02-16-2014, 10:20 AM
So I still can't sleep. I blame this sore throat and the fact that I'm still blaring Rush at a late hour. I just can't give up this music marathon just to improve my physical and mental standings through a good night's sleep. It would be unfair to the glory of Rush.
Anyways, while I'm up I'd like to do something a little beyond wasting my time. Technically it could still be wasting time, but at least I feel better about it. I just want to say thank you to Andy, this site, and its members. About a year ago I was going through a bit of a crisis caused by a variety of subjects, but included in there was the fact that I started to admit that I liked men.
To those who aren't aware about some of the finer points of my background, this was no small thing to me. I grew up in a highly conservative Christian household. I also grew up in a city that nearly equaled a retirement community, followed with a short time in the military. Needless to say, I grew up learning to be a strict homophobe, and I saw nothing wrong with the logic behind it at the time. This meant that even admitting to myself who I was became a major life crisis.
I've talked about the rest with a few of you here. I also have the luck of bad genetics that made depression a life-long pain in the ass to me. I only recently started to recover from several suicide attempts and a bad divorce because of it, which led to yet another suicide attempt. I was afraid that just one more attempt might have ended it for me.
And then I found this site. Most of the other sites I found just threw around porn and descriptions of lude acts that I really didn't want to get into at the time, but GaySpeak members were really just interested in talking. That's all I really needed, and I was not in any state of mind to talk to anyone that I personally knew. I eventually became comfortable with even that much because of some support I found here, so I do have some people in my life I can talk to now.
Now I may have gone back and forth arguing with some of you here, but I still want to thank all of you for helping me come around just by being here. There's few other places, even now, where I can go to just be open. I know it's kind of cliché, but you folks are a big part of why I am still alive today. That being said, I still reserve the right to slap people when I feel like it. Just remember that there's a big "thank you" attached to that slap.
Anyways, while I'm up I'd like to do something a little beyond wasting my time. Technically it could still be wasting time, but at least I feel better about it. I just want to say thank you to Andy, this site, and its members. About a year ago I was going through a bit of a crisis caused by a variety of subjects, but included in there was the fact that I started to admit that I liked men.
To those who aren't aware about some of the finer points of my background, this was no small thing to me. I grew up in a highly conservative Christian household. I also grew up in a city that nearly equaled a retirement community, followed with a short time in the military. Needless to say, I grew up learning to be a strict homophobe, and I saw nothing wrong with the logic behind it at the time. This meant that even admitting to myself who I was became a major life crisis.
I've talked about the rest with a few of you here. I also have the luck of bad genetics that made depression a life-long pain in the ass to me. I only recently started to recover from several suicide attempts and a bad divorce because of it, which led to yet another suicide attempt. I was afraid that just one more attempt might have ended it for me.
And then I found this site. Most of the other sites I found just threw around porn and descriptions of lude acts that I really didn't want to get into at the time, but GaySpeak members were really just interested in talking. That's all I really needed, and I was not in any state of mind to talk to anyone that I personally knew. I eventually became comfortable with even that much because of some support I found here, so I do have some people in my life I can talk to now.
Now I may have gone back and forth arguing with some of you here, but I still want to thank all of you for helping me come around just by being here. There's few other places, even now, where I can go to just be open. I know it's kind of cliché, but you folks are a big part of why I am still alive today. That being said, I still reserve the right to slap people when I feel like it. Just remember that there's a big "thank you" attached to that slap.