Coming Out A Li'l Bit More

Coming out is something that actually happens in stages. Growing up, I remember so many times going to visit the closet to peek in and see if I was still gay, not ready to accept the full reality. Then, I decided to tell my parents, closest friends and family, etc., until now accepting my sexual orientation no longer carries with it any angst. It is a process that continues today, one that is hard, but so worth it.  I’m protective of that “aligned” feeling, having lived without it for so long. Living a life that is congruent with my feelings has brought the deepest sense of inner peace. I feel aligned inside, and it’s a beautiful, important feeling. Today I want to come out just a li'l bit more.

Lately, I’ve felt the need to work on the courage part of my authentic living, and at the moment that looks like a blog post. I have received many messages from individuals who are curious about the current course of my own life, and the road I am personally on in regards to my own faith and orientation (since I haven’t really addressed that in this blog).

To be totally honest, because many readers here are of traditional Christian faith, LDS, or politically conservative, I’ve been concerned about just letting myself be seen in a totally transparent way. Being gay and Christian is an emotionally and politically charged topic, and everyone has a strong opinion about it.  

I decided I had a few options regarding my conflict about wanting to be more transparent. One option was to disconnect, avoid addressing the life experiences that might make others uncomfortable… and the other riskier option was to allow the reader the opportunity to walk with me, accompany me, and learn with me as I risked feeling judged or misunderstood. I choose the riskier of the two. Following me on this journey may seem less comfortable than following me on my journey with paralysis. You may disagree with what I write, or the decisions I make. I understand if that is the case. But you are nonetheless invited, and I do hope you stay.

I’ve known my whole life that what I wanted most was to share everything I had with another person that I love.  I’m a person that thrives on connection, affection and love. I think we all do, it’s how we are hardwired. Growing up, I remember being most aware of my sexual orientation when I felt connected emotionally, spiritually or in some other personal way to one of my male friends. I felt a deep sense of investment in the friendship and felt that I would do almost anything to help him, or prove my loyalty to him. For others, it is physical attraction that seems to bring the most powerful awareness of their orientation to the surface, and while that physical attraction is also present in my case, it is the emotional connection that I could make with men, and never women, that was most poignant.

Despite this need and desire to connect with men, most of my life was spent crushing these impulses and dreams (I’ve written about this). As I came out and started to slowly confront each feeling, one at a time, it became clear that what I wanted most deeply was companionship with a man. The question was, what would I do? Over the course of a year of the deepest introspection, prayer, and seeking, it became clear on every level, including a spiritual one, that I should pursue the desire of my heart… companionship with a man. And because of my values, I believed (and still believe) that the best way for me to uphold that commitment was through marriage.

I have approached every decision in this aspect of life (being gay) with incredible deliberation; nothing has been done thoughtlessly or impulsively. I understand all of the rhetoric behind why this decision could be wrong by traditional faith-based standards, but it is exactly the spiritual that has led me to the decisions I have come to. As much as I have known anything spiritually, I’ve known that this is what I should do.

When I began this blog, I think my hope was to bring to worlds closer together. It’s been difficult to see that, for the most part, the opposite has seemed to occur. It’s been interesting to have been in the middle of decision making on this LGBTQ front while both the U.S. and the LDS church were doing the same, but in different directions. The United States recently made changes allowing same-sex couples to wed in all 50 states, and the LDS church recently came out with a policy directed specifically at same-sex married couples, requiring membership restrictions of them and their children. Talk about dissonance. I’ve felt safer and more endangered simultaneously as I’ve tried to process both. Celebration and mourning, acceptance and feelings of betrayal… I know I’m not the only one that has felt this dissonance.

These feelings of conflict have continued to contribute to a sense of displacement, feeling like neither a citizen nor stranger, but something tortuously in-between. Regardless of the conflict, however, I feel a deep sense of confidence on my personal path because of the experiences that I have had. I also feel peace and hope at the thought of securing for myself connection and belonging with a man. My endeavors have changed slightly from finding some safe space to creating a safe space, one that is world of its own, full of individuals who have earned my trust, individuals with whom I share a deep, safe connection. I want to create that space for others as well.

I write what I do because I feel there is still an enormous need for conversation surrounding this topic, especially in the community in which I live. I remember being a scared, ashamed young man who wondered if death would be preferable to the shame he experienced. It will forever be my goal to make the world safer than I found it, and more tolerant and more loving than when I came into it. No LGBTQ person need ever wonder if they are worthy of love. We are all worthy of love.

I will do my utmost to make this blog a continued safe place for those who are unfamiliar with, but still seeking greater understanding of LGBTQ issues, and hope to demystify some aspects of the LGBTQ experience. I continue to learn and grow as I walk down this path, and looking forward to continued light and happiness as I attempt to do so thoughtfully and prayerfully.

Breaking The One-Dimensional Mold

It was Senior Cotillion, 2009, a farewell dance to seniors as they entered the new and scary post-high school world. I was enjoying an evening of dancing and music with my high school friends one final time. About halfway through the night, the party stopped for a moment as the "Most Likely To..." awards were given. Amidst the awards I suddenly heard, "Carson Tueller, most likely to become... A PROPHET!" Everyone laughed hard and cheered and I was both embarrassed and pleased.

I was known for being highly religious in high school, and I'm sure it came from the fact that I defined myself in a very one-dimensional, religious way. Though I was engaged in a variety of activities (swimming, playing the flute, learning to tie animal balloons), I placed my value mostly in the spiritual category and was rewarded for it. I imagine that my highly religious life came from both an organic desire to live that way, as well as a way to compensate for the shame of being gay. Whatever the reasons were, I was rewarded socially for my actions. It was how those I respected wanted to see me act, and I was praised for it. Feeling valued, I continued to nurture those behaviors.

As I courageously confronted my sexual orientation, I realized that I no longer fit the mold of one who was most likely to become a prophet. My one-dimensional defining had lost its utility. I felt lost and no longer knew who I was or what I was worth. The ways in which I defined and valued myself were limited, and because of that, my transition into a new identity was very difficult.

As I began to consider other parts of myself that were worthwhile and simultaneously sought a sense of community in additional places, I began to realize that in leaving one rigid mold I was simply expected to take on another in its place. It seems as though everywhere we go, no matter the group we belong to, we are required to behave in certain ways to earn the badge that has written on it, "I belong here". The irony here is that we actually sacrifice our ability to feel authentically validated when we alter ourselves to fit the unforgiving expectations of others.

The impetus of this post was a conversation I recently had with someone who seemed interested in defining me in a one-dimensional way. I left the conversation feeling as though I had nothing to offer as an individual because I didn't meet the criteria for "valuable" by their definition. I was angry and bothered.

I went to the gym to blow off some steam and replayed the conversation over and over in my head, wondering why I was so uptight about the experience. I suddenly realized that what I was feeling was exhaustion. The constant effort to conform to the expectations of others in order to gain cheap acceptance is exhausting.  It seems like my quest over the last few years has been to find a place and people to call my own. I've been searching for a system, people or individuals who have the flexibility and courage to allow all of my life experiences to sit together in the same room.

I am many things, but one thing I am not is one-dimensional. None of us are. Like anyone reading this blog, I am a complex web of experiences and feelings, each defining me in a small way, ultimately contributing to the much greater picture that is me. Whenever I have tried to select only one small piece of my life and magnify just that piece while stifling or ignoring all others, my growth is restricted, my potential becomes finite, and there is usually some form of suffering as a result. I have only begun developing and blossoming when I have embraced the fact that I am multi-faceted... all the difficult, messy, and beautiful parts included.

I found that my tendency to create a one-dimensional being has come almost exclusively from the desire to please a system or people. I alter myself and hamper my authenticity to ensure that I have a place to fit into. We all do this, we all want to be liked. It seems that the world has become club-ified. There is a club for being LGBT, a club being a mom, a club for being Christian, for going to a certain school, for dressing a certain way, for having a certain body type, and the list goes on and on. The only problem is that we are all so unique that there really isn't any one place where we can find others just like us, so we just pretend to be the same... and it's an exhausting way to live. Doesn't finding a place where we have the blessing of being unconditionally regarded as valuable sound beautiful? Where we can truly comes are we are?

Finding even just one person who allows a space for authentic experience can seem like finding a needle in a haystack. Through life, I have been blessed to have some friends and family who have learned along with me that providing a space for authentic living is equal to providing a space to deeper connection, healing, and love. At times, my safe places or people have been reduced down to just one or two, and that's all I needed. It just takes one.

Because my journey through life has pulled my out in and out of so many different "clubs", I value authenticity more than almost any other concept I can think of. The longer I live, the more deeply dedicated I am to providing a space for others where they can feel unconditionally regarded as the valuable mosaic-like human beings they are.

Choosing Courage, Revisiting Shame

Among the first posts I ever made on this particular blog was a post called "Defeating My Shame". I wrote about shame early in the blog because when it comes to being LGBT, shame plays a big role. I was under the impression that shame was something I could conquer in one big effort, and I have realized over the last few years that this is not the case at all. It's an ongoing battle... Which is why I'm revisiting my shame here. Today I am choosing to be vulnerable by practicing courage and authenticity.

I have written a total of eight posts (well, nine now) on this blog. That's very few compared to the one hundred and eight on my SCI blog. I notice that each time I go to write about something regarding my sexual orientation, I freeze. And do you know what freezes me? Shame. And fear. Fear of disconnection from those who now love and support me, from the many readers of my blogs. It's fear of rejection from family and friends. I fear that I may be judged harshly for what I believe, think or feel... and these fears keep me from authentically writing about my experiences.

Shame is the fear or feeling that we are flawed to a degree that makes us unacceptable of love or belonging. We all desire and need to belong, it is part of being human. That's why shame is such a debilitating and powerful emotion, it plays off of our deep need to connect to others. Shame tells us that we are inherently unworthy of such connection... Well friends, this is at the heart of the fears that I (and many others) have about being LGBT, and while shame amongst LGBT people is not only found in religious settings, it seems to be more intense for those whose religion regards deviations in sexual orientation or gender as flaws. I am often aware that others close to me may see me as being flawed, and the fear that I might not be acceptable is strong motivation for me to make modifications to ensure I'm exactly the person they want me to be. But I sell myself short in the end.

In my quest to belong, I create a Carson that is acceptable to others so that I can fit in. I say what is pleasing to others and try not to rock the boat (too much) so I don't feel like an outsider. However, I have recently started to see that as I alter my behavior, thoughts, and feelings only to please others, that I ultimately create an impossible situation for me to actually experience belonging. True belonging requires authenticity. Fitting in does not. What I need to feel is loved, as I am, not just as others desire me to be. When I don't practice authenticity, I don't allow others the opportunity to love me as I actually am, and I rob myself of the opportunity to be loved in an authentic space. 

In general, I actually try to fight the temptation to modify my personality to be liked, and I try to be transparent in how I feel. I don't like to sugarcoat the feelings and experiences I have had in life. In fact, this is what people say they appreciate most about what I write. I just have some more work to do.

Some of the deepest joy I've experienced in life has come from those moments of authentic belonging. They are moments when how I behave and present myself is consistent with who I feel I am on the inside. It's a moment of pure consistency and is coupled with the sense of feeling valued as that person. This sounds like an experience that should be easy to come by, but if we take a look at how we constantly modify who we are to fit in, we may find that said consistency eludes us more often than not. 

I am at a point in my life where I want that uniformity to be a part of my everyday life. I want to feel the synergy of mind, spirit and body. For me, this also includes a consistency of what I feel God desires for my life. I believe that if I want to experience the depth of love and understanding of life that I desire, that this is a necessary step. I have put off this step for the reasons I've explained and for some reason today was the day to practice a little more courage that I usually do. In a deep discussion with a friend yesterday I was asked, "Who do you want to be?" I told him that I could only describe some of the qualities I want to posses. One of those things is courage. The greatest courage I have ever demonstrated has been to fight for that consistency of self, especially when doing so is unpopular or uncomfortable for others. I also believe that practicing courage and authenticity are contagious acts. I know that when others practice such qualities, that I sense goodness and wholeness, and want to do the same. In a culture that so rewards fitting in, we would all benefit from seeing more courageous expressions than we do.

You can rest assured that I won't be going around spouting my opinion over social media every five minutes. I expect and hope that I will write more often about what I feel even when I don't know how my ideas will be taken. Even when I feel afraid. I can sense that I will have to revisit this process many times, but I hope that doing so will eventually turn into a habit of living. I want to thank all who have empathized with me through my journey, even when you haven't known me personally, or haven't experience what I have themselves. I want to thank all who have made me feel like I belong, and that I am loved as I am. It is the kind of love that can heal any injury.

p.s. Many of my realizations have come from reading several books about shame, authenticity, and empathy. I recommend "The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World", as well as any of Brene Brown's books, they have been life-changing for me.