Tag: personal growth

Happiness

August 28th, 2022
Wanting to reclaim my happiness again was a huge part of me coming out. I had many years where I put that aside for several reasons, and was in a constant battle in my mind over what I felt was right and what others wanted me to do.

I recently finished the book The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer. If any of you have not read it and are looking to expand on your personal growth, I strongly suggest it.

After having a relatively horrible month, I decided to read this book as was suggested by a friend, as well as hearing about it on a podcast. I had seen some unhealthy patterns arise in me that I was not happy about and knew that I needed help in getting back on track, and to learn why I was once again, falling victim to these ways.

In this book, there were so many topics that stopped me in my tracks and made me feel incredibly overcome with sadness and grief, mainly because they rang so true to how I was living.

The one that stuck out the most was the only way to experience happiness to its fullest, was to have your heart open. Because it’s been a really trying time for me emotionally, I told myself I just needed to stop feeling so much. I wanted to close it up so very tightly, to keep out any pain from ever affecting me again.

I started to think back to the days before I had kids and how strong I was emotionally, or so I thought. I never cried. Nothing could rock me. It didn’t matter what someone did, I could separate those feelings of hurt and tuck them away and not think twice about it.

What really happened is I was hardening my heart. I had a dark soul. I disliked myself, and therefore had no idea how to like or love others. I had mastered the art of sweeping my emotions under the rug so well as a child and teenager, that when I lost my mother to suicide at the age 13, I felt completely numb to it. Never shed a tear and didn’t mourn her death until almost 14 years later. I was raised to not cry. My father equated tears with physical pain and often mentioned if my sisters and I cried “that he’d give us something to cry about”, insinuating that we’d get a whooping if we didn’t stop. This is where I learned that happy emotions were OK to share outwardly, but anything sorrowful needed to be kept inside.

The avoidance of expressing many sad experiences of my adolescence caused me to become so very angry and develop severe anxiety.

It was only when I became pregnant with my son did I decide to go to therapy to learn how to change. Thank goodness I had the sense to realize I was terribly flawed, and had no idea how to be a good mother. I had to be taught.

This brings me to my topic of happiness. When I was in therapy, I learned I had surface happiness. You know the kind, the upbeat positive face you show your friends, family, and co-workers, but deep down inside I was so very sad. I hurt so much. This is where the work had to begin to get to the happiness that was on the other side. I had to look under the rug at all the stuff I had swept under there. It was a long, brutal process.

Many years of therapy helped me to deal with all that unpleasant stuff. It was excruciating at times. The hurt so immense, but then I started to realize something. My heart was growing. I felt lighter, happier. Simple things brought me joy instead of anger. I could breathe calmly and not be filled with constant anxiety. I learned that feeling the hurtful things was OK. That these feelings didn’t have to stay with or consume me. I could acknowledge that the unpleasant things happened and were a part of my life, but they didn’t have to linger inside of me. I learned the art of acceptance and letting go.

Just because I had learned this doesn’t mean that I don’t have moments where I forget and want to go back to what’s easiest; not facing the pain. But carrying that is a really heavy load that I worked so hard at overcoming, that I just can’t go back to that dark place, no matter how painful life gets.

I’ve always said that life is a series of balances; you can’t have extreme highs without deep lows. In fact, I believe in order to experience the joy to its fullest, you have to break through the despair and feeling that intensely in order to bask in the feelings of love and happiness.
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On Dating Women

August 18th, 2022
I’m not sure about every persons why for coming out, but mine was to finally address the emotional and sexual desires I had kept pent up inside of me for most of my life. The longing to act on pursing a woman romantically was exciting, intriguing, but also terrifying!

First, I must confess that writing about my sexual experiences makes me a bit uncomfortable. I’m not one who likes to kiss and tell, and I believe that my intimate experiences are to be kept sacred between the parties involved. That being said, I understand this is an important topic of discussion, so I will do my best to be as open, and adhere to what I feel I’m comfortable in divulging.

My first sexual experience was with a woman who was in a similar situation as me. Married, but in a sexless, unfulfilling union. We were both curious and after about a month of talking, our circumstances aligned that allowed us to be each others first. This was not a love connection, but there was a mutual respect between us that developed while talking. We both felt comfortable with meeting.

After that first sexual encounter, I told myself that I must be bisexual. Even though I knew deep down in the depths of my soul I was gay, how could I be? I slept with men. Was married to a man. (and married previously to a man). I had kids with a man. Built a life with a man. I was confused and scared. But, this sexual experience was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I was fully present. My body and mind felt things that it never had before. Still, it was unfamiliar to me, so I did what I do with just about everything in my life. I over analyzed it.

After a few weeks of trying to come to terms with what just happened, there was also an excitement that ignited in me. I felt alive. Like I had been wearing this heavy backpack all my life, and I finally felt like it was no longer there weighing me down. We decided to meet up again. It was after this meeting that I was legitimately, without a doubt – a lesbian. I remember telling this person my realization, and her immediately telling me that she still believed she was bisexual. She asked what I was going to do, and I told her I had to come out. I just couldn’t keep it inside any longer. I assured her that I was not looking for anything from her. Nonetheless, that was the last conversation we had. My texts were no longer answered, and I knew fairly quickly that this short lived encounter was over.

I didn’t feel any type of sadness from basically being ghosted. We both knew what it was. An experiment, if you will. A chance to safely explore. I look back on that experience as a great first time. Better than my first time being with a man. It stoked my burning desires, and fueled me to embrace who I truly was.

Since then, I’ve had relationships with a few women. I’ve loved and lost greatly. I do not regret any relationship I was ever in that ended, for it taught me so much about myself, what I want and don’t want. It also allowed me to become a stronger, more aware person. A really difficult lesson I’ve learned, is that love is definitely not enough to sustain a relationship. Sometimes, two people are just so far apart in their personalities, values and future endeavors that no matter how much love is there, it simply will not work.

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” ~ Sam Keen
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What about the kids?

August 17th, 2022
Whenever I decided to come out there was a question that arose from several friends and family members. “What about your kids?” This was also in addition to me telling them about me wanting a divorce. The double whammy. Not only am I divorcing my kind, hard-working husband and father of my children, but I’m gay. What could possibly be worse? The trauma that I’m going to instill in my children was apparent on my parents faces and heard in their unapproving words. Some friends even voiced their disgust. “How could I be so selfish?”

The truth is, I felt so incredibly selfish. And guilty. I had also reached a point in my life that I felt I could no longer survive if I continued to live in this make believe life. Sure my ex-husband was a great guy, but we never had the intimacy that I longed for. The deep conversations, the feeling like he understood me. The physical part as well. I remember when I would talk to him years prior to coming out, about how I wasn’t happy and I felt like we were just two mismatched souls, his response was that we needed to have more sex. I found this incredibly interesting, as I was the more sexual person in our relationship; always initiating, only to be turned down the majority of the time. Such a complex situation. On one hand I was relieved because I didn’t really enjoy sex all that much. I won’t say it was awful, but I craved intimacy and physical touch. It’s my love language, and I felt that the only time I had this with my ex-husband was when we were having sex. Sometimes I just wanted to feel wanted and have someone touch me softly. What was happening as the years went on, is that I was increasingly becoming more and more upset by having no emotional attachment to those physical feelings. I knew I was capable of giving and receiving more, and I was so very depressed by this feeling of unachievable longing.

It’s true what I’ve read in several books and articles about allowing your kids, and other people in your life to have as much time as needed to process all of this. The reality is, most times the person who decides to leave has had months or years to process it all, so when it’s time to tell the other spouse, kids, family and friends, we have to be cognizant of the fact that this is their beginning. I’ve already gone through the acceptance phase. That’s not to say that my grieving ended when I came to this realization. Different situations arose, and brought on more surprising feelings of hurt and despair.

When I told my kids their father and I were getting divorced, I did not mention I was gay. I also did not disclose this to my ex-husband at the time either. I truly felt that was only part of the reason for our split. I have been asked many times if I would’ve stayed together with him had I not been gay, and my answer has always been no. Refer back to the previous paragraphs in this post. I wanted more from a relationship than I was getting.

Both of my kids took the news of the divorce rather well. Although their father and I never fought or raised our voices, there was always a sense of tension in the home, and they mentioned this when we broke the divorce news to them. Kids are more intuitive than we give them credit for. My ex-husband and I made a pact to make this split as painless and less disruptive for the kids as possible. Of course there were tough moments from the split, and from what I chalk up to just being teenagers; my kids were 15 & 13 when the separation happened.

Leading up to my telling the kids I was gay, there were some moments where my daughter would become so very sad and ask if there was any chance me and her father could stay together. It broke my heart when I’d continually tell her no, but that we would always be there for her and her brother. I knew the time was going to have to come soon that I tell my kids the other reason why their parents couldn’t stay together.

I wish my story of telling my kids and ex-husband that I was gay, was a more uniform, perfectly planned out disclosure. I envisioned telling them together, but sometimes in life things do not go as planned.

Approximately 3 months after breaking the news of the split to just about everyone, I had been conversing with a woman, mainly via text. My daughter sensed something was up and unbeknownst to me, watched over my shoulder me entering the passcode on my phone. She found texts from this person whose name is an androgynous one, and confronted me. She wanted to know who this person was, and was I leaving her dad for “him”. As my heart sank and seemed to jump right into my throat, I knew now was the time I had to tell her. All I will say about that private conversation, is that I learned in that moment that my ex-husband and I had raised her right. She was kind, compassionate, and empathetic…all at the tender and volatile age of 13. Telling my ex-husband and my son was now imperative.

There is nothing like having a dreadful conversation knowing that you can’t put it off. I did not want my daughter to have to hold onto that information, so I asked to speak to my ex-husband as quickly as possible. I remember sitting down on the couch shaking, crying, and just trying so desperately to find the right words. I finally just said “I have something to tell you and you’re probably going to be shocked. I’m gay”. He looked at me, shook his head and said “That makes a lot of sense.” I assured him all of the things that many of us late in lifers do like “It wasn’t anything you did. I just always felt this way.” He hugged me, but only because I approached him and asked if we could. We never talked about it again.

My son came home shortly after that and I told him in his room, using the same opening line I did with his father. His reaction was typical for him; calm, cool, and reserved. He asked if I was happy. I said yes. “Well, that’s all that matters. I love you. You’re still my Mom.” And then he asked if we cold order pizza.

The road after coming out has been fairly smooth for me. I’ve heard a lot of stories where that is not the case, and it hurts my heart. I do realize how very fortunate I am. One thing I’ve also realized is that those who didn’t approve fell by the wayside. I quickly found out who my real family and friends were, and I hold them close.

The most important piece of me owning my truth is that my kids see their mother and father happier than they ever were. That they can choose their path, even if it’s not the expected one. They’re never stuck. They can be exactly who they want to be. To me, that is a precious lesson that I take great pride in having taught them, even though the road to getting to the destination was a little rocky.
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My Coming Out Story

August 16th, 2022
Like so many of us, there’s usually a story, or series of events that adds to our realization that we are no longer straight. For me, I knew from a very young age. I felt different. I looked and acted different. I don’t say these things to mean that all gay people have to look or act a certain way, but in my case, I was butch from the get go. I despised anything girly. Preferred Matchbox cars and Big Wheels over Barbies and tea sets. For Halloween, I was Spiderman, GI Joe, and Dracula. My sister and I even went as Raggedy Ann and Andy. Guess who was Andy? That was me. I just felt comfortable being plain and in boy clothes. Nothing special or standing out.

Fast forward to my teenage years when all of the girls were crushing on boys, I was secretly crushing on the girls. There was no way I could ever tell anyone this, although I believe my parents knew. I was repeatedly told there were two things that would get me disowned from the family, and that was dating outside my race or being gay. Racial and homophobic slurs were in abundance in my home. I knew then that I had to conform to fit in and be accepted. The one thing a teenager definitely does not want is to be an outcast from her family and friends. After having short hair most of my adolescence, I started to grow it out; long blonde curls. I soon learned that boys liked that, as did my peers and family members. Little by little, I’d mold myself into the person they wanted me to become. Girly, but not too girly. I still had my tomboyish ways, but I certainly looked the part of a straight girl in the 80’s.

I found myself married to a man at 19. Divorced at 20. Married again at age 25, having 2 children by the time I was 28. Although I loved both of these men, I was not emotionally or physically attracted to them. There was a void that was so apparent, and deep down I knew what it was, but I had chosen to be straight. That’s just how it had to be. One thing I have always had the capability to do back in those days, was to block out what wasn’t necessary and bring forth what was. I had chosen to be a wife and mother, and I was going to be good at both!

It’s important for me to state that I was happy for a while. Content. My ex husband was a kind man. A great provider, and a hands on dad. I selected an excellent partner to procreate and share a life with. We were a great team, and being a stay at home mom was one of the greatest experiences I was so very fortunate to have.

So what happened? Was it that ‘ole mid life crisis that we hear about all the time? We hit a certain age, and start to reflect back on what we’ve done with our life. Take stock. Evaluate our own happiness. For anyone that is a mom, you know that your needs are pretty much non-existent until our kids are a little more self-sufficient. Even as teenagers, they rely on us for so much. We forego a lot to make sure they are happy and fulfilled. What happened was my kids turned into teenagers and I was having those hard conversations with them about being true to themselves. Never settling in life. That no matter how bad a situation is, it’s not impossible to get out of it. This is when I realized that I was teaching my children to be something I was not. I had a few years of being self destructive in my misery when I knew I had to face my truth and at the same time, face the heartbreak of splitting up my family and mourning the life I had wanted for all of us.

It’s been 8 years since I had those hard conversations and terribly awful moments of despair. But there have been moments of absolute bliss, enormous growth, and a sense of independence that I’ve never known.

As Dolly Parton once said, “If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with a little rain.”
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Introduction

August 16th, 2022
Hello World! My name is Terri Conroy. I came out as a lesbian at the age of 43, after being married to a man for 17 years and having 2 children. This blog is a space for me to share with you my honest experiences during this process. The good and bad, ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies. Even though it has been over 8 years since I’ve come out, I continue to have moments where I’m still trying to figure it all out. My goal here is to create a space for those going through a similar situation, who can possibly find my words useful and encouraging.
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Tag: personal growth

Happiness

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On Dating Women

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What about the kids?

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My Coming Out Story

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Introduction

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