This will probably be reasonably short… anyway when I worked out I was gay I got quite involved with the Queensland AIDS council. They used to run a support group for 18 to 25 gay guys who were coming out and to be honest that was a bit of a feeder into some of the support/volunteer work. Once I did I’m the “I’m gay, I’m here, I’m queer” which seems to be a rite of passage that a lot of young gay men went through. Keep in mind this was during an era where technically being gay was still illegal.
It was an interesting period in my life – I became “super” gay – everything became about gay rights, safe sex (which REALLY seems ironic now)… It’s funny I look at this and go… I’m not which bit to include first that I was taught how to walk in stilettos or that I participated in the rights march to get the law changed in Queensland – which is the only march I’ve participated in – there was no hell I was doing that sucker in heels!!! There was a guy I was interested that used to do his housework in heels – he and I had the same size feet so he taught me how to walk in heels….
The only thing I will give Dad is that he was actually really cool with me being gay… he took me out for a beer one day and he said “this is my baby boy and he’s gay.” We were at Indooroopilly Shoppinngtown one day and Dad is pointing people out to me “he’s cute – you should go say hello to him.” Yes… my Dad was trying to set me up with randoms. I could have died!
To be honest because I started covering my walls in HIV campaign posters – I think Dad had a few issues. I’m not sure he was comfortable with the more militant me. I don’t think I (to be honest) was comfortable with the militant me. To be honest I thought it was a right of passage – obviously this is not that case…. However I can walk in 6 inch heels like it’s no one’s fucking business. I have actually taught other people how to walk in heels.
I was still struggling with what “gay” was… I had made friends with this guy through the AIDS Council support group and he wanted to go to the Queens Ball in drag. There was a part of me though – why the fuck not? I did quasi-drag, my friend went in full drag. If you’ve ever seen a massive group of gay men and a drag queen go to a buffet restaurant. It was one of more surreal experiences in my life – one of the waitresses hated that I had better legs than she did. I suppose terrorising a sizzler with a drag queen was one way to kill a Saturday night. It was actually through the drag queen that I met my first boyfriend – The “drag queen” knew I wasn’t attracted to him so he was hoping that introducing me to my first boyfriend would lead to “magic’. So we’re all stoned, the “drag queen” puts on some porn and all I can see is mosquitoes (watch porn and tell me you don’t see a mosquitoes face) I start really getting the giggles – obviously “drag queen” didn’t get what he wanted…. I least got a shit load of entertainment as payback for shaving my legs and having my eyebrows waxed (hello someone could have told me how this hurt!!!).
So we move onto Lindsay – serious boyfriend #1
I’d say there’s so much I could say, I don’t know what to say.
Lindsay and I were together for 8 and a half years. I think at the end of the day we both made mistakes and I will own a fair amount of them – I tend to shut down when I can’t deal. Lindsay and I have done the this was your fault/this was my fault… We broke up for a reason and that was actually a complicated reason – I actually hold no ill will. It took me a very long time to get that stage though – I hated him for a very long time, not so much because he broke my heart, which he did, not so much because he had sex with my best friend, which I caught in the act of and thereby is the reason we broke-up… I think that’s the first time in my life I got well and truly angry. People down the street heard me screaming at them. Yeah… me and anger issues huh? Because we had a lease on the townhouse we were staying in – I felt that we were stuck… so I moved into the second bedroom. Now Lindsay and I hadn’t sex in a VERY long time (6 years maybe) so one thing led to another and we start having sex again. I think I told a friend that I felt kind of trapped and that I was having sex with the ex. He told another friend who offered to let me stay at his studio in Teneriffe.
Just taking a slight segue – I ran into him just before I went to prison at Toowong Village. I hadn’t seen this man in nearly 20 years – he looked good and there was no resentment over our break-up.
And another segue – people have pretty much always called me bad with money and entitled. I’m the first person to admit that I don’t budget – I don’t think I have ever budgeted – that’s a completely different side issue and part of that is a hangover from my time with Lindsay. We were so poor – for the first 2 years we were together we living on his Austudy grant and my Austudy loan. So I think he got $350 and I was getting $80 a fortnight – we were budgeting to every single cent. Things got a bit easier when I got the full Austudy grant and then again they got easier when I started working at a restaurant. At the time he worked for one night and gave up – I was fuming! We literally had been so poor for so long and here was a way out of it and he didn’t want to do it – I get it now as I suffer from social anxiety – I get that he didn’t want to be around people and a buffet restaurant is not really the sort of place where you want to be around people! Mind you I did enjoy my job there. Does this justify why I’m as bad as money as I am? No – I have always just let other people take care of it – if there’s no one – then that’s when things tend to get pear-shaped.
In a lot of ways I got lucky – I have heard horror stories of people coming out. My family for the most part was accepting. Dad was ok with obviously, at the end of the day my brother didn’t give a rats. Mother had issues with it as she was expecting grandchildren…. And obviously the gay child can’t produce grandchildren. Obviously… yes obviously!
While Lindsay and I were seeing each other he took me to see one of the psychologists at UQ – the “crystal” lady – I sat in her office talking about my mother for about 90 minutes holding a piece of rose quartz. I’m not going to have a go about the healing qualities of crystals – it just seemed a bit much for me. So I saw her a couple of times and this will become a recurring theme too – I wouldn’t talk about my mother. I really had no interest in discussing it and I think a large part of that was that I was purely in denial about the amount of damage that I had gone through – I think in part I wouldn’t acknowledge it because it was putting Mum forward as this evil bitch, on the other hand if I did acknowledge it I’d have to accept that my Mother was an evil bitch. This actually became my baseline trauma – I have been diagnosed with C-PTSD – which obviously has a lot to do with my upbringing – the divorce, my brother and I being pitted against other, the sexual abuse from Dad, the alcoholism – I guess just the general dysfunction. We were a massively fucked up family. For some reason in therapy I always viewed Mother as out of bounds and to be honest looking at it now – I think it’s to do with the C-PTSD, I just didn’t want to deal with it… so at the end of the day what does all this have to do with anything – self-medication…
Self-medication with me is a funny thing – it’s a double-edge sword on the one had I would drink copiously to numb myself (you’d think I’d use pot but Lindsay and I smoked pot laced with something I saw worms/maggots coming out of the walls – YAY HALLUCINATIONS!!!!) and then I’d use speed, base, E’s, meth/ice to feel something. So one the one hand I’m trying to not feel anything and then on the other hand I’m trying to feel something. I still struggle with how fucked up this is and this was a cycle I went through for YEARS… And it’s funny after having been to the prison the number of people who said that they missed old school speed or GAK. I’m hearing them there. Hi – I’m Michael and I’m a drug addict.
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