As Pride Month comes
to a close, I have been thinking a lot about my life. Thinking
about what pride
really means. Thinking about what I have to be proud of.
I haven’t always
been proud. It’s kind of hard to be proud when you are lying on the
floor, curled in a
ball because some asshole ran up behind you like a coward, hit you in
the face and then
began kicking you while calling you a “dirty faggot”. It’s hard to be proud as
tears flow, unrelentingly, down your face. It’s hard to believe you have any
reason to be proud when 20 kids stand around watching, and no one stops it and
no one tries to find you some help. No one can feel proud about being a helpless,
pathetic victim.
This is just one of
a handful of times I was physically attacked for being gay. But this was the
worst one. I went home that day and didn’t want to think about tomorrow. I didn’t
ever want to go through an experience like that again. And that night, I
swallowed a handful of sleeping pills and prayed that I wouldn’t wake up as I
cried myself to sleep.
The next day, I woke
up at 2 in the afternoon. My back was sore, my face swollen, my head throbbing,
and my stomach in knots. I got violently sick, and vomited and dry heaved for
about an hour. I survived my first suicide attempt.
After that, I used the money from my job to start training in Tang Soo Do, a Korean martial arts style. I trained four nights a week, and especially made sure to attend grappling and applied self-defense classes.
3 months later, I was attacked again. Same guy, but not from behind this time. He used his typical bully words, trying to intimidate, but I just defiantly stared at him. He grabbed me by my shirt, and I promptly put him in an armbar and brought him to the ground. When I released him, he got up and swung for my face. I blocked it and punched him in the ribs. He swung again, and this time I blocked and jabbed him in the throat. While he sat there gasping for air, I took my exit.
Three days later, he, along with 2 buddies, waited for me on my walk home from the bus stop. I saw him up the alley and turned around to head to my grandmom’s instead of going home. They began to follow me. Then they began chasing me. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I get to my grandmom’s back door, and ran into my older brother. As soon as he realized why I was running, he said “No. This shit ain’t happening.” He stood at the back door and told the guy that he wasn’t gonna attack me anymore. The guy started running his mouth, and my brother told him “I’ll take you and your little bitch friends right here.” He stepped out back and the three of them bolted.
That was the last time Mike Krick ever tried to attack me. Fighting back at school also seemed to stop a few other bullies from thinking I was an easy target. I didn’t get hit or shoved or knocked around very often after that. And there were no flat out fist fights from then on. But the words still came. Words that ate away at me like acid.
After that, I used the money from my job to start training in Tang Soo Do, a Korean martial arts style. I trained four nights a week, and especially made sure to attend grappling and applied self-defense classes.
3 months later, I was attacked again. Same guy, but not from behind this time. He used his typical bully words, trying to intimidate, but I just defiantly stared at him. He grabbed me by my shirt, and I promptly put him in an armbar and brought him to the ground. When I released him, he got up and swung for my face. I blocked it and punched him in the ribs. He swung again, and this time I blocked and jabbed him in the throat. While he sat there gasping for air, I took my exit.
Three days later, he, along with 2 buddies, waited for me on my walk home from the bus stop. I saw him up the alley and turned around to head to my grandmom’s instead of going home. They began to follow me. Then they began chasing me. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. I get to my grandmom’s back door, and ran into my older brother. As soon as he realized why I was running, he said “No. This shit ain’t happening.” He stood at the back door and told the guy that he wasn’t gonna attack me anymore. The guy started running his mouth, and my brother told him “I’ll take you and your little bitch friends right here.” He stepped out back and the three of them bolted.
That was the last time Mike Krick ever tried to attack me. Fighting back at school also seemed to stop a few other bullies from thinking I was an easy target. I didn’t get hit or shoved or knocked around very often after that. And there were no flat out fist fights from then on. But the words still came. Words that ate away at me like acid.
You can only be told
that you are unnatural, filthy, disgusting, nasty, and foul so many times
before you start to believe it. Their words poisoned my mind, and I began to
hate myself more than they could ever hate me. I went back into the closet in
my senior year of high school. I joined my school’s bible study group.
After I graduated, I found a church. A church where people liked me. Wanted me around. But soon I started to feel like I was lying to everyone. I then spent 3 years in counseling with my pastors trying to make me straight. I spent 3 years dating women, suppressing who I was, believing the entire time that eventually I could heal myself from this affliction. All I managed to do was sink to even deeper depths of depressing and self-loathing. Feelings I started coping with by eating Percocet like it was pez.
After I graduated, I found a church. A church where people liked me. Wanted me around. But soon I started to feel like I was lying to everyone. I then spent 3 years in counseling with my pastors trying to make me straight. I spent 3 years dating women, suppressing who I was, believing the entire time that eventually I could heal myself from this affliction. All I managed to do was sink to even deeper depths of depressing and self-loathing. Feelings I started coping with by eating Percocet like it was pez.
In 2008, I tried and
failed a second time to end my life. Fortunately, when I swallowed pills this
time, instead of sleeping I immediately became ill. I felt dizzy, my breath
became short and spastic, and I vomited before any of the pills actually were released
into my system. They say that most suicide attempts are not serious. That most
people are just crying out for help. I can tell you that my head was so fucked
up by this point that I cannot honestly say one way or the other what it was that
I wanted.
After that, I
started having frequent anxiety attacks. They would happen when I was alone, at
work, wherever. At times, I would be at
work and they would get so bad that I would sit in the back room at work for
hours at a time, unable to do anything but cry. My boss used to send me home
when I got this way. finally one day, I came in and he sat me down and told me “Dude,
you really need help. Whatever is going on with you, you need to talk to
someone and start working to fix it.” He gave me contact info to a company that
provided mental health care for uninsured people.
Soon after, I started on antidepressants and seeing a therapist. Around the same time, I stopped going to my church. And soon after that, I came out again and started visiting gay bars and coffee shops. Eventually, I stopped seeing myself as “wrong” and started to see myself as me.
Soon after, I started on antidepressants and seeing a therapist. Around the same time, I stopped going to my church. And soon after that, I came out again and started visiting gay bars and coffee shops. Eventually, I stopped seeing myself as “wrong” and started to see myself as me.
Old habits die hard
though. In 2010, I tested positive for HIV and the very first thought I had was
“just surrender to it and let it take me”. But, thankfully, my very second
thought was “call a friend who won’t let you take that option.” Within a month
of receiving my confirmatory test results, I was seeing a doctor, discussing
treatment options, and had started learning about the virus. I have been, since
literally day 2, very proactive about my health.
Today, I’m on a med regimen that I personally selected from several option my doctor presented to me, my viral load is damn near (but not completely) undetectable, and my CD4 count is slowly rising. Today, I have friends who are more like family to me than most of my blood. Today, I’m part of a community that I love and care about, and it cares about me in turn. Today, I have a Daddy who is the most amazing man anyone could ever hope to be collared to.
Today, I’m on a med regimen that I personally selected from several option my doctor presented to me, my viral load is damn near (but not completely) undetectable, and my CD4 count is slowly rising. Today, I have friends who are more like family to me than most of my blood. Today, I’m part of a community that I love and care about, and it cares about me in turn. Today, I have a Daddy who is the most amazing man anyone could ever hope to be collared to.
But most
importantly, today I am alive. Of all the things in my life to be proud of, I
would have to say that this one is the one that matters most.
