I’m gay, but I can’t face telling my family

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.
As with everything in a world where there are billions of us, you are not alone in your fear of disclosure and the initial discomfort you describe that came with self-discovery. I’m really glad you saw a counsellor when your feelings of self-loathing were at their height, and I’d certainly recommend revisiting a professional or qualified peer as you make this next step in your progression from chrysalis to butterfly. For any teenager these are years of experimentation, awkwardness and revelation, and understanding your sexual orientation is just part of your natural metamorphosis from childhood to maturity.
You are lucky that you have such clarity about who you are. So many of my letters are from young people who don’t have your certainty and are equally in turmoil, but without a clue as to the cause. You are gay. And unless your parents are religious zealots or particularly narrow-minded it really shouldn’t come as too much of a shock. Watching your children grow up it’s pretty difficult not to recognise such details, even subliminally, unless you close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears whenever they’re around, which can be tempting at times.
I’ve mentioned the disadvantage of my not knowing your parents and being clueless as to what their response is likely to be, but thankfully that’s not really the issue. You are who you are, and both you and they deserve the mutual respect of being honest with each other. I do know that there are very few mothers (or fathers) who’d prefer their child to tell them that “they’d rather not be living” than that they’re gay. If your parents do fall into that extreme minority then it’s imperative, rather than simply a suggestion, that you seek out the support of a counsellor via Switchboard, the LGBT+ helpline (switchboard.lgbt; 0300 330 0630), or Get Connected (getconnected.org.uk; freephone 0808 808 4994). Coming out to those you most crave approval from is a watershed moment, but also potentially one of liberation and epiphany.
I’m hoping you’re fretting unnecessarily. You’ve mentioned the warm embrace offered by your friends when you confided in them, and that should have fuelled and encouraged you to take disclosure to a broader constituency. Gender equality has yet to completely saturate society, but these days being gay is low on the seismic chart registering sexuality shockers. For most of us in the developed, educated world it has long ceased to be a discriminatory issue in principle and is on its way to becoming a humdrum fact of life. You’ve already delivered the worst news to your mother you possibly could when you said that life held no appeal, so when you explain the root cause of that existential misery it may even come as a relief.
We’ve come a very long way in a short time, but deeply buried prejudices, or simply the desire for your child to have the easiest life possible, might initially cloud a parent’s judgment on being told such news. The important thing is that you have nothing to be ashamed of and the same potential as your contemporaries to lead a rich and fulfilling life.
My experience of storing things up in fear of judgment is not extensive – I tend to be a blurter rather than a hoarder. It’s clear that maintaining what you believe to be a “secret” is taking its toll on you in terms of your study and your emotional wellbeing. Make sure you have someone looking out for you and then get it off your chest. This is definitely a case of better out than in.

If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk
Follow her on Twitter @mariellaf1