“I’m Disappointed In You” – The Worst Words to Hear from a Mother

As you surely know, Christians just finished celebrating Easter Sunday.  This is the first year that I wasn’t at home for Easter, which was a little difficult for my parents.  However, they understood that I had a lot to do this weekend, and just couldn’t make it home.

I was talking to my mom on the phone today, and we began to discuss our plans for the day. Among those plans, I mentioned that I would be going to a Lutheran service with a few friends. She didn’t take this very well. I had told her I was attending church at least somewhat regularly, but I never expressly said I was attending Catholic Mass. Because I wasn’t. Because I didn’t feel welcome there.  She basically informed me how disappointed she is that I’ve dropped my faith and that she just doesn’t understand why I can’t just do the same thing she did, and the same thing her parents did, and the same thing their parents did, etc…

Of course, she doesn’t know that I’m bi, which complicates the “I don’t feel welcome there because of my sexuality” conversation. I have several other grievances with the church, which I explained to her, and I mentioned how I have close friends who are gay, and supporting that church supports discrimination against people I care about.

She was really worked up about it, and we ended the conversation with her saying, “I can’t believe you left the church. I’m so disappointed in you. That disappoints me.”

Happy Easter.

However, since midnight, I found two sources of great support. Michael, who has a great blog here, was the first of these. He left a comment and then wrote a blog entry that was just so wonderfully supportive. I really can’t thank him enough for this; it came on a day I really needed it. And, since I started writing this post, I (of course) got distracted, and ended up checking my twitter, which is here, and found a link to Gene Robinson, the bishop of New Hampshire in the Episcopal church, combined with the Trevor Project’s
“It Gets Better” campaign.  He basically spoke about the ideas and issues I’ve been particularly struggling with (especially this week)regarding my faith and religion.  Check out Gene Robinson and the It Gets Better campaign.

So, the last 24 hours was a roller coaster of positive and negative emotions in my life, and (fortunately) the positive outweighed the negative tenfold today. Thank you to everyone who has been supportive this far. My message to anyone reading this post all the way to the end: Please be actively supportive of people around you, whatever their differences are; today might be the day they need it most.

~Bihidden