At the age of 23 I stood trembling at the entrance to my mum’s bedroom and as she sat at her dressing table I stuttered the words- ‘mum I have something to tell you’ ‘I know’ she replied stealing my thunder and upstaging my moment.
In that moment there was incredible relief, but in the subsequent years I wondered why for 23 years my mother had been silent and never asked me anything about my sexuality.
Far more worrying is the question ‘what is the impact of an absolute absence of acknowledgement of such a fundamental part of who I am’?
What would be the impact on a child that never has its gender or ethnicity acknowledged?
It is that impact that The Quest for gay men looks to heal and repair.
Staggering statistics point to some of the adult fallout from that childhood trauma. Gay men are three times more likely to suffer depression, addiction, dysfunctional relationships, self harming and suicidal thoughts and action.
It is my assertion that all gay people suffer from either silence (at best) or antagonism (at worst) in the early stages of childhood and carry that daily trauma through to their adult lives.
It amounts to psychological punishment over a sustained period of time for young children who vulnerable at a key and critical time in their development.
Retracing these painful early memories, sharing them, releasing the pain contained within and around them begins a process of inner nurturing. With awareness of how our early experiences shaped us we experience freedom from the grip they have had upon us. We feel, at a very deep level, a sense of peace that had hither to eluded us. We feel different and then we do different.
Relationships take on a new richness, our choices new confidence and our experience of life, in all its rich diversity, takes on a new vitality
