Self doubt

I had a conversation yesterday about self doubt.  When I was a kid and we were living in Bakersfield, around Christmas time, my sister accidentally knocked down and broke a lamp.  It was completely by accident.  As soon as it happened I looked at her and she had her hands over her mouth with a look of horror on her face, which is a typical reaction when you accidentally break something.  But then she had a different look on her face, a more devious look.  She looked me directly in my eyes and with a smirk on her face she yelled “MOOOOOOOM!  MICHEL BROKE THE LAMP!”  I couldn’t believe she ratted me out like that.

My sister was trying to avoid trouble for herself, but what she didn’t realize is that by throwing me under the bus like that, she was setting me up for failure for the rest of my life.  I would have defended her because I knew it was an accident, but I don’t think she would have cared because she is a sociopath, yes even as a teenager she was a sociopath.  This is the same person who would chase me with knives when I was 8 or 9 years old when she was babysitting me.  She was supposed to protect me, but she did the opposite.

From that day when she threw me under the bus with the lamp, she started breaking things on purpose and blaming me.  My parents believed her because she was older and I guess they believed that a girl would never lie and boys always lie, so I became a liar.  My mother even gave me the nickname “Liar.”  She would ask me about something and as I was trying to explain what happened, she would interrupt me with “LIAR!”

Whenever I would tell someone what I heard someone say, or what someone said to me about someone or something, even if I wasn’t trying to get them in trouble, they would ask that person about it and they would lie and say they never said it.  Because they refused to cop up to what they said, that made me doubt myself.  Next time it would happen they would say “Are you sure that’s what you heard?”  I would start to doubt myself again.  Yes, that is absolutely what they said to me, then they would lie and naturally I was the asshole because now everyone thought I was lying about what people said to me.

I have been doubting myself my whole life because of people doing that to me.  When I wrote Diary of a Gay Nerd, I was so confident in everything that I wrote that I knew that everything I wrote was absolutely what happened and absolutely what people said.  I have no doubt in my mind.  Naturally, my sister had someone do her dirty work and write a negative review calling me a liar on Amazon, saying that not only did I lie about everything I said in my book, but I wasn’t abused, I was the abuser.  I couldn’t help but laugh when I read that.  I didn’t doubt myself because I knew I was telling the truth.

The reason this came up in conversation is because I believe nearly everything people say.  The reason I believe everything people say is because I know what it’s like to be called a liar constantly and for people to never believe what I say.  I like to see the good in people.  I like to think that I can tell when someone is telling me the truth, because why would someone make up being abused, sexually, mentally or physically?  It’s natural for someone to say they didn’t abuse someone because they know it’s wrong, so naturally I wouldn’t believe them because my parents lied about my abuse.

If someone is going, or has gone through what I just described, just know that you are not alone.  I am sure this goes on everywhere.  If you know you are right, then that is all that matters.  You have to stop letting people get in your head and allow you to doubt yourself because that can negatively affect you for the rest of your life.  You will have low self-esteem and you will probably end up with suicidal thoughts like me.  Don’t succumb to that negativity.

I believe in karma.  What goes around comes around.  If you do negative things, it comes back to you x10 and if you do positive things, it comes back to you x10.  As long as you know you are a good person and you are doing the right things, you don’t have to worry.  If you know someone is acting negatively, then you can count on it coming back to them, so don’t get mad, just know that karma will take care of things for you.  Karma is the best revenge that I can think of.

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My book is therapy for everyone

There seems to be something in the air or maybe the water or perhaps in the stars, I don’t know, but it seems like everyone is picking on me lately.  I posted something on my Facebook profile about how I want to start riding my bike when I get down to a certain weight and I got crap for it.  Someone else insulted something else that I posted.  It’s not just online, people are giving me the rudest looks and strangers are coming up to me and giving me crap for no reason.  Why is everyone picking on me?  So I asked this question on Facebook.

Someone who is not just a friend, but also a fan of the book page responded and we were talking for a few minutes.  Suddenly I was shocked when this was said.

 

As soon as she said that her father cried and said that he loved her more now than ever, I put my hand on my heart and nearly started crying myself.  I was so touched by that.  I knew that my book had helped a few people, but I had no idea that it was helping parents.  I am touched more than anyone could ever know.

I don’t know if it’s my experiences or just talking about my life or things that I as a gay man went through that made him understand what his daughter is going through, but whatever it is, I am glad that it made that big of an impact.

Of course I am not an expert on their relationship, but it can only get better from here on out right?  I’m not a parent, but I am a person who has spent my entire life trying to understand why I am the way that I am and why other people are the way that they are.  It’s not just something that someone woke up one day and decided “today is the day I want to start getting treated unfairly”, that this is just the way we are.  We were born with this.  I as a gay male was born to like other males.  A lesbian was born to like other women.  A bisexual was born to like both sexes (one or the other) and pansexual to just like a person based on their personality whether they are male or female.  Transgendered male to female and female to male is a bit different, but in a sense it’s the same thing.

Anyway, I was touched that she said that her father cried and it began the healing process for them.  This whole conversation made me totally forget about my petty problems because it showed me the bigger picture.  Who cares if a few people are jerks to me, there are people out there with real problems and if my book can help at least one person, then I consider my job done.

So thank you to this person for sharing that with me.  I really hope the healing process goes smoothly because you both deserve to have a real relationship as a parent and child.  It certainly does get better!

Respect Is Earned (Book Excerpt)

Someone posted this image on Facebook today and it reminded me of my childhood, so I thought I would give you a little book excerpt.

This is from Chapter 17 – “Homeless at Fifteen”.  I actually named that chapter after a show that I watched called James at Fifteen, except James wasn’t homeless, I was.

Just before this excerpt, my parents were guilted into letting me back in the house, we actually lived in a trailer park.  Even though it wasn’t technically a house, it was our home.

“My mother lectured me about how much I hated my step-father. She would always tell me that even though he is not my real father, he is still my father. Her exact words were “Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad.” It made me sick that she would tell me that because he was not special at all. I don’t consider a child abuser to be special, or to be a real dad. She gave me that lecture so many times in my life and it pissed me off every time. What pissed me off even more was that my sisters would give me the same lecture, as if they had any right to.

“George came outside to talk to me about respect. He told me that I needed to earn his respect because he had no respect for me. Well, back at’cha fella! I told him that I had no respect for him so we were even. He told me that I had to respect him and I told him that I didn’t think I did. I told him that when he stops punching and hitting me and yelling at me for nothing, then I might respect him, but I don’t think that will ever happen. This conversation didn’t go as well as he had planned. Him telling me that I had to respect him no matter what was bullshit to me because he never once in my life gave me any reason to respect him.

“He thought that I was out of control, but I think what was out of control was how they thought of me. All of the things that they thought I did that I didn’t really do was what lost their respect. All of the smear campaigns against me from my sister and from George himself had made me the enemy and there was never anything I was going to do to change anyone’s minds.

“He deserved my respect as an elder, but that was it. He lost my respect when I was a baby the first time he hit me. As far as I was concerned, he didn’t deserve my respect. As far as I am concerned to this very day, there is no respect earned from either one of us and I don’t expect that will ever happen.”

I would never tell someone to disrespect their elders, or to be disrespectful to their parents, but you can’t help how you feel about someone when all they do is embarrass you, beat you, yell at you and treat you like a second class citizen day-in and day-out your whole life.

Respect is definitely earned and it goes both ways.  You can’t expect your child to respect you when all you do is treat them like garbage.  If you show your child the respect that they deserve, then they will show you the same respect that you also deserve.

Some advice for a fan of my Facebook page

I got an email today that literally broke my heart.  I was asked for some advice and I’m not sure if I gave the best advice, but it was the only thing I could think of that I would have done.  So here is the question.  His name and image have been concealed to protect him. I am calling him “D” because he wants to remain anonymous.

That is really horrible. I am so sorry.

You are still living at home right? Is it because you are a teenager?

I don’t know if my advice is appropriate for your situation but this is what I would do if I were you. I would build the highest brick wall (metaphorically of course). I wouldn’t tell my parents anything that I was doing or who I was with or you know, anything. I would just keep my mouth closed whenever I am around them and not even look at them. When they see how upset you are, they will start to feel bad and try to cheer you up and possibly even apologize to you for the things they have done. It is possible that they won’t, but keep the wall up for as long as you can until you are stable enough to leave, then head for the hills and don’t look back.

Just because your parents are your parents doesn’t mean anything. I haven’t spoken to my step-father or my baby sister in 10 years and my older sister, well we have barely spoken in those same amount of years, but thanks to my book she isn’t speaking to me now. At first I was upset about it because I really didn’t want to lose her, but then I realized that she tortured me throughout my childhood. I was only hanging onto her for the sake of my mother who passed away 19 years ago. She was never really my friend so I don’t have any bad feelings about losing her.

You can start a new life with your boyfriend. Just go with him somewhere else and leave those monsters behind. I don’t mean to speak ill about your parents by calling them monsters but anyone who rapes their child is a monster, and anyone who blames their child for being raped is also a monster. My cousins daughter was raped by her uncle and when he was put in jail for it, she was blamed and told that she was going to be killed for putting an innocent man in prison. She was the one who was innocent, not him. You cannot take the blame for something that you had no control over.

You are a good person, you have to believe that. They are the bad people no matter how they try to spin it. You don’t have to put up with them anymore.

I hope this helps.

Mike McDonald

If anyone else out there has some good advice for “D” please chime in because he needs all the support he can get.

Happy Mother’s Day

Today is the day that we thank our mothers for giving birth and raising us.  To me, Mother’s Day is a day when I try to forgive her for all of the nasty things she did and said to me merely for being born different.  I want to only remember the good times we had before she passed away.

My mother and I weren’t always the best of friends, but she was my mother and I will always love her and I will never forget the great times we shared together.

The picture above is the last picture that I was lucky enough to have taken with her before she died a few months later.  My boyfriend at the time (K.J. in the book) was there, this was the day that my parents met him.  I was so blessed that my mother finally accepted me for being gay and was equally blessed that she accepted my boyfriend.

I love you mom.  I hope you are in a good place :D.