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[sentbycarson]

Facing Hate Head On

My dad gave me advice a while after coming out, he told me that I will face hate, and people who will see me as lower than them. This was not news to me, as I have already been on the giving side of that for many years while closeted. I’m 6’2 240 pounds so I’ve never experienced harassment from anyone in person, or at least not to me. I was at a bar one time and saw a guy who was small in stature who could not have weighed more than 150 pounds getting harassed for how he was dressed and the way he carried himself. He was being called slur after slur, and after overhearing I realized that I had an opportunity to stick up for this helpless guy just trying to enjoy himself. I walked over to the guy harassing him, and told him “So you’re twice this mans size harassing him? You want to call him a f*ggot? Call me one. C’mon tough guy” This man clearly didn’t expect to be called out for something he’d assumably been getting away with for years. He could not stop stuttering over his words to find a response to get me off his back. It is amazing how fragile hateful people are when you back them in a corner. Eventually the guy huffed away, but the damage he had done to this young man was already done, and despite me intervening, he still felt the need to leave. I told him it is not okay to let people like that dictate your life and how you want to live. He was thankful but nonetheless left after the situation had ended.

           It is baffling to me how people can be so up in arms about how people show love to one another or express themselves but turn a blind eye to the hate they see spewed every day. They stipulate the legitimacy of someone else’s entire being while simultaneously tearing them down, it is a bizarre trait unfortunately only found in the human species. My first experience with being marginalized as a gay person just happened about two weeks ago. It was not from a random guy in a bar or on social media, but from within my family. You see my brother, my cousin, and I are graduating this year, and to celebrate we were going to my dads’ side of the family located in Indianapolis. I’ve grown up with them and have spent countless holidays, Indy 500’s with them, and countless other get togethers. My uncle, who is hosting the get together, decided to inform my family that me and my boyfriend were not welcome in his house. His newly reinvigorated Catholicism could not allow it. Upon the news of this my entire family decided to up and drop the entire trip all together, that they would not allow us to be left out because of something we had no control of. Nearly everyone in my family texted me to tell me their condolences for how hurt I must be, and how they do not agree with my uncle’s decision. I was upset at first understandably but then I realized that I was in much more pain as a closeted man, so with that I say good riddance. My family having my back means more to me than they will ever know and makes me hopeful for the future. Hopefully in the future we will see these hateful individuals dwindle and more of those who value love above anything else.

[sentbycarson]

How You Been?

With the events that had unfolded a few days prior, and after my return to Georgia, I found myself almost numb with feelings. How could my parents give me something like that to govern me? I know they apologized but that does not really make up for the fact that they did it in the first place. Could anyone just do awful stuff and because they are misinformed that makes it forgivable? I should consider myself lucky as some parents completely disown their children at the news of them being gay, but at least they could live how they wanted. My parents may have apologized for their wording in the contract but nonetheless still felt that it was necessary for me to retain their original concepts of “boundaries” out lined in the contract. I held onto to those virtues out of nothing more than fear of what would happen if I disobeyed. I did not really see much change in them until I met my boyfriend.

            I met my boyfriend on an online dating app, which is not the story we tell people, he messaged me first and I was infatuated. I could not wait to meet him in person. He lived at a lake house on Allatoona and was a senior here at Kennesaw State University. I remember when I first arrived at his place for our first date, the first thing I ever said to him was “How you been?” You see we had been talking quite a lot and I had never met someone I clicked with and knew so well so quickly. Looking back, I know exactly why I worded it like that. It is because my whole life I knew who I was and what I wanted, and I knew there was someone out there who felt the same. Someone that had experienced homophobia in every facet of life and understood the internal battle that were forced to deal with. I asked him how he had been because I knew it was not always easy for him, much like it was for me. I just wanted him to know that someone out there had always cared, and now that person was here. It sounds corny, but I do not care, I grew up watching everyone else have the love life they always wanted and dammit we deserve ours. We have been dating nearly four years now and between him, our pet cat Foster, and the lake, we do not need anyone else.

           This leads me to why I think my parents finally began to understand and accept who I am. They understood that I am an adult now, and if they want to be a part of my life if it was up to them, cause regardless I am moving forward. Since this breakthrough I have had my boyfriend visit multiple times and have even had him up for holidays with them. In July, at our three-year anniversary I felt courageous enough to finally post my first picture with him on Instagram. The caption was from a Taylor Swift song we both love, “I’ve loved you three summers now honey, but I want them all.”

[sentbycarson]

If It Was a Choice for Me, It Was a Choice for You.

From my last post you may be thinking “Well good for you! That sounds like that went as good as it could have!” and you’d be right. Sort of. That night was great and all but the thing with my father is, he is wildly moody. Me, my friends, and a few others who I wont mention are convinced he is bipolar. It is no surprise for anyone who knows them that he can be great one day, and flat out scary the next. So, if you think about how good that moment was the night before, and if you are me, you know what to expect next. In the evening the next day, I was laying down in the living room halfway snoozing, when my parents came downstairs and asked if they could talk to me. As I followed them upstairs all I could think was “What the hell is about to happen? Is it going to be good? Is it going to be bad? I had absolutely no clue. What followed this moment is arguably the most disappointing moment in my life. My parents had constructed a contract for me to sign. This contract outlined the behaviors I must abide to, and the reasoning behind this was that my parents were trying to raise my younger brothers in a Christian household and did not want my “lifestyle choices” affecting their development. I was not allowed to post on social media with anything related to my sexuality, and I was told that if I told my brothers there would be serious consequences. These consequences they talked about were never specified but being a college student not living at home I think I knew what that meant, that I was being threatened to be financially cut off. They held out a pen for me to sign it and I looked up with the paper, held it out, and ripped it in half. I left the room furious and when they approached me later, I told them that it was not a choice. That if anything being straight was a choice that made me miserable in the long run. They replied, “It IS a choice.” To which I replied, “Well then I am glad you made the right one.”

 A silence cut through the air; they were truly baffled that I hit them with the ol’ uno reverse. I elaborated that if you insinuate it was a choice for me and for everyone whose ever been gay, then you made a conscious choice to be straight yourself. I will never forget what they said next, “But it was never a choice for u- “. Logical thinking had finally hit them, and from there the conversation was over. The next day I woke up to my parents at the foot of my bed, with breakfast. They both individually spoke their apologizes and admitted that they had a lot of learning to do. I think they finally understood what I meant when I said it is not a choice.

[sentbycarson]

Home Sweet Home

A few months had passed since I came out to my mom. I had not been home to Pennsylvania in over half a year at this point and as far as my siblings and my father were concerned, I was still their straight brother and son. Eventually my mom confronted me that I needed to tell my dad, that she could not keep this a secret from him any longer as she had no one to talk about it with other than me. For the first time in my coming out stage I was unable to control when and who I was ready to tell. Being a mama’s boy and sympathetic to her situation, although reluctant, I agreed that when I was visiting next week that I would open up to my father about the truth of my sexuality. When I finally came home everything was on the up and up as usual, nothing had changed but this time I felt out of place. That the home I was in may be temporary depending on my father’s reaction to my big secret. During dinners and times when we were simply hanging out watching tv I could feel my mother’s eyes gaze over to me, she did not have to say it, I knew what she was thinking. “When the hell are you going to tell him?” I waited and waited and asked my mom on the side multiple times when a good time would be. I asked myself ridiculous questions and reasonings to justify when the best time would be. “Before dinner? No that’ll spoil his meal, plus he may be hangry from not eating yet.”. “After dinner? No, he’ll want to watch tv and will probably be too drunk to respond appropriately, I’d like him to be sober when I tell him.” Eventually it got to the point that no matter when I wanted to tell him my brain would always find a way to talk me out of it. I had been there nearly four days before I finally decided to rip off the band aid and tell him. He came home from work and I promptly asked him if I could talk to him in private. “Sure” he said as we headed upstairs to their bedroom. As we sat down, I started strong with saying that “I know this is going to be extremely hard for you to hear, but I can’t go on without you knowing.” Surprisingly, he was very consoling to me and told me that I could tell him anything. At that point I just began crying and stammering over my increasing heartrate, I was able to finally get the words out after a few moments. “I’m gay.” He was certainly taken back, but unlike my mother questioning the validity of it, he told me it was okay, and that there was no reason for me to feel this upset. He appreciated me telling him the truth and went on to say that if it were not for his gay friend Cedric in college him and my mother would have never met. He hugged me and told me that he loved me. The familiar felling of an enormous weigh being lifted off my back happened again, I could feel the knots in my stomach finally release, and my anxiety faded away with it.

[sentbycarson]

Those Who Matter Don’t Mind, Those Who Mind Don’t Matter.

At this point coming out to just a few people was able to alleviate the thousands of pounds that were on my back, and the happiness I felt from it gave me the momentum I needed to keep going forward. I told my uncle, and more of my close friends, and they all gave me the reciprocation I had felt that fateful night on the balcony. Only one of them I told gave me a less than desirable response, but since then has come a long way in accepting me for who I am. At this point I had told so many people and the empathy and love they had for me still made powering through that one bad interaction a breeze, nothing could bring me down, and I sure was not going back to where I was. That was, until I planned to tell my mother.

 You see, my friends were not the only ones convinced of my straight sexuality, and my mother was in the same boat. Suddenly coming out was not so easy and the old feelings of doubt began to bubble up again, I could feel it in my stomach. Luckily, it did not take me another 21 years to find the same courage I had found weeks prior, and about a week later after pondering the thought of telling her I decided to rip off the band aid. I made the call after waking up one morning and decided I would do it right there while I was in bed. I did not expect to immediately start crying but low and behold I did. She picked up and I had already began choking up, I told her I had to tell her something, something that I have known about myself for a very long time. Confused, she asked me “What?” and I told her. I see where I got my emotions from because she immediately had to pull over as she began sobbing. As a child, and a “mamas’ boy” hearing her cry was one of the worst things I have ever heard, I still try to forget that sound from that day. She began asking me if I was sure, and I reiterated everything I had been experiencing up until that point. How miserable I had been and how I simply could not go on any longer. After a few exchanges I think she had finally concluded that this was the best path for me regarding my happiness. There was still much to discuss but what I did not expect was how religion would shape both her and my father’s perception of homosexuality, but I will save that part for the next post, because boy is it a doozy.

[sentbycarson]

The First Step

When you are in the closet, you truly convince yourself that coming out would be the worst possible thing to happen to you. You ask yourself a million questions, like will they still love me? Will I still be treated the same? But as you get older you realize the pain of wearing a mask takes its toll on you more than the reality of any of those fictional questions ever could. It is like when you were a kid, and you were nervous about going on that big roller coaster that all the big kids were raving about. You knew it was fun, and you knew you would be okay, but nonetheless you roll over horrible “what if” scenarios in your head and build it up to a point where you cannot even conceive doing it. Coming out is the exact same, you are truly your own worst enemy, and for me I had reached my breaking point of my self-inflicted torment.

 My breaking point happened on an idle Thursday after going to a bar with some close friends, we had made it back to my apartment, and we would carry on our time on my balcony porch. It hit me like a semi-truck, I just started bawling. Nothing triggered it, no one had even been discussing anything related to it at all. I guess my body had just finally gave in and said, “You can’t play this character anymore”. I wept and between my tears and my friends asking “what’s wrong” I let out the two words I had been holding onto as long as I remembered. “I’m gay”. Laughter was the initial reaction, which caught me off guard but immediately turned to silence. My friend broke his laugh with an understandably confused tone “are you serious?” I got what I had wanted, I played my part so well as a straight man that it had become such an embedded reality to my friends that anything otherwise was indeed confusing. I simply muttered “yes…” They could see the pain in me, and the following moment will live with me forever. They hugged me, and told me that I deserved to be happy, and that they loved me just the same. Nothing had changed. Suddenly it clicked, the scenarios I had made up for this moment broke, and I felt myself enamored by the fact that this moment is real, and I had finally made the first step. I do not think I will ever experience that much serotonin again. I had finally made it off the ride.

[sentbycarson]

Fake It 'til You Make It, Right?

It is amazing what some people will do to avoid their problems, and I am no exception. Being a homosexual to me at the time was the worst thing I could be. If you would ask me then I truly believed it was the lowest of the low. You see, growing in the south you always heard slander towards homosexuals, I even heard it in my own family. Above all those was in school, and it was either be the predator or the prey. If you did not partake in calling people “f*ggots” and other awful slanders, you would be suspected as one of them. This effect was only heightened among my sports teams, it was simply the norm. I hated myself so much at this time and knew I would really have to sell being a heterosexual in order to retain my good name.

The solution was simple at the time, and that was to get a girlfriend. I cringe at how hard I pretended to be interested, and willing to engage with a girl. Getting a kiss from my girlfriend was like a badge I could wear to prove to my friends I was one of them. As years passed and this behavior continued, I found myself exhausted. Going through life pretending to be something you are not absolutely takes its toll. Numbing myself with drugs gave me a false sense of security that only perpetuated my self-hate. Alongside the ridicule from my father and his abuse, I am surprised I have turned out as well as I have. My plan to keep this secret to my grave suddenly felt like rock bottom. It was not until that moment that I began to really accept that I was gay. There was no denying it anymore, and I made a promise to myself that I would come out before I turn 21. I decided that I deserve to have the life I want to live on my terms. I did not want to grow old and alone, knowing I could have probably been who I wanted too. I mean people thirty years ago would be killed if they were gay, but still lived their truth. It would be an injustice to them if I did not take advantage of the gay rights they had perpetuated with their sacrifice.

Fast forward to college and 20 years old, I continued this façade and been pushing and pushing the date I would come out. This happened in part because of my fraternity. Choosing to go to Alabama for college probably was not healthy for me in retrospect but nonetheless I eventually found my way to Kennesaw State. A place where it was not just white, heterosexuals, but a place where diversity and inclusion were celebrated.

A few months before I was going to turn 21, the pressure really began to rise. I had so many questions and needed some sound advice from someone who had been in my shoes. Eventually I talked to an older gentleman and he told me a story that changed my life, and my perspective forever. You see this man had been married to a woman for over 20 years, knowing he was gay, and he told me each year that passed it became harder and harder for him to be a genuine husband. Eventually he could not take it anymore and decided to finally be honest with his wife. Nothing could prepare him for what happened next, but the wife took her life. She had felt that 20+ years of her life had been a sham, and what worth was she for someone to do that to her?

It was in that moment I learned that being gay and accepting it is not just about me. The extents you go through to cover this secret do not only affect you, but they also effect every person you bring along for the ride. Me having girlfriends was like me choosing a victim to come with me, a truly selfish, and disingenuous act. My love for others and their well-being began to take over, and I realized I have a to be responsible for this, and next week was the big 2-1.

[sentbycarson]

Moving Forward

Picking up from my last post, I wanted to continue my story.

The sad part about my early childhood days, is that I had no clue what my father was doing was wrong. I thought it was universal among all my guy friends to be terrified of your father. I simply normalized what he was doing in my head and did not really come to the reality and severity of his problem until my teenage years. In fact, the issues with my father took a back seat to what I had never expected before, and that was puberty. You see it wasn't until puberty that my difference of sexuality had come to fruition as up until now it had only been “ew girls” and “she has cuties” among my friends. That part was easy, then puberty hit, and everything changed, suddenly my friends became less interested in hanging out with me and our group of friends, but rather hang out with the popular girls from my class. I felt this in my own way but towards the same sex. It was truly baffling as an early teenager to suddenly feel like I do not belong, even though I had always been a part of numerous, clubs, and sports teams. I had always had a sense of belonging, and now suddenly it was being pulled from under my feet.

Not only did I have to face this fact myself, but I had to think of the implications it would have for the rest of my life. Would I lose my closest friends? Would my family disown me? I was so alone, and the church that I had previously been so involved with suddenly felt out to get me. That I was doomed to an eternal life in hell. This is where my question and disillusionment of religion began, but I will save that topic for a future post.

With all this said, I came to the false conclusion that I am broken, and I need to be fixed. All while keeping this to myself, I scoured the internet to find methods, and even anti-gay pills to reverse this horrible feat placed upon me. Shock therapy and conversion camps were absolutely considered, but I could never bring myself to make the call. I was not ready to come out and admit what I was, and I would not do it until I was 21 years old. As a result, the internal battle turned to war.

[sentbycarson]

Introduction

Hello! My name is Carson Ankney, welcome to my blog, and if you're reading this thank you, this is my first post of many. I came here to discuss various topics and tell my story to anyone who is willing to listen, and if anyone gets any insight or help from these postings, it would mean the world to me.

I’ll begin with some background. I grew up in Newnan, Georgia in a methodist household with two loving parents, an older sister and two younger brothers. If I could describe myself as one word growing up it would be curious. I simply had to get my hands into anything and everything. Whether it was sports or television or my friends, I was ecstatic to always be apart of something. 

I always had a smile on my face, and many regarded me as a “goofy” kid. As it should be for children. I loved everything I invested myself into and it made for a very fun childhood. It wasn’t until I was about 8 that I began to understand how ugly the world can be, and how little control I had over it. Unfortunately for me, it began in my home. My father had always been my friend, coach, and did everything he could to make me happy whether it was throwing me an awesome Rugrats themed birthday, teaching me how to ride a bike, or showing me how to swing a baseball bat. He was a phenomenal father in a million ways but it only too a few instances to make them moot.

At some point his patience wore thin, and began to physically abuse me. One of my earliest memories of this was a Saturday morning, I was probably 8 years old. He always made extravagant breakfast’s that I always enjoyed. However this Saturday he made biscuits and gravy. Today I would gladly scarf down the entire thing, but as an 8 year old boy, peppered gravy looked very similar to vomit, and I expressed that. He looked at me with fire in his eyes, knocked over the table, and drug me down the hall to my room, and through me onto my top bunk. I sat in a heap crying, looking at my leg that had been gashed open from a rogue splinter from the hardwood. I was devastated. Every instance of abuse from there on only instilled more and more fear in me. I hated my father truly, and was terrified every time he came home from work.

I didn’t understand how a “Christian” could possibly be doing what I was taught as “the devils work”. This is where my confusion and confrontation of religion began, and I had only seen the tip of the iceberg.