About two years ago when the family was stepping all over me I fell into a very deep depression
I remember you telling long before that, that family start taking your stuff, deleting shyt, & taking over your computers. If it was me, I would have sued their ass. Being sick, I know it would have been a hard effort to fight them, but an attorney would have done all the work for a cut of what you sue them for.
Been through that since my high school days. In the 60s in my area, people were still incredibly uptight about gays & crossdressers. They didn't just hate them, most thought they were hardened criminals & sick perverts that should be locked away or killed.
My family was strict catholic, country music listening, conservatives. On my father's side of the family, they actually believed he was gonna burn in hell for marrying a non-catholic... even though my mom converted to catholic before they got married.
I started kindergarten at 4 (summer birthday), & skipped the 4th grade, so I was at least a couple years younger than anybody else in high school.
Anywho in the 1960s, my parents suspected I was gay & a crossdresser. I was also caught cutting school a couple times... not off having a good time. I was caught in public libraries reading books on tech, electronics, & photocopying circuit diagrams out of them. I was a small kid well under 5 feet high back then, so looked like a small child wandering in the library.
I was a good boy, did well in school, got along with all the teachers well, & was on the honor role. Yet because I was a gay & crossdressing suspect, & cut classes a few times to read in a library, my parents & the state made secret plans to send me away to a reform school for wayward boys. Let me tell you about those places -- they were as bad, or worse than most prisons. You were beaten & raped by the bigger kids or the staff almost daily, & conditions were deplorable.
I would have killed myself before going to that place. With nothing left to lose, I came up with a workable plan to run away. They didn't tell me they were sending me away, I had to secretly find out.
Mom had a nasty habit which I think she enjoyed, were she would thoroughly search all the kids rooms whenever they weren't around... everywhere -- under mattresses, behind drawers or dressers... she knew every hiding place. Everything was rummaged through every time we were out of the house. It was like living in a military boarding school.
Tights, a nightie, & an old dress was found hidden behind my dresser drawers a few times. I wised up & decided is was safer & more secure to just store my stuff in a hidden spot in abandoned buildings. But it was too late. My parents suspected I was a sissy.
Then a friend I hung out with a lot was caught being gay, & sent off to reform school prison for it. The cat was out of the bag, now parents thought I was a crossdresser & gay for hanging out with him a lot. I was gounded for a year. Not allowed out of the house except for school. I was sent to forced thearapy, & forced to take valium after school & on weekends to keep me calm/passive. If I refused to take it I was either beaten or it was secretly mixed into my food.
It got to be I would go to the bathroom when nobody was nearby, & try to throw all my food up as quietly as possible so they didn't know. Then sneak up in the middle of the night to eat something without valium in it. Mom loved that stuff, & took it regularly by a doctor's prescription. If she couldn't handle the kids, the doctor prescribed valium for the kid too (Quack).
My parents started treat me like shyt, they gave me the look of disgust & hate. They whispered to each other if I was in listening range... I know that look. They were talking about me -- not in a nice way. I knew something was up, & as bad as it was, I had the feeling it was gonna get worse.
Time for some counter espionage. Mission Impossible & Hogans Heroes were one of favorite shows then (along with sci-fi). I built my own stereo, & radios out of junk parts. Had my own TV that I restored out of the garbage. I tapped the phone line, & put a hidden microphone in the kitchen. With all the old & home made electronics in my room, they never knew or understood that there was a line tap & hidden microphone. I even had it transmit from my room to an off frequency that can't get picked up by other radios, but I can listen to on my portable radio. So I was able to listen to the kitchen or calls from anywhere in the house, just slightly above the AM radio dial
As sneaky as that was, remember, these people were treating my like shyt, grounded me for a year, tried to keep me heavily drugged with valium, & sending me to forced therapy... an now they were planning to do even more to me.
Through electronic eavesdropping, I discovered they wanted me out of the house, & locked away. The state & courts decided because I was doing so well in school that I wouldn't be sent to a state reform school until after the school year, less than a month away!!!
I started secretly, quietly climbing out my window in the middle of night to make contacts to try to run away, climbing back up to the window before dawn. I contacted Mattachine Society (gay right organization), the Gay Liberation Front, & even the university radio station WBFO... who hosted the Stonewall Nation radio show & explained my problem. I told them I needed to get away fast. I hung out on the streets around gay hangouts for contacts to find jobs & a place to live when my parents thought I was sound asleep in my room.
The dog never barked sneaking back in because he was my dog. I even made sure when I got in the alley to climb back up to my window to quietly call his name just so he, but nobody else could hear me so he would not bark.
On the second last day of school, exams were completed the week before. I lowered a couple small bags with a few changes of clothes out my window. Left for school out the door, double backed to the alley to get my bags, & ran away a little over a week before my 14th birthday leaving everything behind. I never went back, & never saw the house I was born in again.
Just before 16, I lived in a small place behind my father's house for a little while, but it was just a ploy to get me. Got info they were coming to ship me to the state reform school anyway. I guess they never figured out I tapped their phone line & had a hidden microphone before, or didn't think I'd do it again. So I had to drop everything & run off again.
That time, & the first time there was a big investigation to find, & lock up this runaway gay crossdressing kid... to cure me or keep me away from society. Any hint of where I was, the cops usually showed up looking for me. So I decided to sneak near my old neighborhood, make it look like I accidentally bumped into people I knew & fed them false information. I would brag that I was living & working in a town about 60 miles away, & was just back for a visit.
Sure 'nuff word got out that I was in that town & not in Buffalo often. Ironically in the beginning of the next school year, I showed up for school like nothing happened. During the search for me over the summer, they found out I had no friends in school. Everybody picked on the smart, smallest, kid in the school who was 2 years younger than anyone else. So the search & investigation was in the areas & with people I was known to hang out with. But outside of school I got along with everybody, & had lots of friends.
So at 14, I actually was living in a room right across the street from my high school, & in September, back in the school. The cops & everybody were too stupid to check if I ever went back to school, or just didn't think it was possible that a runaway would enroll back in school the next year. I used my real name in school, but was still living under another name with fake ID.
I didn't cut out of school anymore because I wasn't grounded for a year by living on my own. I could do whatever I wanted after school. I told them we're too poor to have a phone anymore, papers & report cards that required a parent's signature, I forged. But after what my parents did to me, tried to do to me, & what I went through over the summer, I came back to school a meaner, tougher, badder, bigger but bitter kid.
Nobody was gonna pick on me in school anymore. If they were too big for me, I'd wait in the bushes or shadows for them with a bat or board, & get them. After a summer on my own dealing with all sorts of bums, hoodlums, addicts, prostitutes on the streets in bad neighborhoods, including being shot, no pimply faced high school punk was gonna push this grumpy little sissy around. I was administering emergency first aid to stabbing victims & dodging stabbers on the street while their soccer moms were driving those bullies to Chucky Cheese.
They had no idea who they were dealing with anymore. I wasn't the 90 pound weakling they knew the year before.
At 15 I was on the school's football team. But it was a rough year. I remember in winter, going on my 4th day without food, a priest, prostitute, & pimp came over with lots of food, wine, & pot. They filled the cabinets, & fridge. Friends & saviors come from unexpected places.
By 16 I was on my old neighborhood's football team. They were not no longer searching much for boys 16 & older to lock up just because they were gay anymore. It was a low-priority thing as long as they weren't committing real crimes. Parents had separated & lived in separate houses somewhere else far from my old neighborhood. My old house was demolished to build a school. Home was gone forever. All my brothers moved out on their own or joined the military. My mom & sis lived in a house just a 1/4 mile from the University, but I didn't know that at the time. I graduated from high school just a week before my 16th birthday. By 16 I was putting myself through college there already. Couldn't afford a full degree, I was just taking some classes & courses for a couple years that I wanted (tech & music stuff).
It was a requirement to be a university student to be a member of the Gay Liberation Front at the University too. But I wanted to take the courses anyway. I was on their university radio station, WBFO about twice a month. My sister said she recognized the guy called John on the radio as me right away. I shared a house with other students (all GLF members) & 2 cats just a block from the university.
A few friends & I would often shoot pool at a nearby pool hall, while I never knew my Mom, sis, & dog were living just 2 blocks from it.
By the 1980s after my Mom found out my sister was a lesbian, & most of the male actors she ever liked or had a crush on since she was a kid were gay, she got a lot cooler about that stuff & kept the family together. But after she died, the family splintered back up into their own private conservative groups. After my third oldest brother died, my conservative family distanced themselves even more from me & my sister.
Except for my sister & a couple cousins, the rest of the family won't speak to me unless they have to, because I'm gay... and they don't even know about the crossdressing part. Only my sister knew about that after the fire. The rest of the family won't speak much to my sister & those cousins much either.
I couldn't even get anyone from the family to help me move & settle in the last time I moved for any price. With severe COPD, barely able to make it down stairs, taking 2 weeks to physically carrying everything I could 6 blocks to the new place, & paying strangers to move the rest. Even then, they wanted twice as much to get the stuff up the stairs, so I spent around 30 hours with COPD dragging all my furniture up the stairs all by myself.
I didn't just loose almost everything in the fire, but half of what I replaced during the 5 years after, I had to leave behind because I couldn't physically move it, & only could afford 1 small truckload to move. Moving to the new place with a lease, I needed the first & last month's rent, plus a month's worth in security deposit. With paying for movers too, I had to take out a bank loan to pay for it all. But the real loss was that I had to leave half of what I got after the fire behind.
My sister & cousins aren't in the best of health either, & on a tight budget (all retired). They'd love to help but can do much. I've always had to depend on my employers or former employers more than family. People I worked for really like me. I may have worked for a lot of places over the years, but only worked for 2 employers in the past 36 years, but they owned several businesses over the years. 1 I worked for 20 years, & another for 16. After the last one closed, I tried another place for a couple years but with my COPD getting worse, & the boss being a high-roller druggie I knew that wasn't going to last long.
But it's a sad family if straight employers care more about their gay employee than most of your family care because you are gay.
I was arrested on false charges just before my 19th birthday. My family's reply was to let me rot in prison. I was always a good well behaved kid. Never did anything wrong. I was on the honor role in school every year, & did excellent in college. All my teachers, instructors, & professors liked me. I get along well with everyone I work with. How do I deserve this hate from family just because I'm gay?
My employer called my lawyer, & the boss showed up to bail me out... even loaned me the attorney fees. I was proven in court to be innocent. The cop had it out for me & all gays, so made stuff up to get me. Cop was forced into early retirement after that.
Family is nice. But many of them, if they find out your little secrets, or you have something worth something to them, can viciously turn on you.
Topic: Mary Beth back with us ....? (Read 10251 times)
