Youth Guide

Leadership & wellness for all youth

Teach Yourself Something This Summer – Why Wait

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The online learning boom is here to stay, and we’re definitely glad for it. With so many LGBT youth feeling out of place in the traditional educational system, why aren’t we standing up and making our own choices? Is it fear? Is it the possibility that others will not accept that we’ve taken learning into our own hands? Don’t get us wrong: if you know that your upcoming career of choice is going to require a degree, then you should definitely reach for one. But if you’re just going to pay a lot of money for a degree that won’t serve you, why not skip it?

If you’re unfamiliar with free online courses, you might assume that they’re going to be low quality, or you won’t learn anything. But did you know that professors from MIT, Harvard, John Hopkins and other top tier schools have developed courses that are free to the public? While they will not give you college credit, they could give you some new understandings about a bunch of different subjects.

online learning

You also get the freedom of not having to show up in an environment where you’re going to be judged. Since it’s online, nobody knows that you’re gay. Of course, you can come out and talk about it but this really isn’t the venue for that type of discussion. It doesn’t really matter if you’re gay, because people aren’t concerned. They’re more concerned about showing up to get the valuable lessons they can use for their own lifelong learning journey. It’s freeing being somewhere that you can just relax, right? Absolutely!

Online learning isn’t always going to be easy. Sometimes the work might sound unclear, or you’re going to have to do more research than what you might be used to in a traditional school environment. Don’t get discouraged; see it as a challenge to branch out into subjects you don’t know much about. [Read more…]

Codependency and Gay Youth

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Do you feel like it’s impossible to actually get anything done in your life because you feel like you have to take care of other people? Does it always feel like just as you start moving forward, other people have to drag you down? Do you feel hopeless, like nothing you ever do will come out right because someone will just come along and break it? Friends, you might be dealing with codependency.

A lot of gay youth actually come from homes that are less than stellar, and that’s okay. I’m from a dysfunctional family myself. What I’ve learned is that I can’t really function unless I’m fixing the problems that other people leave in my midst. That’s a tough way to live, because it means that you’re controlling other people. Even though you might feel that they can’t take care of themselves and they require you to fix it, you really are mistaken here. See, when we step in and take over other people’s responsibilities, we’re making them dependent on that service for the long run. It’s not that they can’t function, but that they simply choose not to function very well. It makes a lot more sense to take the path of worrying about your own life.

codependency

I think that codependency strikes gay youth harder because we feel like we “have to” fix everything even more, since we’re the “weird ones”. We’re the ones in the family that “aren’t right”. This is a bad way to live, because it means that you’re basically apologizing for being gay. With every action that you do to save someone in your family, you’re apologizing for being gay.

Friends, there’s no need to apologize for being who you are. What needs to happen is that you stand up for yourself and really look at the life that you’ve created. What type of life would you really lead if you weren’t worried about what everyone thinks about you? What type of pleasure would you get out of life if you didn’t have to stop and fret about what other people do with their time? How would you feel if you could focus on your own burdens rather than feeling like you have to carry the entire world on your shoulders?

There are ways out. Try to look for a therapist that works with LGBT youth, or LGBT people in general. Regular therapists might work, but they may have a bias against you, or try to indirectly shame you for being who you are. There are lists of gay-friendly therapists in just about any city.

Remember our post about building your own gay support team? If nothing else, this is one of the biggest reasons why you need a support group around you. Because when you aren’t able to set your own boundaries, you need someone confident enough to do it for you until you develop that skill. Notice the difference: they’re not going to be propping you up forever. There will come a time where you have to spread your own wings and fly to your own rhythms. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it just means that you have to look at more than just what’s pleasant. This path can be rough, but don’t worry: we have you covered.

The next post will go more in depth to looking for LGBT youth friendly therapists. Stay tuned!

Your Gay Support Team Awaits

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Trying to be a gay youth on your own, with no support group, is downright insanity. I know that most will tell you to just toughen up and go it alone but this is a bad idea for a lot of different reasons. For starters, you need to realize that if you try to go on your own, you’re just setting the scene to be disappointed. It actually makes a lot more sense to focus on building the right team. Unfortunately, chances are good that nobody’s really taught you about the type of support team that you’re supposed to actually have. You can’t just go with anyone. I hate to break it to you, but not everyone is looking out for you. Not everyone is worried about your success. You have to be able to move forward and embrace a brighter future than that. It’s okay if you’re having some second thoughts, or you’re really worried about the future. It’s just a matter of letting go and letting things unfold as they’re going to unfold.

Support

Trying to control your support team is a bad idea. Trust me, there are going to be times where your support team says something that you absolutely disagree with. You’ll hate even hearing about it, but they’re going to tell you anyway. And that’s the first step to getting a support team in place. You need to pick people who aren’t just going to agree with everything you do. That’s not support, that’s enabling. What you must do instead is to look at the type of people that are going to be able to stand up for you. We are attacked by many voices around the gay community, but that doesn’t mean that they’re right. Your support team can tell you who is worth listening to, and who is just…well, noise.

Another point that you’ll want to think about is the type of skills your support team has naturally. If they’re not really interested in helping you, then they are going to bog you down in some pretty rough ways. It’s better that you get a support team that really has the skills to lift your life up from every corner. You want to move? Having somebody in your network with a truck helps! What about when it’s time to look for a job? You want to move with people that are truly movers and shakers. Even though you might be young, there’s still a lot to think about. Just leaving it up in the air doesn’t work out at all.

Think long and hard on who you really want within your support term, and then go from there.

Bringing Gay Partners Home for the Holidays

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Are you looking at trying to go home for the holidays? If you really love your family, you probably dream about a warm, comfortable evening at home with the people that matter most to you. However, in the gay community we don’t have the luxury of just assuming your families are going to accept everything about us. Unfortunately, we have to deal with the potential for major conflict.

If you’ve just recently come out as a gay person, you might struggle with the decision to go home for the holidays, let alone actually bring your gay partner with you. Whether you’re the other half of a gay couple, or a lesbian couple, or a bisexual couple, you have to think about all parties involved. Even though you might feel the urge to just bring home your special someone regardless of what your family thinks…this is the wrong idea, for many reasons. If your family is hostile to the idea of same sex relationships, they’re not going to treat your partner with the kindness, respect, and grace that they deserve. Could you really sit there while your family talks about your partner behind their back, or otherwise shuts them out of the flow of conversation?

Gay couple holding hands

I had a girlfriend for a time and we couldn’t go around her family. They made sure to let me know in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t welcome, that they didn’t approve of my relationship with their relative. That’s a hard battle to win. Sure, they might tolerate you in time but you don’t want to just have tolerance. You want to have acceptance. You want to have love as time goes on. If you’re constantly chasing some idea of acceptance by just hanging around until they break down, this isn’t a good idea either. You need to still consider that sometimes, families just don’t heal the way you want them to heal. They don’t do what you want them to do. And while you may love them, the best remedy is often to put a lot of distance between you and them.

This is the best way to make sure that you’re on the right side of the line in terms of your own sanity. Pushing a gay partner on your family as a surprise isn’t a good idea even when your family is accepting. Logistics in families is a touchy topic. There might not be enough resources to go around, and adding an extra person that wasn’t announced can be troublesome.

So where do you really go from here? You need to sit down had have a good discussion with your family several weeks before you plan to visit them. See where they are at emotionally. If they are still feeling from you revealing that you’re LGBT, and then they aren’t going to be receptive to your partner.

You may go home and find that they do not allow you and your partner to sleep in the same bed. Even though this is annoying, frustrating, and a bit outdated, the reality is that it’s your parents’ house, not your house. You cannot dictate terms to a house where you don’t live there regularly. You have to go with what they want and what they feel is best. Try to handle it politely, even though it might make you upset. Besides, just think about all of the hot gay action you can get when you’re back in your regular place!

The time is right to be open, up front, direct, and honest with your family about your lifestyle. Be prepared for questions, but really? We’re coming to the point where even the most conservative of conservatives has at least one gay friend. Times are truly changing!

Supporting a Family Member That Recently Came Out

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When we’re dealing with our own issues as gay people, we can forget how important it is to support our fellow gays at every single turn. Indeed, if you’re just hoping that everything will fall into place for a gay family member that just came out of the closet, you have a lot to learn. The experience of coming out is different for everyone. If you had a great experience, then you might not realize how hard it is when others don’t have as good of an experience as you do. It’s time to make absolutely sure that you’re standing by the family member, and there’s ways to make it work.

First and foremost, you need to let them own the conversation. It’s very tempting to start teaching, or preaching, and that’s not the attitude that we need to cultivate here. You need to be the personal that goes with the flow and treats this all as very normal. Now, this doesn’t mean that you get to cut them off mid-sentence or assume that you understand all of their pain. Even though both of you are gay people, your experiences are going to be naturally different.

Supporting a Family Member

It’s going to be difficult not to make assumptions about what happened, or any type of fallout related to the issue. Some people will have a problem being this open and honest, while others will handle it very well. The way you handle it says a lot about your own skills, of course.

Are you looking to spend more time with the family member that came out? Believe it or not, they might not want to talk that much about being gray. Don’t try to force the issue or tell them about the power of counseling. If they are a grown person, they know what types of resources are out there for them. You can remind them a couple of times, but you just need to step out of their space as quickly as possible. That’s going to be the key to getting things done in a big way.

While you’re sitting here thinking about all of your plans, you might as well think some about your hope for the future as far as it relate to your relative. Do you have children that you need to include in this person’s life? Do you work together with a family member? If so, you may need to help them work through what they’re going to say at the office, if they choose to say anything at all.

Now is the perfect time to look at how you can truly be a shining member of the gay community.