Several years ago I was desperate, I was in my third attempt to come out into the LGBTQIA+ community. I was fifty, married, mother of four, and a minister. I had struggled with my sexual orientation for most of my life, as glimpses of it would pop up like a “jack in the box” when I least expected it. A beautiful woman, a sexy lesbian love scene, a glimpse of two women holding hands, and as I recognize in hindsight a longing to find and be with my people.
I googled “later in life lesbian” and found a blog written by another woman who claimed this identity. As typical, I immediately tucked this information away and did nothing with it. This coming out later in life “stuff” is truly a back and forth process. A couple of months later, I screwed up the courage and emailed the author. I shared my story, for the first time, with a stranger about my struggles of thinking I am gay, yet I was still married to a man. I was embarrassed and dealing with the shame of being gay (my own internalized homophobia) and wanting to leave a marriage to a “good guy”. A perfectly adequate husband, good provider, parental partner, and generally genial human being. You can read my story here.
When I entered this lifesaving secret Facebook group, I immediately was surrounded by people who shared very similar stories to mine, many of them married and with kids. I was gobsmacked, astounded, and gleeful. Profound gratitude filled my being for days and I could barely work as I read stories over and over again of people who got it. Before joining I thought I was the only one. I soon found out I was not.
Over the next two years, this group was my confidants, cheerleaders and sympathizers. They understood what it meant to be outed, to divorce, to tell people that I was gay after living a straight life, and to watch my constructed identity and world fall apart. They knew what it was like to finally feel loved in the way I needed to be loved, to have sex with a woman for the first time, and to finally experience joy and passion in a way I never did before. They also witnessed my world coming back together in a new and profoundly filling way for me. The collective group was both my home and my safe haven. I am so grateful to the leaders for setting the ethos of the group to make sure we all felt safe. Yet I also knew it wasn’t any one individual, but the collective power of the group that was created by the love, stories, and strength of hundreds of courageous people.
Watching others struggle helped me form the support groups I now facilitate. I had worked in hospice for the past decade and I am a grief counselor. Ironically I didn’t recognize my own grief until six months after entering this group. It hit me with a blunt force punch when I realized that my wild mood swings, inability to eat or sleep, was due to the fact I was grieving so many things, the loss of marriage, the changes in my family, and my job. I am a chaplain and I was the face of the hospice where I worked. Once I came out the executive director no longer would use me in that role. When I recognized my own grief it was so much easier to give myself grace and let myself “feel the feelings.”
It was not a surprise to me when the founders of the group decided to archive this group on Facebook. Along with others, we had worked together facilitating the in-person conferences that were held in Nashville and I served as a former moderator of this group. I know how much effort and thought they have put in to grow the group to over 2,000 members. It was a lot of very hard and unpaid dedicated work. I completely understand, at the end of the day, it is their right to close down the group. I am happy that the group will be archived because I do like to go back and read my earlier posts.
I also know that although they were the facilitators of the group, this group was maintained by the love and steadfastness of its members. In other words, this group grew beyond the founders, much like a beloved institution or a church. It is painful to hear that it will no longer exist and it will leave an empty space for many people.
Although I am beyond the beginning part of the journey, if this were five years ago, I would be devastated. I might even feel betrayed. In many ways, for some of us, it is also mimicking what is going on in our personal lives. We might feel shocked and saddened by a soon to be ex-spouse, children, a lover, even a government who are behaving in a manner we never expected. The one safe place we had to go, now no longer feels safe and soon will no longer be there, much like our marriages or relationships that are changing.
When I worked as a grief counselor I found the analogy of the grief glass helpful to process when it all feels like it is “too much.” Many of us in our coming out group are grieving many losses and a lot of change. Adding the loss of the group to our “grief glass” causes it to overflow and it all feels like it is too much. I encourage all of us to feel these challenging emotions and allow the time to grieve the loss of our group. Find others who understand to talk about the changes, you have the right to your feelings, whatever they may be.
I know there are many people, inspired by our later in life and other groups, willing to take on the role of caring for our now dispersing family. I have such a group, that I created in 2018, that is modeled after the first later in life group but also not the same, which to me is a good thing because we can never duplicate anything fully, can we? Make sure the group you chose is right for your needs and includes your interests.
If you are in the beginning of questioning your sexual orientation or in the first stages of coming out it is helpful to have people in the group who have travelled this road before you or who are existing members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Why? Because they can normalize this experience and assure it will all be ok when our worry and anxiety gets the best of us. Honestly, it takes a while not to feel like a stranger in a strange land.
As most of us know from experience, endings are painful but they also can be the birth pangs of beginnings. It is in retrospect that we can see one conclusion leads us someplace else, often some place we really needed to go.
Courage my friends, it will truly be all ok.
Anne-Marie Zanzal, M.Div is a blogger, writer, speaker and coming out coach. She provides individual coaching, mutual support groups, and a secret Facebook group for people coming out later in life.
Reach out to her at amzanzal@gmail.com if you would like more information about the Facebook group or her coaching services.
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