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By becoming a barback, I dove headfirst into the fast-paced, homosexual underbelly of nightlife. It can be as stressful as it is fun, but it’s mostly fun. But the best part for me was the friendships I formed with the staff, especially the other barbacks. Everyone worked hard behind the scenes, sharing laughs and memes along the way. I’ve developed some solid, healthy friendships among this crew, and Marcel in particular has seen me in a way that most people at DC have never seen me before.
At first, I wasn’t sure if Marcel and I would get along. He’s ripped, tattooed, confident, and hot, which is essentially the secret to intimidation. Then we worked shifts at a bar together and finally got to know him. I found him to be insanely witty, kind unless he was an asshole, and overall easy to talk to. Coincidentally, he and I are quite similar. The two, both gay men in their mid-30s who work as barbacks, ended up in Washington, D.C., after growing up in a rural ruby state. Still, there is one similarity that stands out above the rest. That means we both have daddy issues.
that’s right. It’s a cliché and often the punchline of a joke (which, by the way, can still be funny). But the reality for many queer people is rejection from one or both parents. For some people, including Marcel and myself, the characteristics of toxic parents go beyond just conservative thinking to distort childhood. Case in point: both of our fathers harbored deep-seated anger and resentment, and once they found out who we were, their reactions seemed inevitable.
For Marcel, that pivotal moment occurred in high school when her parents found out she had a boyfriend. Not only was his mind filled with fear of being gay, “they made me transfer schools and strictly monitored my communication, what I wore to school, who I played with, etc.” I spent the rest of my high school years alone and without friends in a rural town outside of Nashville.
Years later, Marcel’s parents kicked him out after discovering that he had had sex with men. “They kicked me out of my parents’ home and treated me for years as if I no longer existed to them. I spent most of the year in a car and the rest of the I spent the time Couchsurfing and relying on the kindness of my friends.
As for me, my father played a dual role as the head of the family and the ghost of the family. Even though he was physically and verbally abusive, I still tried to maintain a connection with the guy, perhaps fueling my attraction to mean guys, but that’s another story. is. Despite my efforts, my father abruptly ended our relationship shortly after I came out. On our last call, he couldn’t even say the word gay, opting instead for “just who I am.” From there, he listed all the things he didn’t like about me, none of which was my homosexuality. Because no one these days admits their bigotry so boldly. Instead, they gaslight you with any vulnerability as a justification to abuse you.
It’s been over a decade since I’ve talked to or seen my father, and at this point I’m sure he would happily march to his grave never to see me again. Losing a parent is always difficult. Losing someone because they don’t want to love you anymore is, yes, a searing pain that tears your heart apart. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
Sadly, stories like this are not uncommon among queer people, nor are they the only traumas we experience. Living in the shadow and shame, bullying and alienation in the schoolyard, the pressures of religion and toxic masculinity, and even more. sexual violence or discrimination in the workplacewe face so many traumas that are more like markers of our kind. This also doesn’t include the intersectionality with other traumas such as women, people of color, and poverty growing up in America. Therefore, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) A review has been published Last year, it declared that “LGBTQ people are at higher risk for PTSD compared to cisgender/heterosexual people.”
For most queer people, what I just described is not new or surprising. Indeed, in the face of this collective trauma, queers often come together in the form of fundraisers and Pride events. But even as we rally around the common input of trauma, we rarely discuss the output. that’s right. Neuroscience has shown us that emotional trauma has outputs that, if left untreated, manifest as detrimental traits in our adult lives.
To explain, let’s go back to Marcel. He wanted to leave his past behind in Tennessee, but that wasn’t the case. “For things that I haven’t fully processed or addressed, my past trauma will bubble to the surface in the form of emotional triggers and inevitably cause my anger. It manifested in many different ways and I often found reasons to justify my actions. Basically, I was angry about my relationships, about my body, about my career. I was angry about everything, and the root of that anger was unresolved trauma that I hadn’t dealt with properly.”
I couldn’t relate more. I tried to be strong and pretend I didn’t care that my father had abandoned me, but the thought still crossed my mind and crushed me every time. Then I took that pain and unconsciously projected my anger everywhere. I swung like a pendulum between hyper-attached and hyper-separated, with friends, other homosexuals, myself, and especially my relationships, with little in the way. My unresolved trauma steadily chipped away at my self-esteem, and once it passed, self-destruction was inevitable.
The downward spiral only gets steeper as the path to self-destruction is filled with more trauma. “My most shocking and lasting trauma occurred two days before my 25th birthday,” Marcel told me. “During the summer of 2013, I was increasing the frequency of my sexual encounters to a point where they were more than reckless.I was often doing some pretty risky and wild things when it came to meeting men. I found out that I am HIV positive on the 10th of May.
“At the time, this was very shocking news because I didn’t have a single positive person and I had no idea what this meant to me. I felt pretty bad for myself for being so reckless. It was tough and took me a while to recover from, but over time I used it as inspiration to live my life fully and authentically.”
It often takes an earth-shaking event to serve as a wake-up call for change. When my PTSD turned into social anxiety, it was easy to suppress with sex, drugs, and mostly alcohol at first, but inevitably I would have the occasional outburst or loss of friends. Still, I would go out and get even more anxious about encountering new enemies, drink more alcohol, and sometimes play pre-games by myself before pre-gaming with others. Sometimes I ended up wandering into a bar. Unsurprisingly, this led to more verbal abuse, costing me relationships and even spending a night in jail. The more I unraveled, the more I drank, the darker the sex, the more powerful drugs I numbed myself with, until—it hurts to write, but I have to be honest—I began to contemplate, threaten, and attempt suicide.
Sorry to be so heavy, but it’s important to dissect why and how queer people experience mental difficulties. We are not suffering simply because we are queer, but rather because of the trauma inflicted on us by a world that still fears queer people. As a result, ordinary events like a breakup or losing a job can feel insurmountable, like proof that those who rejected you were right all along.
Thankfully, queers can rely on each other for support, right? Sounds good in theory, but in reality we gays in DC are pretty mean to each other. Sure, we find friends, but often our communities are itching to criticize us at every corner. We hurl insults, ostracize those deemed “crazy,” and constantly seek approval from those we (Instagram) deem perfect. No, I’m not over this. I was a narcissist. I have been burning bridges with glee. Looking back, it was my inner turmoil exploding inside me.
Marcel summed up our actions nicely: That means gay people you see in bars – a trauma response. Gym-obsessed muscle queen – trauma response. Career Driven Type A Capitol Hill Gays – Trauma Reactions. I find that when people treat me a certain way, most of the time it has little to do with me and everything to do with their own trauma. ”
So we’re in a cycle of gay trauma where hurt gays hurt even more gays. It sounds bleak, but the good news is that we have the power to change that too. And we must. Recent research by The Trevor Project An astonishing 41 percent of LGBTQ+ youth aged 13 to 24 have considered suicide in the last year alone. Queer trauma will not go away, so it is our responsibility to avoid traumatizing young queers and instead provide a safe community where they can not only thrive but also experience the inevitable downturns. There is. That may seem like a tall order, but based on what I learned from Marcel, two steps will get you closer to your goal.
The first is simple introspection. Because if we go unnoticed, trauma can grow steadily like mold and upend our behavior without us even realizing it. “As I went through different stages of my life, I began to see how this unprocessed trauma and anger affected so many aspects of who I became.” Marcel explained. It affected my reactions to conflict, my relationships with others, and even my relationship with myself. ”
The only way to process trauma is to dig into your mind and analyze the underlying memories and emotions. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, including journaling, art, or my personal favorite, therapy. I didn’t start treatment until I was in my 30s, but taking that step was a life-changing and, in some cases, life-saving decision. “Through therapy, I was able to uncover why this trauma has followed me throughout my life and how it has manifested itself,” Marcel added.
It all seems very simple. If you go to therapy, you will definitely get better. However, the treatment is only as effective as you allow it to be. Progress is never linear and requires brutal honesty. As a result, not everyone gets there (though I haven’t gotten that far myself, so I can’t judge). In fact, the most difficult step for me was admitting that I needed therapy. Because seeing a therapist is often treated like spotting a UFO. No one wants to admit it for fear of looking crazy. But as I witnessed many times in Washington, D.C., the fear of appearing crazy often leads to the most harmful actions.
To heal, the ego must be dissolved. Although difficult, this is truly the first and most important step.
Regarding the second measure, we need to give each other some leeway. No, this doesn’t mean condoning terrible behavior, but it does mean holding on to the belief that others can grow, including our queer enemies in particular. If not, please let me know. If you don’t believe in the growth of others, who will believe in your growth? And if your answer is that you don’t need to grow, then you probably have the most to grow.
To empty one of us is to empty us all, and if we continue to burn each other to the fire for every flaw, we will become weaker as a community. Besides, other countries in the world are already doing the same to us. Why do we do the same to each other?
My hope is that more queer people will be able to see each other the way Marcel and I have. It’s not because he and I are perfect. In fact, we are far from perfect. Instead, between inside jokes, we share our failures, struggles, and work toward self-love and improvement. That’s a rarity in a city that strives for perfection, but that’s what makes it feel so authentic.
And the real thing feels so much better than the perfect ever.
jake stewart I’m a DC-based writer and barback.
Source: Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News – www.washingtonblade.com
