A Parent's Message of Suppression

Story by: Jeremy Lambson 

When I was in sixth grade, I had a boyfriend. I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time, but our relationship exhibited the same intimacy that other future relationships held. When we would hang out together, we would cuddle and watch movies, tickle each other when we played video games, and we even kissed under the premise that “we were practicing for when we started dating girls.” At some point in our relationship, he must have told his parents what was going on between us because suddenly, we just stopped seeing each other. I remember a point where when I asked my parents if I could hang out with him, they would always come up with an excuse for why we couldn’t hang out. Often, they would suggest I hang out with another friend instead.  

Shortly after our parents stopped allowing us to hang out together, my father took me on a long car ride where we had a conversation about sex and intimacy. The topics that he was talking about were not about heterosexual sex but focused on homosexual sex. I never felt intimidated by my father himself, but he put the punishment of God into the equation and suggested that I would go to hell if I ever did something sexual with another man. This was enough to persuade me away from looking at other men as sexually attractive.

Because I was also attracted to women, it was easy to let that part of my sexuality go. At least for a while.  

Growing up, I struggled with mental illness and social anxiety and never really understood why. I now contribute most of this to the suppression of my sexuality that rewired my brain in way that was processing my attraction to men in an unhealthy way. Later, when my brother came out to me as bisexual when I was just starting high school, I didn’t even know what the term meant. When he explained it to me, I felt a sense of relief knowing that something like that existed in the world. I had suppressed my sexuality to the point that I didn’t connect the word with myself, but my relief was enough to be happy for my brother. Years passed as I slowly deconstructed my internalized Queerphobia. I remember taking a vested interest in Queer theory and theology because I wanted to know for myself that if what my father had told me when I was a child is true, and if real concern for my brother’s sexuality was warranted, I wanted to affirm my father’s message and warn my brother. My prayer during this time was, “God, show me your will and open my eyes to the things that remain unclear.” What I discovered during this time was that my father’s message was completely wrong, and I began cultivating a fully affirming faith and theology.  

I was ecstatic to tell my brother what I had learned. It has been five years since I received an affirming faith and just last year, I began rewiring my brain once again in a way that affirms my sexuality. I now see that my excitement to tell my brother about the evidence I had found was also the subconscious permission that I was giving myself to be who I am. I now understand that it was fear that kept me from accepting who I was. I had become comfortable living as a heterosexual man and felt that I could maintain that identity while being affirming.

Eventually, I realized that affirming my own sexuality was one of the last battles I had to face against my internalized Queerphobia. Once I accepted it, I felt a huge weight lifted from my chest. I felt whole.  

I feel more comfortable with who I am, and my mental health is better than it has ever been. While I do have a sense of despair that I haven’t been able to live my whole life as myself, I feel truly blessed that I have reached that point now. I don’t know if, when, or how I will talk to my parents about this experience and my sexuality, but for now, I am content in the family and friends that I have that have not contributed to my suppression and who love and support me as who I am.