This morning I woke at 3 and tossed / turned until nearly 4 am. I got up, fed cats, cleaned cat litter boxes, made my coffee. Then started my day online by first going to the Male Survivor site where I responded to those who had commented on my post. Then I started reading the new posts from others. This one I wanted to share with all of you. When I was using the VA for my healthcare from the mid 1990s to the early 2000s, we had a saying. “There but for grace go I”. So many had it worse than I did I would think yet they were happy it seemed, not bitter, living the best life they could. I met people who were WW2 POWs and who struggled with shrapnel still seeping from their skin who did not let that destroy life for them. Then I was young and did not understand. Now I am old … er and think I am beginning to. Hugs.
Plus in my morning video feed I found this waiting for me. Hugs.
Scottie's Playtime 
😂 Tissue alert!
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Hi Ali. Yes how I wished for a friend like that young boy growing up. I was 14 or 15 and being abused at home daily with only a few friends. In a time before social media kids needed to be networked by going to each other’s homes. I was not allowed to have anyone over and I was not allowed to go to others homes overnight. So I went to what I thought was one of my friends and told him I had something I needed to share with him. I thought he would understand I had helped him with his homework and we spent a lot of time together at school talking agreeing on stuff. I slowly told him I was gay. To make him feel more comfortable I told him the truth, I was not attracted to him. I had hoped he would be someone who I could tell about my home life.
Oh how I was about to run hard into reality. The next day we saw each other and he said talk to me at lunch. I said OK and he quickly walked away. At lunch I went to sit across from him at the table and he pulled back. I decided to stand. He pulled a paper from his stuff, and told me we couldn’t be friends anymore. He told his mom what I said, they looked through the bible. He then read me all the bible quotes about how evil I was. He told me I was choosing this evil path and I could just stop returning from my evil choice if I wanted to. I did not feel what I felt, and his god would help me. But if I did not accept his offer we couldn’t talk or be near each other anymore. I tried to explain it wasn’t a choice but how I felt, but he dismissed that as the devil / demons in me that would be changed if I came to his church with him.
I walked a way, went to a bathroom, threw up, and then sat there crying. I had just lost one of the few friends I had who wouldn’t even listen as I tried to talk but kept reading the words his mom wrote. But the worst was to come. He decided to broadcast to everyone what I had confessed to him in private as a friend. Suddenly every one at school knew I was gay and I was a target for every high school kid in 1979 who listened to Anita Bryant’s lies about gays and I became a target at school as I was at home. My life got much worse … due to religious bigotry that demanded I join a church and renounce my feelings to have a friendship.
So yes these types of videos make me cry and give me hope. But if the maga republicans have their way all these advances we made to create the kid that comforted the other boy will be gone. We will return to a time that I spoke of. Hate for anything different from the straight cis hyper white male world. It terrifies me. I admit I am again really tired today. Not sure how much I can do. Hugs
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