|
|
|
timmy
|
 |
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
We got a scanner for Christmas. We bought ourselves a 'house present'.
The thing is, I find some of the pictures very upsetting. They show an 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 year old boy who was "just an ordinary kid", though brought up in the rather austere regime of the 1950s and early 1960s.
He looks happy, untroubled, a normal boy.
I look at this boy and wonder how my parents can have made me so frightened that I couldn't tell them when the sky fell on me at 13 and I fell in love with a boy. I was so very afraid of what they would do to me.
He wasn't a 'good boy', nor especially naughty. He was just an ordinary little kid, confidently expecting to be heterosexual, and so needing his parents to help him.
I have not shed a tear for either of them after their deaths, but, just somehow, the anger I have seems to be the grief I have. These people should not have had children.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Amazing how similar our lives can be if we did but know. It's no wonder that our attitudes change so that the older we get we start thinking, 'Why did this have to happen to me?'
We also wonder where the help was when we needed it. Today things are a little better, though not much. Maybe the boys like us will be accepted more readily in another 100 years or so... but I wonder...? :-/
mike
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
The last 40 years has been enormous progress. Today's kids have us and our predecessors to thank for the somewhat easier ride they have. Future generations, especially since McCain and Palin were not elected in the USA, will find it easier by a substantial margin.
"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills....
From whence cometh my help?"
That was a scream of "Where the heck does my help come from!!!!!!!!!!!", not a statement about the direction of the aid. It is a real scream of pain and torment.
Those pictures of me as a little kid make me angry that my own parents could have been part of making me so unhappy and afraid.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Timmy, you wrote:
>These people should not have had children.<
This is writing yourself out of ever having existed. That's a terrible thought. You could have mollified it with "These people should not have children."
Hugs
Nigel
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
Not really that terrible. Life is full of other possibilities. I don't matter enough to "need" to have ever been alive.
Much of my life is pleasant, but sufficient is unpleasant to mean that it is more than balanced out by the crap.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dear Timmy,
I'm sorry you feel like that. Like Nigel I feel that you are harsh on yourself and on your parents. I'm harsh on my parents too.
Did they give you reason to fear as you did? Were they not rather like mine and did what was conventional to care for their children but without much demonstration of emotion (never mind love!).
Just as wishing you weren't gay is to wish you weren't you, I think that Nigel is right that wishing your parents not to have had children is to wish yourself out of existence. And then the question is "What makes someone's existence worth while?"
And your answer to that is to say that it wasn't a wonderful existence for you. But I think you have done a lot to improve their existence for other people. A lot of people are grateful to you. And surely you can look back on good times too? As the life of Brian has it "Always look on the bright side of life!"
I'm not trying to encourage you to be self-satisfied but just to take a less one-sided view of your life and perhaps to be a bit better reconciled to how things have gone.
Total despair doesn't seem to me to suit the smiling friendly man I met on 1 December last.
Love,
Anthony
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
Oh I am not in despair. Nor am I harsh on myself. I am angry that two people could raise a perfectly ordinary kid and make him terrified to talk to them.
It is a paradox that my statement that these two people should never have had children does not wish me out of existence. But, looked at with logic, while their never having had children would have been wholly appropriate, I cannot wish myself out of existence, nor do I.
The miscarriages my mother had do not exist. The sundry sexual acts they had did not produce offspring. Those people are the ones that do not exist.
Had I not existed then I would not have existed. Sum ergo cogito.
I didn't wish I were not gay, though it would have been mightily convenient not to be. My father hated queers. My mother had imperfections cured. They had no concept of affection and yet professed love. My mother was an emotionless woman.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Interesting, Timmy. I think my father was the emotionless one yet he did his 'duty' by his family and his mother.
I'm sure he didn't hate queers; he worked in the BBC where there were and are many and the trustee he appointed for the educational trust fund he set up for my brother and me was homosexual and he knew it. It was Cedric Cliffe who was a night fighter navigator who fell in love with his rear gunner. [No joke intended!] The only way I could have known that is from my father.
OK my logic isn't good enough! Of course you don't wish yourself out of existence but if they had never had children how would their life have changed? Such a change would have been so great as to make it hard to see what their lives would have been like after it.
I think I was luckier with my parents than you were - but only by a whisker.
Love,
Anthony
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
Their lives would not have changed much, not in any great manner. But they would not have inflicted their aridity (is that a word) on a child.
They would have lost a few things:- The joy (for them? no idea) of watching a child grow
- the ability to present that child as the epitome of perfection, like a china doll in a display cabinet
- status. "our son is at a Public School"
You have to understand that we were "better than everyone else" in their heads. She was a social climber and he was more English than the English, with refugee syndrome.
They would have gained money and been able to choose to live more comfortably. But then we did live comfortably, albeit without a well heated house (choice again).
It was a desolate childhood, only rescued by wonderful neighbours who gave me free run of their home and the companionship of their Irish Setter. They taught me basic woodwork, taught me how to make friends with the boys who came to stay with them, let me climb their trees, let me graze my knees.
Even school was not a relief. I was an inadequate child at my prep school, and at Epsom was too stupid to reinvent myself because I had no idea I could!
These were truly not people who should have had control of a cat, let alone a child.
[Updated on: Fri, 02 January 2009 14:38]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, Timmy, mine were snobs and my father was born in France of Colombian parents so they were similar to yours in that respect.
And the fact that they couldn't present me and my brother as the epitome of perfection was a sorrow to them. I never felt I could come up to their expectations. Even when I was awarded a scholarship to Oriel I felt inadequate about it! And it took a long time for the ingrained snobbery to wear off so that I could begin acting like a member of the human race.
One of my partners in crime - the Reverend J R Porter - used to refer to them as "that nest of vipers where you grew up" and I always thought he was just being cynical or even jealous! Interesting how one's opinions change!
Love,
Anthony
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
Mine lied. I failed my degree. They told the family that I had passed. I did not get the 3 A grades at A Level my mother insisted to all that I got (even though she photocopied the certificates), but she even lied to herself.
I was the child dressed in school uniform at weddings and christenings to show off. I was made into a china doll, and imperfection was rooted out or beaten out.
I imagine they interpreted this as loving me.
That is not an environment to get any support in. They never supported me with school, so what on earth would they have done with emotional needs?
This is the woman who asked 17 year old me "Do you masturbate, dear" and said to 18 year old me "We're glad you're going out with girls, dear. Your father and I wondered if you might be going to become a ho-mo-sex-ual."
She denied those things in later years, naturally.
She was not a natural mother.
[Updated on: Fri, 02 January 2009 15:01]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wow! I do understand how the Larkin quote is appropriate, Timmy.
My mother, too was an inveterate liar (and in that she took after her mother) who was well known for it in the family. Her motto was never to let the truth stand in the way of a good story.
But she laid poison down by lying to my brother about what I said about him and lying to me about what he and his wife said about me and she kept us apart for over twenty years. When my father died my brother took her to France (where he lived) to get over it and I visited his house for the first time when I went to bring her back and that was when we discovered about the lies. She was alone in the house when we arrived and she wouldn't let us in! Later she said "Things were all right until you two got together!"
But of course a twenty year estrangement isn't cured in a day. I never did get on with my brother.
But I was lucky: I only 'nearly' failed my degree! But the emotional turmoil you had at fifteen I had at 21 and it lasted more or less the whole three years I was at Oriel and I ended up with a third and I doubt whether I deserved it.
Love,
Anthony
[Updated on: Fri, 02 January 2009 16:27] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
And I've just seen on one of the slides why I could never run fast at prep school. There is a photo of maybe 10 year old me, in games kit. They let me get FAT.
You have no idea the terrible diet they allowed me to have, bolstered by gold top fullest possible fat milk. No vegetables, no potato.
What was wrong with a real diet and letting me fit in? I could hardly eat school food, it was alien to me. Others may have found it disgusting, I found it unrecognisable.
And they still let me get fat. Not obese, but fat nonetheless.
I always thought I was skinny as a kid, but now I see why running was an evil chore.
[Updated on: Fri, 02 January 2009 18:24]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Amazing! I'm glad to say, Timmy, that I'm as overweight now as I ever was. Of course wartime rationing meant that until the early 1950s I was actually thin. Rationing only ended in 1953! I was 16 in December 1950. Then I went in the navy in 1953 and to university in 1955 where I rowed in the first eight although I only weighed ten stones! I was FIT!
Are you willing to 'release any of your early pictures?
Love,
Anthony
[Updated on: Fri, 02 January 2009 20:34] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
I'm not against releasing them, but I need to tidy them up first.
When I was 18 I was 5'9" and 10 stone (140lbs). Lack of sufficient funds for decent food led me to getting porky at university.
Porked would have been better.
[Updated on: Fri, 02 January 2009 22:11]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Snap! - well, almost, Timmy,
when I was 18 I was 5'8½" and 10 stone.
Love,
Anthony
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
What scanner did you get, and did it work well? I seem to have promised to buy a slide scanner for my Mum's birthday in April, and my brother and I will be taking a long weekend to go through the hundreds of slides from our childhood and sort them out, so I'm interested in your experiences and comments!
Incidentally, I seem to have had the reverse weight thing ... I was six foot, 10 1/2 stone from the age of 19 to 22. Then I dropped two stone on my overland trip from India in 1977, and only put back one stone when I got back. So I stayed at 9 1/2 stone as my adult weight - and I'm now back there, although I did put on a couple of stone in the couple of years I managed to be a non-smoker!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
It came from I Want One Of Those, and has the generic title of "Digital Film and Slide Scanner".
It is as good as the quality of the slides (usually poor), has a 5megapixel sensor (all you need)
It's laborious and adequate for the job. About £70
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I didn't get any message from my parents about homosexuality one way or the other. I don't recall the subject ever coming up. They were pretty good parents, I think. But I would have been mortified to ever even broach the subject with them. Utah in the late 50's and early 60's was extremely homophobic - hell, they still haven't changed all that much. I remember seeing some church documents (Mormon) recommending electroshock treatments to cure homosexuality! And boys who were even slightly effeminate in school were tormented.
All in all, it was my own choice to stay closeted: but it was out of fear. I think I would probably have gotten some sympathy and understanding from my Mom. I came out to my Dad when he was in his 80's and he said that he and Mom had always known. Still, he seemed a scary figure to a boy just turned teenager. Just the thought of what he may have said or done was enough to keep me mum. It's funny how we can allow our fears to hold us prisoner. I sacrificed happiness for safety. But I did it on my own and can't really point the finger at anyone else... well, apart from society as a whole I suppose.
I'm sorry you had such a disappointing set of parents, Timmy. You surely have our permission to treat your inner child with all the love and respect he didn't receive earlier. We certainly love that boy that was you... we love the man too.
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
I know part of my fear was self imprisonment, of course it was. But my mother was the electroshock recommender.
Since I ended up as a parent myself I've tried very hard indeed to be a great dad. My son tells me I've done ok.
Must be that inner child of mine taking control. I just wish I could get my own life right, but it is as right as it is ever going to be. I need to learn to be content with imperfection. After all, aren't all partnerships imperfect in some manner?
I've stopped being angry over the pictures of the little kid. Well, almost at least.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Remember that if you love / like someone, anyone, you do so either because of or despite their faults. One should never forget to apply that to oneself.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Before I can forgive myself for my faults, Nigel, I really need someone to help me explore them to make quite sure I haven't missed any and that they are all well oiled and in good order.
At present I rather like some of my faults, which may mean that I am getting them confused with my virtues (which I don't boast about!) indeed I'm not too sure about them either.
Love,
Anthony
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
I am ok with myself. I just cannot get to grips with the people whom I was meant to trust and be loved by unconditionally.
When I hear of kids being thrown out of home I know that would not have happened to me. Instead I would have been fried in a nut house.
There were 5 huge asylums in Epsom, and two or three more in Banstead. We are speaking of 2,000 bed asylums full of people like unmarried mothers, sent there because they had to be kept out of sight, and as a punishment.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It is just possible, Timmy, that it was all talk and no trousers. Maybe she wouldn't have had you fried. If there is some doubt I'd think it would enable you to forgive more easily.
Love,
Anthony
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
She committed her younger sister for it. Twice.
And, when I asked her, she failed to say the simple words "Of course not. I would never have done that."
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Oh dear! I wouldn't have done that to my younger brother, even! What on earth was the trouble with her younger sister? And I guess it must have been well on in life or their parents would have been the people involved.
And it must have been near the end of the time when frying people's brains was a conventionally respectable treatment.
Just as you were surrounded by the south London mental hospitals, I was, when we lived in St Albans, by the north London group. Stanmore and London Colney (Colney Hatch) and so on. Odd how mental hospitals clustered together.
Love,
Anthony
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
The younger sister suffers from depression and has occasional nervous breakdowns (odd thing, that, such an imprecise definition).
The whole family is odd.
The LCC clustered its lunatic asylums for convenience, cheapness and remoteness from relatives. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsom_Cluster
I grew up in terror of these weird places even before I knew I could be headed to one similar. The unpleasant irony is that my mother spent one of her final months in the New Epsom And Ewell Cottage Hospital, in the most remote part of the grounds of the West Park Hospital. So I had to visit a place of terror in order to do my duty and comfort her during her last days.
I imagine she would have done her duty and kept away while they were frying me.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
acam wrote:
> And it must have been near the end of the time when frying people's brains was a conventionally respectable treatment.
I cannot let this go by without comment. The image of "frying" people's brains with electricity brings to mind those devices that zap insects to death, when they fly through a high-voltage wire grid.
ECT does not fry anything, nor does it destroy tissue. I think people sometimes confuse ECT with lobotomies. ECT induces a seizure and increases the level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the blood. The mechanism for how this helps with depression is not very well understood. It is still used today as a treatment for major depression, when other treatments have failed. Possible side effects can include some loss of long-term memory; these have been decreased with advances in ECT.
Kitty Dukakis swears by ECT. She wrote a book about it, which I read when someone close to me was considering it.
Peter
As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasureable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.
[Updated on: Mon, 05 January 2009 21:07]
"Tu non altro che il canto avrai del figlio, o materna mia terra..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
Just what I wanted, of course, to have a seizure induced.
Yes, that sounds great.
They also used Aversion Therapy with electricity.
Put simply they loved to torture gay men and boys.
So my mother would have been happy to have electrically induced seizures in her son. They did not use any anaesthesia in those days, they just played with electricity. Great.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy wrote:
> Just what I wanted, of course, to have a seizure induced.
>
> Yes, that sounds great.
>
> They also used Aversion Therapy with electricity.
>
> Put simply they loved to torture gay men and boys.
>
> So my mother would have been happy to have electrically induced seizures in her son. They did not use any anaesthesia in those days, they just played with electricity. Great.
timmy, I did not intend any of my comments about ECT as a justification for what your mother did, or would have liked to do, with to you. I was so busy going on my tangent about ECT that I forgot to make that clear. I am sorry for that omission.
The use of any psychiatric technique to cure homosexuality is completely unethical.
As for anesthesia, I don't know whether it is used even today. The patient loses consciousness, even without it. General anesthesia carries its own risks and should be avoided when possible.
peter
"Tu non altro che il canto avrai del figlio, o materna mia terra..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
… wasn't she a Russian princess?
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I hate to think of the agonies undergone by anyone who had therapy like that. It sounds like experimentation undertaken in the concentration camps during the last war.
But think this: If you had never had been, this board would never have been. And that would be a great pity. 
Mike:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
They do use it today. I imagine the screams were too much to bear.
I also have a friend who was instructed to give himself the electric shocks when he saw arousing pictures. he was 13.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
timmy
|
|
Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13778
|
|
|
It would. And yet if I had been raised differently this board would never have been either.
I hope, fondly, that someone else would have created something similar.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yes - aversion therapy.
When I was young the whole of society was a sort of aversion therapy machine, or so it felt to me.
And it worked to the extent that I really didn't want to be gay and nor did any of the other gay people I knew.
G2 today has an article about a gay rugby referee. My friend Ian Lyon used to say rugby was a homosexual fertility rite!
Stonewall is trying to make it possible for sportsmen of other kinds to come out. The world is still changing quite rapidly.
Love,
Anthony
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The thing is from what I have heard from others their treatment differed from my own experience to a great extent. I was drugged but I think they were psychoactive substances, not anesthesia. I do know that in my experience they tried to induce a selective amnesia. This was in 1966 when I was 11 just shy of my 12 birth day. As I have said before it was not a pleasant experience and a waste of time as in the end it did little to alter my sexual orientation, the thing is though now I don’t know who I would have been if this hadn’t taken place.
Then again I am not unhappy with who I am becoming despite the arrogance of a child psychologist that believed he knew the human mind well enough to screw with it!
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
|
|
|
|
|
Goto Forum:
|
] 
A Place of Safety
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
