon of Homophobia.
I have only here, with my words, scratched the surface of the evil caused by homophobia. I have left much out for want of time and space and concentration. No point really.
I will say this one last thing. The survivors of the Holocaust were compensated. Not that there could be any, really. Homosexuals were not because we deserved it. When I was taught of the Holocaust not just at school but because I knew survivors when I was growing up, and saw what horrors did to people, I NEVER KNEW that gypsies, the disabled and homosexuals were also sent to the death camps. Homosexuals wore a pink star hence the colour being associated with us now. Sadly, those that survived the camps or are descendents hold their own bigotry.
Homophobia is still acceptable worldwide.
Am I angry? You bet! Do I hate? No. I know what hatred does. Do I fear? Yes I do. I fear the religious fundamentalists having their way. And those of the far right and far left. If they the upper hand in terms of government, my life will be over as will the lives of my fellow homosexual men and women. Worse, no child will be safe again and no child will ever be able to be themselves. No child will ever be able to just be and no child will ever be free of abuse from adults.
The fundamentalists, and the religious apologists who pretend they are ‘tolerant’, will create HELL right here on earth.

Ironically, I turned out more a man than my father (and others) ever was.

A LIFE STOLEN

In the 6 days I took the Naproxen, I gained 8 lbs. In the two days since I stopped, I lost 8lbs. It really does seem that anti-inflammatories are not for me.

I have used up all of my spoons today. Damn. I didn't get up at 5am to go swimming and I slept till 8am. I told myself I would go to the afternoon session. I also wanted to go the talk and demonstration at the church tonight. I did wonder if I ought to do both and maybe swimming could be off the menu today. I decided to go swimming. I managed half of my usual laps and it is clear I will not be going out again today. Maybe it is the heat, I feel so weak.

On the way to the pool I saw a young man walking on the side of the road, his shirt off. He had a defined torso, flat stomach and I was immediately transported back in time to the dark days of my life.

Prior to puberty, I had male friends. I knew though that I was not acceptable to my parents, especially my father. By the time of puberty, I knew this for sure and I was suddenly not acceptable to my male peers either. Quite simply, I did not fit the required standard for a boy. I was soft, gentle, sensitive, attributes I was to be ashamed of for the rest of my life until I saw the world differently.

I equated boys who were built like this as 'real boys', and men built like this as 'real men'. My anorexia / bulimia and exercising was all about trying to look like that, thinking that if I did, I would be acceptable. It never did happen. I never looked like that. I have come to realise that only person whose acceptance I need is my own and today I have that.

You know, our expectations of ourselves and of others can really ruin lives. I resent the fact that my first 49 years of life were miserable, that I was robbed of any chance of joy and happiness because of the expectations of others, which by it being the only teaching I had, the expectations of myself. That my life was dominated by shame and fear and the teaching that I was unacceptable to my family and to god.

I know different today and I know what joy and happiness and peace are. Now that I do know these things, I know exactly what I was robbed of and it makes me angry and sad. I don't let it dominate me and I don't dwell on it but I'd be lying if I said those 49 years of darkness were not a source of deep regret for me. I am aware I cannot change it, cannot go back in time. This just makes my loss more profound.

However, I am fortunate in that I am aware of my good fortune. Others don't escape the darkness. I did. I enjoy today. It is all I have. Today. I am glad of that.

I was thinking the other day how homophobia is far more insidious than most of us think. Homophobia is the reason I was never treat for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, why I was never seen as an abuse survivor, why my self harming and eating disorder, the paranoia, the agoraphobia, were not seen as the result of abuse. No. My homosexuality was seen as the problem. Either in itself or my lack of acceptance of it. No one ever asked me if I saw my homosexuality as the problem! If they had, I could have told them I didn't think about it, I just was, and I didn't understand why others found it a big deal and they didn't seem to think that being beaten, and bullied and molested all my life was anything to be concerned about.

I wish I could say that others in my position would be treated differently today. I know that it is isn't so. The evils of fundamentalism abound still. Insidious bigotry still pervades society.

The difference for me today is I see the falsehood of such bigotry and no longer suffer under it's weight. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the world. Both the bigots and the victims of it. Both pay the consequences. No matter if people justify it by their religious beliefs, they still reap what they so. It does make me sick when people are so cowardly that they hide behind their 'religion' when they say their religion causes them to be bigoted. Shame, shame, shame upon them.

NEW ROUTINE?

I have spent all morning pricing up, posting, labelling, weighing the yarn I am selling on EBAY. It really takes some effort but it pleases me to be doing it, knowing it is going to a good home where it will be used.

I am not swimming today nor tomorrow. I did swim yesterday and was surprised to find I got sore and fatigued quickly so did not complete. I was surprised because after the show on Wednesday, I slept 11 hours, did nothing at Thursday, slept again in the arvo and then went to bed. I would have thought that would have been plenty of rest. Aparrently not!

I am now thinking that my swim days will be Monday to Friday and I will leave weekends for my break. Even if I do mid week dog shows and miss swimming, I still will not go at the weekend.

Yesterday, I was called to be asked if I would go to Bedford Church to serve. I said no. I was ratehr surprised at that. Taking care of myself! Oooh, whatever next.

I had a client on Friday, soemthing I don't often do. The sitting went very well. I felt terribly sad for my sitter. He was gay, in the closet, and his partner of 48 years had died of cancer and he wa sall alone in terrible pain with no one to share it with because it was a secret. How truly awful.

THIS is what homophobia does to people. Shame on the homophobes and religious bigots. They will reap what they sow.