Not allowed to be myself.

[OmamFan]

Hello.
I am new to this forum, I just made my account mainly to post this. I just can't keep it in anymore.

I am 18, almost 19. From Kuwait, a middle eastern country... :/ and I'm gay..

I'll start by telling how I figured out I was gay, ever since I was a kid most of the guys in my class would talk about how hot girls are and how they'd like to be sexually active with them. I could never relate to them, in fact it was some of those guys that I found attractive, but I had to act like I knew what they were talking about to avoid having them think I'm gay. Why would I be so ashamed if they figured out I was gay?

Well, for starters I live in Kuwait, it's a small middle eastern country where being gay is looked down upon. Mainly because of religious beliefs and how it's not really "natural".

I liked men. I came to that realization when I was 10. I couldn't explain it back then and I can't explain it now. I shouldn't need to.

Now that I'm in university it should be better for me, at least that's what I kept reading online. It's not, for me it almost feels like my time is almost up. It's traditional that once you graduate from Uni and start working, you'd get married. You have to get married, it's just how it is. I don't want that to happen. I'm scared.

Now, some of you may say, why don't you just try and explaining how you feel to your parents? I can't. I will get disowned. I know that because one day my father found pictures of attractive men on my phone and he kept threatening me and saying I shouldn't be a "Faggot", and that if he comes across something like this again he would kick me out of the house.

Also, if I come out to them, it would break my mothers heart.

There is also a religious aspect, I thought that I might be able to try something out without anyone knowing but I always stop myself because of my beliefs. It is so frustrating as you find two parts of yourself battling it out constantly and you not knowing how to deal with it. I tried to put my religion behind me but it failed. It's been planted in my brain since I was very young. Everyone here is the same way, religion is number one here.

All I want is just to be able to feel something with another individual. Why the sex of said individual matters is beyond me. It breaks my heart when I realize that I never actually lived my life. I never lived at all. I've been acting this whole time, being someone I'm not. I see everyone else in other places not having a single worry about being who they are and I just cry for myself. I want to have a family some day with the person I LOVE, not the person I'm supposed to love. As I'm growing up, I'm realizing that it will never happen, not if I want to still have a family or not be burned eternally in hell.

I'm scared because I am unable to dream of what I would want my life to be like because that gives me hope where there is non. I'm scared because I feel like my future is not mine, my life is not mine and my emotions aren't mine aswell. I'm scared sometimes because I feel like I'm physically unsafe, and mentally unsafe as I have contemplated suicide.

I didn't write this because I wanted someone to feel sorry for me or anything of that nature. I just wanted it to get off my chest, I feel like if people knew how I felt; even if those people were strangers, I'd somehow feel better.

Honestly, I just want to love and not having that affect anything.