Yo Cousin Butchie!

I am 16 y.o. and I came out to my parents six months ago. It was not a wonderful scene as we argued back and forth about my life. I was told that I was doing this to aggravate them- that I am condemned by society and most faiths- that I was being a very bad influence on my siblings. To show how irrational they became, they also said that they didn't know how I could possibly be a good baseball and soccer player.  

I was forced to agree to see a shrink. They made an appointment for me with an Indian psychiatrist who doesn't speak English too well and gives me a pep talk on changing my same-sex attraction and about my unnatural desires. The sessions are about fifteen minutes and I leave with a prescription for an anti-psychotic drug. My parents don't know that I never take it.  I dump them down the toilet.o Oe by one at the usual dose times.  

I have boyfriends but no one serious at this point in my life. I feel abandoned. The fact that I am rejected by this whack-a-do Pyschiatrist and by my parents is distressing.

HELP!!!

Dear HELP,

You are not seeing the right doctor, and I think you realize the need to change. The keys to recognizing and incompetent psychiatrist are:

They don't comprehend that the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association have removed GLBT people from their list of people with intrinsic disorders. They will sometimes suggest reparative therapy which is another failing approach. When these doctors talk to you they use terms like "same-sex attraction" and "homosexuality/homosexual" and they never use the LGBT/GLBT identifiers. Add a Q onto the identifiers and they get nasty. Giving you anti-psychotic drugs seems to be not acting in your best interests.

There are several groups which fraudulently claim "cures" among their patients. They have never been proven correct. Courage (and EnCourage for the parents) is a group for Christian gay people and their parents. The Jewish equivalent is called JONAH and has the same unethical and damaging ways to attempt a transformation to heterosexual.

I would suggest that you attend a meeting of PFLAG- Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays for initial support. Then invite your parents to a meeting where there will be parents who will listen and offer positive answers.

School starts soon, and I suggest you find a guidance counselor in whom you can confide. Ask him to help you come to terms with your parents. He/she may even arrange a meeting with a legitimate psych professional who can offer your family guidance.

Let me know if you need specific times and locations of meetings... and one chapter has a gay male facilitator who can and will "speak" with you in person or online.

Let me know how it goes.