Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, & Transgendered in Recovery..Part 2

[Ann]

This is Part 2 of this thread.

Part one can be read on this link.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-recovery.html

[indigo]

Thanks for starting our 2nd thread Ann.

hugs indie

[WhiteWolf607]

Yah, thanks for a new thread. This is much easier.
Maybe one of these times we can get our own
little section... if the participation keeps up, maybe
it'll be a good indicator it's needed and wanted!

Thanks ever'body, for continuin' to show up to this
little corner of the internet. It's become an important
part of my day to come here and check in. I do so
appreciate all your insights and opinions.

IT'S FRIDAY!!!!! WEEEEEE!

[nandm]

Whoooo, hoooo! We made it to a second thread.............

Thank you Ann.

I am thankful for each of you and your participation in this thread. It is nice to know that I am not alone in this. I appreciate your insight and support.

[Fluttering]

Ann Thank you so much

YEE HAW

yep nandm...you are certainly not alone

hugs everyone

[freya]

I'm going back a couple of days to the issues of discretion, privacy, internalized homophobia, and being "out."

Where I work at the moment (small office of self-employed financial planners -- of which I am one -- and our staff) there are about 20 people. In my office, all of my co-workers are straight. My co-workers talk about their immediate families, their extended families, their friends, their plans for the weekend, their hobbies and interests, their adventures with dating, their kids quest for the ""right" college, etc...I don't personally consider any of that to be indiscreet or to indicate a lack of appropriate boundaries where personal privacy is concerned. At work I talk about my life and activities with the very same level of appropriate-to-the-situation familiarity as my colleagues. It is really unclear to me how I would possibly be able to do otherwise without engaging in bigotry and/or homophobia (of the internalized variety) myself -- "bigotry" in the sense that I would have to be operating on the assumption that others "cannot handle" the fact that I am a lesbian and "internalized homophobia" in the sense that I would have to be operating on the assumption that somehow, someway, on some level my relationship with my partner is so different from all my straight colleagues' relationships with their partners that for me to talk about it in the same way that they talk about theirs would be inappropriate.

There is nothing inappropriate about my relationship with my partner. There is nothing inappropriate about my being a lesbian. (I'm not implying anyone on these threads said there was, but it is necessary to the point I'm trying to make that I state that clearly and explicitly.) Therefore, there is nothing inappropriate -- or indiscreet or indicative of poor boundaries around my personal privacy -- about my talking about my life with that same level of appropriate-to-the-situation familiarity as my co-workers. (FYI, this has always been the case in any of my "work," "school," or "social" situations.)

Recently on the first thread, the question was raised as to whether or not this kind of behavior indicates strength or courage or whatever.......and there was a daily reading that had been posted that strongly implied that every GLBT person necessarily suffers from some level of internalized homophobia. Based only on my knowledge of myself and my own behavior and my own motivations, I'd have to say that I find the former to be a little odd and the latter to be a very presumptuous generalization -- because, in the final analysis, I think that what it's about for me is self-esteem/self-respect and, as far as I can tell, self-esteem/self-respect and internalized-anything-negative do not and cannot co-exist in the same place at the same time anymore than fear and faith can.

Throughout my life I have repeatedly been the minority and, very often, the obstensibly "less-than" minority: the only child among adults, the only white among blacks, the only white among Asians, the only woman among men, the only part-timer among full-timers, the only homemaker among professional women, the only contract worker on a committee comprised otherwise of all management, the only student on a committee comprised entirely of faculty and administrators, the only lesbian among straights, the only queer among assimilationist gays and lesbians, etc....etc....etc...I can and will say in total honesty that it never, ever (in any of the above or in any other situation) occurs to me that I am not "just as good" (in the sense of my intrinsic value) as anyone else there; it never occurs to me that I do not have just as much right to be there as anyone else there; and it never occurs to me that I do not have just as much to offer as anyone else there.

I'm not saying here that I am great or perfect or never make mistakes or know everything or anything crazy like that....but I am most definitely trying to convey that I am absolutely fine as who I am. I am fine; I am OK; I am enough; and I am not intrinsicly "less than" anyone. And none of that is some kind of big proclamation or manifesto. It is the simple truth of which I am -- and always have been -- very much aware. So, for me, it really isn't at all about being "strong" or "brave" or whatever else; it's about being honest; being "real," and being me.....and also about not really wanting, at all, to be anyone other than me.

Now, I'm also neither stupid nor naive, so I do realize that there are going to be some people in the world who, due to their own insecurities and woundings, are going to perceive me as "less than" and assume that I am going be behaving accordingly. THAT IS ABOUT THEM, NOT ABOUT ME, and THAT IS THEIR PROBLEM, NOT MY PROBLEM. If they want to find out just how big of a problem they might have there, they are, of course, free to try to manipulate, coerce, or shame me into falling into line with their BS. They won't succeed, but they can try....and when they do, they will find out that, when appropriate and necessary, I am able and willing to be more than enough of a b*tch to dispense with whatever kind of *ssh*l* they're going to be.

freya

[NOMOMERLOTMAMMA]

Thanks Freya for your thoughts! Self esteem is an issue that I work on daily. I appreciate you putting it into a different perspective for me.

Karen

[WhiteWolf607]

Freya, THANK YOU. I have previously never enjoyed the kinds
of self esteem you exhibit, but I'm honored to have the
opportunity to learn it at this point in my life. I am deeply thankful
for people like yourself. You've given me PLENTY of food for
thought and living, in this post!!!

[GoldenGutters]

Great post Freya, thank you!

Oh WOW! My baby is now a Part 2 thread.....I'm so proud!!!

[freya]

Thank you, all, for your kind responses....I've been really tied-up at work for the last few weeks because one of my colleagues had a crisis that required his going out of state very unexpectedly and we were really scrambling to get all his work covered -- but it appears that right now I'm on a roll here.....Last night I thought of something that happened a couple of years ago with work that kind of sheds a different light on what I was saying yesterday.

I have a client who works for a company that got bought-out a couple of years ago. Once the buyout was complete, his 401(k) from the old company was going to be available for rollover, and we had talked about his wanting to do that. Now, this client is an Italian-American man, who is Catholic and works on an manufacturing line. He lives in a local suburb that is known for it's very conservative religious/social views. In fact, whenever you read an anti-gay quotation in our local paper, the chances are probably 75-80% that it's coming from an Italian American associated with one on the Catholic churches in that part of the area. So, anyways, I've always gotten along fine with this client -- but it's not like we were close or anything -- and now he's got this thing going on financially that potentially means a really nice commission check for me -- and that at a time when things in general had been a little slow.

Well, one day my partner and I are out at a coffee shop down near one of our big shopping areas, and in walks my client. So, we start chatting and, of course, I introduce him to my partner automatically because that's just what I do. But I would be lying if it I said that it didn't occur to me that doing so might very well be about to cost me several thousand dollars -- not that I wished I had done differently, but just that I recognized the possibility and felt some concern/sadness about it.

But, anyways, a few weeks later my client's money becomes available, and he calls me up and comes in to do the paperwork and just does it -- boom -- with no questions asked (not that I didn't do my usual "full and fair," but he certainly would not have had any problem if I'd omitted it!). And then we're talking, and it became very apparent that, far from being at all put-off by the fact that he now knows knows I'm a lesbian, he actually seems like he is honored that I told him -- like somehow it establishes the fact that I trust and respect him or something. Now, he talks to me about family things that he never talked to me about before, and I have gotten 3 very good referrals from him since then!

So, what am I trying to say here ?????-- Obviously, worst case scenario, I could have lost the client and the rollover -- which would have been too bad, but, in my personal estimation, not nearly as bad as giving away my self-respect by selling-out (literally, since there was money involved here) or disrespecting my partner and our relationship by rendering the true nature of her place in my life invisible and less-important-than-X-thousand-dollars. But, instead of any of that, I got a better, both personally and professionally, relationship with my client.

I can't, of course, say or expect that things always go that well, but, in my experience they go better than I might be able to predict much more often than not, and, if I were to choose not to be real with people, I would be denying both myself and others even the chance of having things go that well.

And, now that I just wrote that, it reminds me very strongly of a question I've been working on with a sponsee recently: What is the difference between living our lives in such a way as to maximize our chances of avoiding the things we fear and living our lives in such a way as to maximize our chances of attaining the things we say we most desire?

freya

[nandm]

There almost always is a discrepancey in.....timing for a gay man, because there are no sanctions and approvals for his exploring his sexuality when everyone else is, during chronological adolescence.
Stanley Siegel

We may have sensed from an early age that our sexual identity was different from the one validated by our families and the larger community. Or we may be just beginning to explore a bisexual, lesbian, gay, or transgender identity. Wherever we are in the process of getting to know our sexual natures, we may have feelings or experiences that seem incongruous with our mature selves.

We needn't expect ourselves to know everything today. As we grow, progress, and learn new skills at our own pace, our sense of who we really are expands and deepens. We can learn from those who have already been there, and we can mentor others who are at more awkward stages than we are. We can allow ourselves to have mixed feelings and to make mistakes; both are useful teachers. We stay loving and patient with ourselves at every stage.

Today, I praise and support myself in my unique process of development.

Glad Day

[nandm]

Freya,

I truly appreciate your insight. I am thankful that there are people like you in the world to help those of us who were raised to believe that who were are is morally and spiritually wrong. I have learned so much from being around, and listening to those who are comfortable with who they are. Today thanks to them and hard work on myself I am comfortable with who I am but still have a ways to go on being comfortable with allowing strangers to see who I am. But with time that will change. We are living in a time of change for the gay, lesbian, and transgendered communities. We won our fight in Oregon to get domestic partnership benefits that are equal to those of married couples. I finally have the right to visit my partner in the hospital, file my state taxes with my partner, have insurance through my partner. I am no longer punished for having a relationship that some who choose to try and be judge and jury on feel is wrong.

[WhiteWolf607]

What is the difference between living our lives in such a way as to maximize our chances of avoiding the things we fear and living our lives in such a way as to maximize our chances of attaining the things we say we most desire?

Wow. I think I'm just g'wan have to sit with that one a while
and REEEEEEALLY think about it. THANK YOU.

[WhiteWolf607]

Just sayin' HEY, ya'll. 'Gettin' ready to go to a Sober Superbowl
party at my sponsor's house. I'm lookin' forward to it.

Hope ya'll're havin' a great 24 out there! :ghug

[GoldenGutters]

What is the difference between living our lives in such a way as to maximize our chances of avoiding the things we fear and living our lives in such a way as to maximize our chances of attaining the things we say we most desire?

Having lived up until 30 in the former, I can tell you quite emphatically, it's NO life at all.

[nandm]

Thats my poetic son.
A mother introducing her nine-year-old son to a friend at the first National AIDS March.
Quoted by Stanley Siegel.

We wish parents and others in roles of responsibility toward children were more commonly open to and accepting of the natural diversity of sexual identities. We long for the time when self-esteem will be fostered by society's complete acceptance and respect for lebian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people. We imagine a day when all parents will keep their children safe from the danger of ignorance and bigotry.

Such a future will come about only if we accept the naturalness of our sexual identities, the dignity of our lives, the strength of our spirits, and the necessity for our full inclusion if the human family is to remain whole and healthy. We have a responsibility to our own and other's children to view ourselves as we want others to view us---with generosity, openess, and respect.

Today, I increase tolerance in the world by offering understanding to myself and others.

Glad Day

[hope3]

Wow, I've missed a lot of insight and sharing.

I went back and read some and would like to thank you all

for sharing your journey with me..

I can relate to everything Freya is saying;

Quote Freya "I am absolutely fine as who I am. I am fine; I am OK; I am enough; and I am not intrinsicly "less than" anyone. And none of that is some kind of big proclamation or manifesto. It is the simple truth of which I am -- and always have been -- very much aware. So, for me, it really isn't at all about being "strong" or "brave" or whatever else; it's about being honest; being "real," and being me.....and also about not really wanting, at all, to be anyone other than me." Also quote Freya; "if I were to choose not to be real with people, I would be denying both myself and others even the chance of having things go that well." end Freya qoute.

I work in the education field, and I don't scream it from the top of the roof, but I share
my plans and my home life just as much as my co-workers, at first it was scary, then, it
just became easy, the people who choose to like me: well, it will be for what I am, a personable person who cares a lot about her students and co-workers, has a great sense of humor and a wonderful relationship born out of love with another woman, who I choose to call my partner.

I choose to be me, no more, no less....just me.

hope and love hope3

[Fluttering]

Gotta say..I LOVE YOU ALL

Freya.....thank you....The question you pose:

"What is the difference between living our lives in such a way as to maximize our chances of avoiding the things we fear and living our lives in such a way as to maximize our chances of attaining the things we say we most desire?"
What is on our medallions is my response "To thine own self be trye."

When I am honest with myself I can be me. How others react, respond, behave...is not my responsbility nor is it really any of my business.

What comes to mind is the line in Spectrum of Love that talks about my way of expressing love and then says "As long as there is no hurt or pain involved in my life or any life my life touches." When i practice the motto of love and tolerance and I pray for those individuals that judge or criticize me and continue to be kind, loving and tolerant...then i have no problem.

Yea words can hurt...but I have a Higher Power to give the hurt to and I am wrapped in the arms of love and peace. I have mentioned this tool before but want to share it again here...Those that judge and criticize need prayers the most...So I place them on God's shoulders...While I get to curl up in God's lap and rest. What I do not get to do is to peek up God's sleeve to see what he has planned for that person(s) I placed on his shoulders. Nor do I get to ask when...God does not punch my time clock.

While I am placing that person up there and while I am resting on God's lap....I am staying within my own hula hoop and keeping my own side of the street clean.

Hugs to all

[hope3]

Originally Posted by Fluttering

Gotta say..I LOVE YOU ALL


What comes to mind is the line in Spectrum of Love that talks about my way of expressing love and then says "As long as there is no hurt or pain involved in my life or any life my life touches." When i practice the motto of love and tolerance and I pray for those individuals that judge or criticize me and continue to be kind, loving and tolerant...then i have no problem.

Beautiful Fluttering, just beautiful...

hope3

[nandm]

It's hard to give away much when you're the subject of widespread disapproval and your heart is leaking from puncture wounds.
---Barbara Kingsolver

Anger doesn't necessarily vanish just because we've come out or entered recovery. Our best selves would like to be generous to the employer who overlooks us for a promotion, to the old friend who tells us we could change if we'd just set our minds to it, and to the family that asks, "Where did we go wrong?" We're sick of our old conflicts and resentments, but our anger and sense of injury keep overwhelming our desire to let go.

We need to find safe ways to acknowledge anger and to release the pain it may be covering. A trusted sponsor, a Twelve Step recovery meeting, or a therapist can hear us without denying or condemning our emotions. When we recognize, accept, and express our anger without judging it, we'll be surprised at the mental and spiritual space we've created for new feelings.

Today, I don't have to act out my anger. I acknowledge it and let it pass through me.

G;ad Day

[indigo]

That was beautiful Flutter just like your sweet self, thank you for posting it here. It's great to read everyone's shares and viewpoints, I have learned a lot from this thread hugs GG for starting it.

[nandm]

If you, as an adult, lived with someone who was as abrasive to you as you are to your body, you would have the option of moving out. Your body has no such choice. Day after day it suffers your remarks, your grimaces, and your endless attacks on its size and shape.
---Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter

As difficult as it is to live up to certain standards---whether set by mainstream culture or by the communities we've chosen to call our own---we may not be ready to question those standards. We may habitually condemn our age, size, shape, or appearance without challenging cultureal ideals or our own negative self-image.

Obsession with cultural judgments about how bodies should look can be a socially acceptable cover for other forms of self-rejection that we'd prefer to avoid acknowledging. Staying preocccupied with our failure to have "perfect" bodies can be an effective way to keep us from thinking our real thoughts and feeling our real desires. Letting go of negative self-judgments liverates energy and willingness to care lovingly for our bodies and our authentic selves.

Today, I see my body's unique beauty and listen to its needs. I care for it as its most loving friend.

Glad Day

[nandm]

And don't just ask for one mercy.
Let them flood in.
---Rumi

Perhaps we've allowed feelings of disappointment or discouragement to take root in us. We may have decided to settle for less than our dreams, blaming the past or other people for our present dissatisfaction. We may cling to the belief that if we give up, we will somehow be taken care of. We must not give in to self-doubt or cynicism and misname it "acceptance." If we dream of pursuing education, meaningful work, a loving relationship, creative expression, spiritual practice, or something else we deeply desire, we can cultivate hope as we take steps toward our goal.

Twelve Step recovery reminds us that while we don't have the power to change others, we can affect our own lives by changing our attitudes and by taking actions. Faith in a Higher Power and the willingness to do our parts are foundations for change. Open-mindedness, persistence, and patience can bring us closer to understanding and honoring ourselves, at any age, in any aspect of our lives.

Today, I see doors that are open;
I walk through them with faith in my life's abundance.

Glad Day

[WhiteWolf607]

If you, as an adult, lived with someone who was as abrasive to you as you are to your body, you would have the option of moving out. Your body has no such choice. Day after day it suffers your remarks, your grimaces, and your endless attacks on its size and shape.
---Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter

This was so good for me to hear.

[WhiteWolf607]

We must not give in to self-doubt or cynicism and misname it "acceptance."

while we don't have the power to change others, we can affect our own lives by changing our attitudes and by taking actions. Faith in a Higher Power and the willingness to do our parts are foundations for change. Open-mindedness, persistence, and patience can bring us closer to understanding and honoring ourselves, at any age, in any aspect of our lives.

WOW. If that ain't just the loving li'l kick in the pants I needed, I dunno what is!!! : P

I saw a recovery site that had a shirt/mug etc. that said, "When one door closes, another o ne opens, but the HALLWAYS are a B!T@H."

That made me laugh. It's so true!