My Coming out story

I saw this picture today, a teaser for the upcoming season of Glee and apparently our boy Kurt ends up in a gay leather bar.  Not for the faint of heart let me tell you.  Anyway, it got me to thinking about my coming out now over 20 years ago.

I knew very early on that I was, well different, I didn't realize until almost the fifth grade that, that difference  had a word to it more than one actually.  The teasing started almost immediately, the words damaging: Sissy, Queer, Fag, Faggot, Homo, Fruit the list seemed endless and what precious ego I had left with it.  By seventh grade it was sheer living hell.  I begged my parents to send me to our church's christian school, I knew the teasing would end for ever.  It did the minute I went but it lead to so many other problems, which sooner or later I will discuss I swear.

Of course like every young guy dealing with his being gay I tried not being gay.  I even dated a few girls but we never went beyond the first kiss. The minute that kiss happened it was over.  By 16 I knew girls were not for me and I ended the charade and stopped dating them.  At 17 I lost my virginity to a guy that became my first boyfriend, he would die of GRID (now AIDS) two years later and I never looked back.  He though did introduced me to the man who became my lover and that I lived with for almost 3 years who also died of AIDS before my twenty-first birthday.

Needless to say my parents were clueless and by October/early November of 1988 I was back in Ohio and back in high school, because my Christan school education was worthless.  That December I was raped by a childhood friend.  He was somewhat older but not to much.  His parents were on vacation somewhere and he stayed behind to work at his job.  He invited me to supper which surprisingly we ate before the next thing I honestly can remember 21 one years later, was my being on the floor a gun to my head and him literally ripping the clothes off me. Years in therapy helped me to try to put together what little I do remember.

"I'm f**ckin going to give you exactly what you deserve you f**king faggot, a good breaking in".  I can still hear those words 21 years later.  Needless to say I think he just guessed I was gay, he certainly had no proof of it.  Also needless to say I wasn't his only victim male or female. I left bloodied, in rags of what were my clothes and never went to the hospital, never filed a police report and didn't speak about any of it.

That spring my brother was on a fishing trip with him and I fainted dead away when my mom told me where my brother was.  That kids is when I came out.  G-d almighty it was horrific.  The whole truth, nothing but the truth came flooding out of my mouth.  The sexual assault, my being gay, my having lost a lover ( I didn't say from what then) and of course my stay at Betty Ford before I came home.  I told my mom first we waited almost 3 months before I told my father.  It made our relationship even WORSE than what it was before. By fall of that year I had again tried committing suicide, which I think I have written about before.

The family as a whole found out I was gay when they saw me on CNN at the March on Washington during the Colorado Proposition (I can't remember the exact bill) but I was officially out.  National and local Newspapers came later as well as local things put me on television with what I was doing with ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition TO Unleash Power) and Gay Pride.

Of course I came out later as well  as a Person living with AIDS which was much harder to do and was more of a strain on my family, considering they are all southern conservative baptists ---OY VEY!  I have never regretted any of it.  I do regret exposing my parents to the people I knew when I was first diagnosed because for the most part all those people died, and died suddenly.  My parents still expect me to drop over dead any minute.

I wish I had the courage to have been as brave as Kurt on Glee, to have had some of those hard conversations I have never had with my father and to have my father say I Love You.  Kurt in many ways is making realize who I am again and not to be ashamed of any of it.  Sometimes you need to be obvious, sometimes not.  If it is a problem a friend used to say "in all reality it is not my problem, its their problem".    I mean where would be without our gay clothing designers, hair dressers, florists, interior decorators, police me, firemen and yes even gay clergy.  I am what I am no matter what and between you and me I am thankful I have all of you in my life sharing it with me.  Until next time, embrace who you are.

My biggest regret--- a painful post.

1987, the year I turned twenty-one was one of the hardest years of my life which also turns out to be what lead in part to my biggest regret.

That year started badly with my partner, at the time, Michael in the hospital in LA. At the time it was were I we were living but not for long. I wish I could remember what it was that Michael had contracted to land in the hospital but I can't. What I do remember is that AIDS was slowly taking the man I loved from me.

By late February we had sold our beach front property in Santa Monica and we were moving lock stock and barrel to Fort Lauderdale to property he owned, again beach front property. By the end of March Michael was blind and slowly losing his hearing.

By mid April the Kaposi Scarcoma had entered his brain and his mind was rapidly leaving him. It was some of the hardest months of my life. There were some odd infections and two rounds of double pneumonia and by the end of October weighing 90 pounds he was dead. I turned 21 that November.

After Michael died and the week before my birthday I tried to commit suicide. 1,000 sleeping pills and a carafe of Russian Vodka. A friend, who since then has also died of AIDS, found me and my stomach was pumped. I was in Betty Ford for a period of time and moved home and went back to high school.

The high school story is in itself a long story that maybe one day I will talk about, but today is not the day for that story. December of that same year, a week before Christmas I was raped by a childhood "friend" who discovered or thought I was gay. He felt I needed to be "broken in" as he said with a gun to my head. Again another very long story, that sooner or later I will talk about.

That sent me into a whirlwind. My second suicide attempt happened and once again the same friend found me overdosed and near dead. I skipped treatment that time and suffered from an emotional breakdown. I didn't speak to anyone for three months, not one single word to anyone.

By June of 1988 I had graduated from High school, keep in mind I was 21 and I went back. I also came clean with my parents finally that I was gay, that I had been raped and by whom. My life was an unending mess. I did not date anyone after Michael died and the rape just compounded the matter. I wasn't comfortable being gay after that and it sent me into YEARS of extensive therapy.



When I finally started dating again I was 23 and I fell in love with a man I met at a Metropolitan Church in Cleveland. He was our church pianist and lead the choir. He swept me off my feet and very shortly after we met I moved to Cleveland. We had an efficiency apartment downtown in the Chesterfield Apartment building and I got a job at Burrow Brothers.

Shortly moving in, the romance wore off and he started abusing me. It was verbal abuse, it was emotional abuse, it was sexual abuse and yes it was physical abuse as well. In the eleven months we were together we moved 13 times. His abuse is what in part lead to all the moves, he was also so loud and he was so destructive. He drank and when drunk beyond words the violence reached its worst levels. I was constantly covered in bruises.

I would beg not to have him hit me in the face or to leave visible bruises because I was still in retail sales. Finally I woke up and I realized I deserved better and left. I guess I share all of this background because it all plays a part into my biggest mistake of my life.

Needless to say I was at the bottom of the barrel after those eleven months and I didn't care about anything anymore at all. I came to this place where I felt I had to prove to myself that the lies I was told in those elven months were not true.

I had to prove I was talented, prove I was smart, prove I was handsome, prove I was desirable sexually, prove I was (and pardon this) good in bed. All things after 11 months of abuse I did not believe about myself. I started drinking heavily. Drinking more than I had ever drank before, I stumbled into using marijuana, using that heavily as well and I fell into a very old habit of using prescription pain killers. It was, I have to admit, a lethal combination. It lead to the only drug experimenting I ever did. For the most part mostly uppers, downers, speed and I hate admitting this even tired coke twice.

That lead to, and this is very hard to admit, and something I NEVER TALK ABOUT EVER, my discovering the gay bath house circuit. For those unfamiliar with gay bath houses it was primarily an Eighties and somewhat Nineties phenomenon where gay men went to have anonymous sex with other men. I went fairly often and always drunk and excessively high, with no inhibitions. In that state of drugs, booze and pills I felt gorgeous for the first time in my life. I won't go into detail, as I am way to private , what exactly I did or didn't do there and you didn't come to my blog to read about that anyway.

Friends at the time pointed out that I was a HUGE risk for getting AIDS, considering I had a lover who had died of it and I was more or less the town whore. By June of 1991 I was very ill, lost 50 pounds, was fainting at work and finally went for the very first time to get tested for AIDS.

You all know the story from there July 16th, 1991 I found out I was HIV positive and a year later after my first round of pneumonia I had AIDS.

I regret falling into becoming the alcoholic, pill popping gay man who had to prove himself worthy by having sex. I regret having AIDS. I lost who I was and until recently lived a "lost life", AIDS controlling every facet of my life and losing who Charlie Dale really was deep down. I never gave myself the chance to find out who I was with out the pills or booze before getting AIDS and I certainly lived my life in that shadow.

I know this has been a lengthy post an a completely raw, uncomfortable and emotional post to read but I felt finally I needed to talk about it. Face it head on and for you taking the time to read it I appreciate your time.

Until next time I am so glad we had this time together.  Jim thinks after hearing this post that I need to talk about letting the past go and finally living the life I want and lving presently.  I would be interested in hearing what you think.