So I started getting depressed when my Grandpa died in 4th grade and my entire, picture-perfect world was destroyed and reality hit. After Jr High (worst years of my life) and High School (second-worst serious of years in my life) and after 1 year of college that I hardly passed, I have hardly made progress. Okay that's a complete lie. I've made huge strides and have gone to 1 club and had a total blast doing it. There is just so much though. When I left my small town to San Francisco, I used to tell everyone how I would love to go clubbing and how clubbing would be the best thing in the world and now that I'm here, I've only gone ONCE. I have hardly any friends because I've changed so much over this first year that I guess the people who liked who I WAS lost interest. I was horrible first semester. I lived in the dorms and had multiple panic attacks and so now I have my own apartment but am not doing much better. I have no roommates so I feel lonely. I don't socialize with my neighbors. I have a bird now, finally, and talk to her all the time (which isn't weird, by the way, talking to your animals is known to be theraputic and she's extremely cute!). She's a parakeet about 6 years old and she's so adorable and so playful. My old parakeet that helped me through the worst years of my life is 13 years old and back in Merced, my hometown.

Okay, enough background I guess. Sorry if I bored many of you and hopefully you made it through that, or at least skipped it. Nothing seems to be good enough anymore. I did Tae Bo for almost 3 months and lost so much weight and got to a great size and felt SO good and promised myself I'd never quit but lately I'm just so tired. I think it's my social and love life. I don't have it. All my friends from college are gone, while I'll never live in my hometown again. I can't. My family is impossible.

My parents hate my sexuality. I'm gay and they won't hear of it, overly conservative. We just pretend that it doesn't exist and just talk about other things and other people. It's very superficial, and I hate it, I really hate it. It bothers me everyday since I talk to my mother on the phone everyday. I'm such a self-proclaimed mama's boy and I don't care! Anyway, the death of my Grandpa and Grandma just about killed me. My grandpa was religious but he cussed and was down-to-earth while the rest of my family is gossipy and superficial and he died and so the superficiality took over. My Grandma was from the other side of the family and lived in LA and she was so real and worldly and would have accepted my sexuality, the only one in my family to have, and she died and now I have no one in my family to fully accept me. It kills me every day.

All of the pains from the past hold on to me and I had a long talk with a close friend, who moved to New York for school and, well, life, who said that she believes I'm amazing and that it kills her that I don't see that and that I don't have confidense to do what I truly want to do. Honestly? I want to sing, dance, act, play instruments, ANYTHING to do with music and performing. I have zero confidense to do it though. Zero. I am so afraid of failure. At the same time, though, I'd love to work in an office, a giant highrise downtown, top floor with a wonderful view of the city. I haven't even had one job yet, waited until I was 18 to get a drivers license and now I'll never drive again because I don't really trust myself behind the wheel and you just don't need to drive in a big city. Public transportation is a health forum but it's MUCH better than the anxiety of driving for me... plus it's a TON cheaper!

I just don't know what to do anymore. I know I'm a good person and I know I'm appealing but I keep rehashing all those times I was condemned and hurt and it hurts me even more today. I just don't know how to let go. I had many traumatic experiences when I first came out and I was so scared of being sent out on the street. You know what I was mostly afraid of? A group-church-therapy session with elders from the church to "help save me." I was so scared. I know who I am and I am damn tired of people making me feel guilty when I don't need to. People say that the guilt I feel is God telling me I'm doing something wrong but look at the facts people. When you are raised to believe something and you are something else, of COURSE you will naturally feel guilty. Like in the past how African Americans were horridly mistreated for their skin color. Growing up they were taught they were wrong although there was nothing they could do about it so they naturally felt guilty, you know??

I can say these logical things over and over again in my head but I just still feel like caca and I know I'm clinically depressed and it's the only reason. I don't feel guilty anymore, I just feel hurt from all the rejection in my life and it's keeping me from moving on. I just don't know what to do. I've done everything. I've seen psychologists and psychiatrists and I'm on a bunch of meds which just take away the severe anxiety factor but now I am calm enough to sit and think which is more lethal than my anxiety which kept me going. Sure it made me a crazy mess in the head and I had breakdowns all the time from the pressure I put on myself, but I got straight A's and did everything in the world to progress in the world.

Now I just sit and watch TV in my apartment. I'll occasionally go out if someone is in the City and can go with me or whatever... I hate even leaving the apartment alone. I feel self-conscious and at the same time I get really bored without anyone to share the time with.

My lease ends in November and my current solution to my isolation and lack of motivation is to move downtown since, currently, I live out my San Francisco State which is in the "***hole of San Francisco" I call it. You can't even see the majority of the city from here. It's over twin peaks... and I'm waaaaay on the other side, I'm about half a mile from Daly City. I want to move downtown. My parents say I can when my lease is up. At the same time I DO feel guilty for being gay, only because I could never ask my wonderful parents to give up their beliefs but at the same time I am using their money to go against them. I buy clothes and products and whatnot to make myself appealing to other men which, right there, breaks their beliefs. That's not even to mention the sex I've had on the bed THEY've bought, or on the couch they purchased with me, or in the shower they pay rent for, or the kitchen table.... etc. etc.... or the condoms... or the wine... I'm only 19 but hello, it's the city, there is always a way to get stuff.

I hope I don't sound arrogant, but I am just miserable, and when I'm miserable I get overly sarcastic. I've stopped working out, just gave up after Pride '07. Someone there actually said "gay-retarded" near me and I keep telling myself it was about me because he said it as he passed me. Sure I looked amazing... to my standards at least, which are pretty high... but... I just don't know. The thing is that it's not MY standards I need to meet, it's the rest of the world. How else am I going to move up in the world if I just meet MY unique standards?? <--see? it's THESE kind of irrational and ridiculous ideas that keep me in the rut I'm in.

If someone could make it through this entire post... or feel they are in a similar position I'm in, please respond. Every message I get from people trying to help or even just relating to me means the world to me.

There is so much to say but I have written enough for now.

Thank you for your time,



Timothy