I find myself in a little dilemma with this post. I do not want to reveal information about my readers without their permission. However, in one particular case I feel obligated to post something. In order to do this, I must reveal how this user found this site.
I was checking my stats and noticed a user who searched for “how to suppress my gay urges”. Reading this, I felt obligated to write a post in reference to this. In my opinion, you cannot suppress your gay urges and be happy. You will always have the urges and the people who suppress them are the ones who are in the closet. However, as most people who come out would say, being in the closet was miserable because you cannot be yourself.
Yet, you see these people who claim they changed from being gay to being straight. I have never believed anyone who said this. Here are a few reasons why:
1. Ask any straight person to decide to be gay for two weeks and see if they succeed. The person would likely just laugh at you and say it is impossible. If so, then why is it possible for a gay person to decide to be straight.
2. The people who claim they changed, in every case I have heard of are now members of an anti-gay organization. I cannot believe that a person who was gay and understands the pain of being gay, would change and then join an organization that makes lives for gays more painful. This is about the biggest piece of hypocrisy I have ever heard.
3. I never had a moment in my life where I was sitting and said to myself “Hey, it would be fun to be gay.” Nor have I ever talked to or heard of anyone who has ever had such an experience.
4. With the extensive anti-gay sentiment in the US 40 years ago, if it was possible to change why didn’t ever gay person change. If this happened there would not be any 50 year old gays, but there is.
Therefore, I say it is impossible to change which in turn means it is impossible to suppress your gay urges. There seem to be three options. The first is live openly gay, but the person searching for help obviously does not feel this is an option at this time. The second, is to live gay in private. This is an absolutely miserable way to live, it does not provide for companionship and is only sustainable for a lifetime by the strongest of individuals. Yet, this is better than the third alternative, which happens all too often, suicide. Please, if you read this, and you are contemplating suicide, get help. Talk to a teacher, a family member, a friend, or call a suicide hotline. A list of several suicide hotlines is available at www.SuicideHotlines.com. Please do not feel this course of action is your only choice, there are people who care about you and are willing to help you.
I personally considered suicide several times, stupidly I never reached for help, but knowing my friends were there and cared about me was enough to prevent me. Yet to this day, I wish I had told someone, I wish I had gotten help learning to accept myself and be okay with what others thought of me. Please get help if you need it.
If you cannot come out to everyone right now, I suggest finding one or two good friends you can rely on and live openly when you are around them. I cannot provide any real advice to living in the closet outside of be strong, learn to live with yourself, realize it does not matter what others think of you, and when you can support yourself come out.