Yesterday I was awake all night. Sometimes my sleeping schedule just stops being a schedule, and so I just continue working and reading since flopping about the bed wide awake is annoying to Mark, as well as myself. Additionally, my darling Mark had a dreadfully long day at the office and came home exhausted. He fell asleep almost immediately at four o'clock this afternoon and has been up just once to smoke a cigarette and take his medications.
I'm weary and don't know how far I'll move forward tonight with writing; the material itself is wearisome, I have not relived these events in my mind for avery long time.But I hope to finish my defense.
I don't think it's so important to know the exact details and the complete and proper order of all the evnets around my suicide attempt. They became muddled last evening, or rather this morning, and going back to it now seems useless. I have often wondered how seriously I wanted to die and wondered if it was the old adage about a "cry for help". I believe it was betwixt and between. Whichever it was it was a miserable, and I believe an avoidable event if, and it is an unknown 'if', I had not felt the enormus pressure to be silent about my same sex attraction, My Secret - the deeply poisonous act of denying who I am by nature and by God's grace.
Since there was never a direct conversation about homosexuality in my family, I absorbed the 'facts' that I was totally evil and completely unworthy of love from the thousand side remarks, at which we in the Larson family are all masters, myself included, of indirect comments and inuendo. The televison shows and movies we were forbidden to see because of their sinful depictions of homosexuals. Remarks about how military service was unfit duty for such men and women - it disrupted the safety of the troups. The avoidance of conversation about anything expcept the Teachings of the Church'! Oh, those doctrinal boxes into which I was locked, for my own supposed good, and strictly bound to follow and uphold. I interpretted these teachings as the direct exclusion of me, Don Larson, from God's grace. And so I became, in my own belief, unslavagable as a human being and unredeemable as a soul. I attempted to allay these fears with the constant desparate pleading to God to change my sexuality; anyway He could. The prayer was not really prayer, how could it be, it was simply the histeria of a young man who was abandoned by his Church its leaders whom I was taught to believe were infalliable in their teaching,as well as loving in their ministery and the loving in their guidance to all of us becoming whole for God. I was carefully taught to read no book without the imprematur of 'Nihil Obstat' and deeply discouraged from seeking professional psychiatric help lest "it leave a record that would follow me all my life" and thus deny me access to normal society. Ha! As if I wasn't already denied that access because of being driven to a critically unstable mental health state. Even in my education I fely intimidated to do what I was best at: interior design. Why. I'd heard so many times that it was job for faggots. The fear I was taught to hold for anything outside the Church made me completely incapable of dealing with life.
I needed to protect myself from these messages which were destroying any chance of sanity that I might achieve for myself. I became determined to return to school and obtain my fine arts degree. I found hope in my new determination to be the artist I believd was my gift, and my right, whether or not it brought the security of a constant paycheck. I managed to enroll and attend ASU for a little more than two thirds of my sophomore year. I even eventually made my way to the interior design progarm to ask questions. Then, as finals approached for the third quarter's end I received a paniced telephone call of my Mom, terrified and weeping that Dad had suffered a heart attack. I don't know if she asked me to return to Yuma or if I simply believed that that was what was required of me. I tried to explain it was finals. Eventually I went to the professor of my Music Theory class, located in the famous Frank Lloyd Wright Music Hall, and asked him if I might make up my final upon my return. he was very kind and did allow me to do so - AND I did actually return, once Dad was stable, and finish that test... and then I packed up my bicycle and my backpack, closed my studio apartment and returned to Yuma to watch the slow demise of all sanity, which with the guidance of my parents we all embarked upon: Seligman and the avoidance of Armegeddon.
I think we all remember the terrible nights of fear of Satan's attacks, huddled on the floor of the living room together in the house on Seventh Avenue. The grotesque ceremony of disposing of our worldly goods in the alley and the late night drive in the Ford Torino station wagon, certain that the demons were swift upon our heels. Didn't we see them in the sky above, like witches or warlocks riding the shredded black clouds only just illuminated by the moon. Rosary after rosary and in between this horrid deep silence that seemed to drive away even the rotating thump, thunmp, thump of the tires on the ill kept highway.
When I fianlly left to return to Phoenix I was completely demoralized and defeated interiorly. I felt I was abandoning my parents by seeking a life of my own - more guilt! Gerry and Elaine Martinez, with great kindness, took me in and found me a position with Trader Publications. The next nine years of my life were dedicated to ten to fouteen hour workdays, six days a week (at least),and driving one hundred thousand miles or more a year for my daily bread. It was hard work, but I was good at it, for the most part, and made a very decent fifty thousand a year during the last four or five years of my employment. Phoenix in the nineteen eighties allowed me a decent living on that sum, but in my lonliness I'm afraid it mostly went to the bartenders of the various gay nightclubs I came to know too well. I became very active sexually and developed, not deliberately, a pretty cycle: a one night stand, weeping and nashing of teeth at my sinfulness the next day, confession and communion (with every intent that I would change, I did this all in good faith) but of course wound up every weekend at the clubs. It slowly dawned on me that I must face whom I was: a gay man, a very lonely gay man and that if the Church expected me to go through my life alone, without the solice and support of a partner, than the Church was wrong. My sin was not being gay, my sin was a whirlwind of meaningless encounters with other men in whicn and with whom I had no respect for their personhood nor they for mine. My sin was a lack of intimacy, of failing to choose to commit to my homosexuality - the sexuality God gave me - and learn to love and be loved. It has taken nearly twenty years to just barely come close to learning to love as we are all meant to as human beings. How different might it have been if instead of condemnation and the threat of fire and brimstone I might have learned that I was, I am, a valuable being, loved by my Creator and, so luckily, by a few shining jewels of family and friends!
During all this history I've related to you now, in both postings, I know I have neglected to tell you how this all relates to my failure in posting a very nasty aticle on this blog. It is related, in fact the two cannot be separated, at least for me. So long ago in Yuma as a gradeschooler I was bullied by older boys, and some girls, who would grab me and shake me around - pushing me around like a ball and calling me a pussy. They kept asking me if I had a pussy. Some how I knew not to say yes, though I only knew the word as a derivitave of cat - confused and frightened I kept thinking about Spunky and Smokey at home. Though I never said 'yes' they finally all started laughing and yelling to all the girls and kids nearbye: "He said yes! He said yes!" They were agitated with their excitement now at being so 'macho' and 'tough' (five eigth graders against one fourth grader). Now one, the instigator of the entire episode, and then another pulled their pockets inside out and yelled: "Come on pussy, kiss a rabbit between the ears! Come on pussy boy!!" I watched Sister Patrice, only fifteen feet away on the playground, who heard every word, turn away and ignore the abuse.
I suppose it was at that time I began to implement all the things everyone in my family came to despise in me. My self-aggrandising and snobbery, my disdane for these redneck boys who failed their classes and could not read or write, my highly annoying practice of taunting my family and friends about uncultured America in favor of a civilized France and my dislike of association with Mexicans and their silly machismo and false piety (Mexican girls particularly hated me). I did not and do not believe that I was better than they were, I envied every jock, but because I was so certain I was so much less than they were, so inferior nd abnormal I stuck up my nose and took my false pride veritably to the heights of heaven to give myself a terribly inadequate temporary feeling of safety and self worth.
I neither hate or despise men and women of color, whether Latino or Black, Asian or Mulatto. I do not despise either of my brothers' wives or their children. I have never known any of them very well - I've always feared them disliking me and feared that if I didn't come with armloads of gifts for them I, Mark and Joy, would be rejected not only by their wives, but even their children. I distanced myself to avoid the anticipated pain of rejection from those I desperately wished to know and be close to - and to cover it I have made staements and remarks which I knew would be certain to keep them all from liking me, much less loving me. I also do not like to visit Yuma for it is the past come to life for me. It reminds me of everything that was unhappy in my life, and a lifestyle which I do not like or want. It is a lifelong pattern of self-defence, (or really just more self-abuse, isn't it, wanting to be hated and rejected to feel safe), which even today, with far deeper insight to my own mind's neurosis, I can't always conquer, as some of my readers have experienced first hand.
I don't want or expect sympathy or empathy for my life's pains. Everyone has a dificult life. It's only the particulars which vary. I simply believe I have the right to answer my accuser who was so vehement and cutting in his attack. I don't know if I want to reach out again or not; I do believe that when we attack someone without holding back it is often becuase that is where we believe we are failures ourself. That is the whole point of writing this laboreous tome. Yet our, my family's and my, life experiences are so entirely different that I don't think there is enough common ground for anything much more than pleasentries on needed occasions. The other part of hopes I'm wrong.
And so I find myself in a neighborhood in which I expect to be hated for being queer. Perhaps to be attacked physically if I forget and call Mark, "Honey", or worse kiss him without thinking in public. My unkind comments? The best defense is a strong offense. Ha! you see! I picked up some sporting knowledge after all! But there is no jest or humor in my behvior, only sadness and shame that I have injured a kind man, a brother, whom of all my family has actually attempted (perhaps despite his own perjudices?)to understand me. I do regret the loss. Very much.
So, there is my explanation. Am I a bigot? I know what I believe in my heart and in my mind, but I shall leave it to you whom have been injured and repulsed by my cruelty to be the final judge.
I work to change these deeply ingrained attitudes and behaviors in my mind and in my heart, but I will probably slip again at some point. It is like riding a bicycle, and the defense mechanisms I developed jump out instantly when I feel threatened. Perhaps disassociation with me is the wisest course! There are a small handful of friends and family who have seen the other man that I can be, and they believe in me. I am blessed to have each of them in my life:
Julia, Lisa, Joy, Jessica and Mark. So many times have they been the last barrier to my harming myself yet again. Sometimes they knew and sometimes they didn't. I thank each of them for their belief that I am a decent man with something to give to others. Perhaps, one day, I will no longer fear other people and will to walk, no stride, into a room believing that I am wanted, not simply tolerated.
What a grand day that will be! The question is: am I a bigot? The answer is no. Do I out of fear and a bad sense of timing utter a slur I don't intend to? Yes, but it is a stumble not a decision. My decision is and always will be to stand for the equality of all people, whether they are Black, Gay, Latino, Buddist, Muslim, Asian, Arab or fundamentalist Christian. That is the principle I live by when I vote for civil rights and education and health care, it is the principle I live by for whom I invite into my home and life, and it is the principle I live by for opening my heart to others. My actions and my beliefs are true.
I'm weary and don't know how far I'll move forward tonight with writing; the material itself is wearisome, I have not relived these events in my mind for avery long time.But I hope to finish my defense.
I don't think it's so important to know the exact details and the complete and proper order of all the evnets around my suicide attempt. They became muddled last evening, or rather this morning, and going back to it now seems useless. I have often wondered how seriously I wanted to die and wondered if it was the old adage about a "cry for help". I believe it was betwixt and between. Whichever it was it was a miserable, and I believe an avoidable event if, and it is an unknown 'if', I had not felt the enormus pressure to be silent about my same sex attraction, My Secret - the deeply poisonous act of denying who I am by nature and by God's grace.
Since there was never a direct conversation about homosexuality in my family, I absorbed the 'facts' that I was totally evil and completely unworthy of love from the thousand side remarks, at which we in the Larson family are all masters, myself included, of indirect comments and inuendo. The televison shows and movies we were forbidden to see because of their sinful depictions of homosexuals. Remarks about how military service was unfit duty for such men and women - it disrupted the safety of the troups. The avoidance of conversation about anything expcept the Teachings of the Church'! Oh, those doctrinal boxes into which I was locked, for my own supposed good, and strictly bound to follow and uphold. I interpretted these teachings as the direct exclusion of me, Don Larson, from God's grace. And so I became, in my own belief, unslavagable as a human being and unredeemable as a soul. I attempted to allay these fears with the constant desparate pleading to God to change my sexuality; anyway He could. The prayer was not really prayer, how could it be, it was simply the histeria of a young man who was abandoned by his Church its leaders whom I was taught to believe were infalliable in their teaching,as well as loving in their ministery and the loving in their guidance to all of us becoming whole for God. I was carefully taught to read no book without the imprematur of 'Nihil Obstat' and deeply discouraged from seeking professional psychiatric help lest "it leave a record that would follow me all my life" and thus deny me access to normal society. Ha! As if I wasn't already denied that access because of being driven to a critically unstable mental health state. Even in my education I fely intimidated to do what I was best at: interior design. Why. I'd heard so many times that it was job for faggots. The fear I was taught to hold for anything outside the Church made me completely incapable of dealing with life.
I needed to protect myself from these messages which were destroying any chance of sanity that I might achieve for myself. I became determined to return to school and obtain my fine arts degree. I found hope in my new determination to be the artist I believd was my gift, and my right, whether or not it brought the security of a constant paycheck. I managed to enroll and attend ASU for a little more than two thirds of my sophomore year. I even eventually made my way to the interior design progarm to ask questions. Then, as finals approached for the third quarter's end I received a paniced telephone call of my Mom, terrified and weeping that Dad had suffered a heart attack. I don't know if she asked me to return to Yuma or if I simply believed that that was what was required of me. I tried to explain it was finals. Eventually I went to the professor of my Music Theory class, located in the famous Frank Lloyd Wright Music Hall, and asked him if I might make up my final upon my return. he was very kind and did allow me to do so - AND I did actually return, once Dad was stable, and finish that test... and then I packed up my bicycle and my backpack, closed my studio apartment and returned to Yuma to watch the slow demise of all sanity, which with the guidance of my parents we all embarked upon: Seligman and the avoidance of Armegeddon.
I think we all remember the terrible nights of fear of Satan's attacks, huddled on the floor of the living room together in the house on Seventh Avenue. The grotesque ceremony of disposing of our worldly goods in the alley and the late night drive in the Ford Torino station wagon, certain that the demons were swift upon our heels. Didn't we see them in the sky above, like witches or warlocks riding the shredded black clouds only just illuminated by the moon. Rosary after rosary and in between this horrid deep silence that seemed to drive away even the rotating thump, thunmp, thump of the tires on the ill kept highway.
When I fianlly left to return to Phoenix I was completely demoralized and defeated interiorly. I felt I was abandoning my parents by seeking a life of my own - more guilt! Gerry and Elaine Martinez, with great kindness, took me in and found me a position with Trader Publications. The next nine years of my life were dedicated to ten to fouteen hour workdays, six days a week (at least),and driving one hundred thousand miles or more a year for my daily bread. It was hard work, but I was good at it, for the most part, and made a very decent fifty thousand a year during the last four or five years of my employment. Phoenix in the nineteen eighties allowed me a decent living on that sum, but in my lonliness I'm afraid it mostly went to the bartenders of the various gay nightclubs I came to know too well. I became very active sexually and developed, not deliberately, a pretty cycle: a one night stand, weeping and nashing of teeth at my sinfulness the next day, confession and communion (with every intent that I would change, I did this all in good faith) but of course wound up every weekend at the clubs. It slowly dawned on me that I must face whom I was: a gay man, a very lonely gay man and that if the Church expected me to go through my life alone, without the solice and support of a partner, than the Church was wrong. My sin was not being gay, my sin was a whirlwind of meaningless encounters with other men in whicn and with whom I had no respect for their personhood nor they for mine. My sin was a lack of intimacy, of failing to choose to commit to my homosexuality - the sexuality God gave me - and learn to love and be loved. It has taken nearly twenty years to just barely come close to learning to love as we are all meant to as human beings. How different might it have been if instead of condemnation and the threat of fire and brimstone I might have learned that I was, I am, a valuable being, loved by my Creator and, so luckily, by a few shining jewels of family and friends!
During all this history I've related to you now, in both postings, I know I have neglected to tell you how this all relates to my failure in posting a very nasty aticle on this blog. It is related, in fact the two cannot be separated, at least for me. So long ago in Yuma as a gradeschooler I was bullied by older boys, and some girls, who would grab me and shake me around - pushing me around like a ball and calling me a pussy. They kept asking me if I had a pussy. Some how I knew not to say yes, though I only knew the word as a derivitave of cat - confused and frightened I kept thinking about Spunky and Smokey at home. Though I never said 'yes' they finally all started laughing and yelling to all the girls and kids nearbye: "He said yes! He said yes!" They were agitated with their excitement now at being so 'macho' and 'tough' (five eigth graders against one fourth grader). Now one, the instigator of the entire episode, and then another pulled their pockets inside out and yelled: "Come on pussy, kiss a rabbit between the ears! Come on pussy boy!!" I watched Sister Patrice, only fifteen feet away on the playground, who heard every word, turn away and ignore the abuse.
I suppose it was at that time I began to implement all the things everyone in my family came to despise in me. My self-aggrandising and snobbery, my disdane for these redneck boys who failed their classes and could not read or write, my highly annoying practice of taunting my family and friends about uncultured America in favor of a civilized France and my dislike of association with Mexicans and their silly machismo and false piety (Mexican girls particularly hated me). I did not and do not believe that I was better than they were, I envied every jock, but because I was so certain I was so much less than they were, so inferior nd abnormal I stuck up my nose and took my false pride veritably to the heights of heaven to give myself a terribly inadequate temporary feeling of safety and self worth.
I neither hate or despise men and women of color, whether Latino or Black, Asian or Mulatto. I do not despise either of my brothers' wives or their children. I have never known any of them very well - I've always feared them disliking me and feared that if I didn't come with armloads of gifts for them I, Mark and Joy, would be rejected not only by their wives, but even their children. I distanced myself to avoid the anticipated pain of rejection from those I desperately wished to know and be close to - and to cover it I have made staements and remarks which I knew would be certain to keep them all from liking me, much less loving me. I also do not like to visit Yuma for it is the past come to life for me. It reminds me of everything that was unhappy in my life, and a lifestyle which I do not like or want. It is a lifelong pattern of self-defence, (or really just more self-abuse, isn't it, wanting to be hated and rejected to feel safe), which even today, with far deeper insight to my own mind's neurosis, I can't always conquer, as some of my readers have experienced first hand.
I don't want or expect sympathy or empathy for my life's pains. Everyone has a dificult life. It's only the particulars which vary. I simply believe I have the right to answer my accuser who was so vehement and cutting in his attack. I don't know if I want to reach out again or not; I do believe that when we attack someone without holding back it is often becuase that is where we believe we are failures ourself. That is the whole point of writing this laboreous tome. Yet our, my family's and my, life experiences are so entirely different that I don't think there is enough common ground for anything much more than pleasentries on needed occasions. The other part of hopes I'm wrong.
And so I find myself in a neighborhood in which I expect to be hated for being queer. Perhaps to be attacked physically if I forget and call Mark, "Honey", or worse kiss him without thinking in public. My unkind comments? The best defense is a strong offense. Ha! you see! I picked up some sporting knowledge after all! But there is no jest or humor in my behvior, only sadness and shame that I have injured a kind man, a brother, whom of all my family has actually attempted (perhaps despite his own perjudices?)to understand me. I do regret the loss. Very much.
So, there is my explanation. Am I a bigot? I know what I believe in my heart and in my mind, but I shall leave it to you whom have been injured and repulsed by my cruelty to be the final judge.
I work to change these deeply ingrained attitudes and behaviors in my mind and in my heart, but I will probably slip again at some point. It is like riding a bicycle, and the defense mechanisms I developed jump out instantly when I feel threatened. Perhaps disassociation with me is the wisest course! There are a small handful of friends and family who have seen the other man that I can be, and they believe in me. I am blessed to have each of them in my life:
Julia, Lisa, Joy, Jessica and Mark. So many times have they been the last barrier to my harming myself yet again. Sometimes they knew and sometimes they didn't. I thank each of them for their belief that I am a decent man with something to give to others. Perhaps, one day, I will no longer fear other people and will to walk, no stride, into a room believing that I am wanted, not simply tolerated.What a grand day that will be! The question is: am I a bigot? The answer is no. Do I out of fear and a bad sense of timing utter a slur I don't intend to? Yes, but it is a stumble not a decision. My decision is and always will be to stand for the equality of all people, whether they are Black, Gay, Latino, Buddist, Muslim, Asian, Arab or fundamentalist Christian. That is the principle I live by when I vote for civil rights and education and health care, it is the principle I live by for whom I invite into my home and life, and it is the principle I live by for opening my heart to others. My actions and my beliefs are true.
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