Straight to Gay (eBook)

Coming Out Saved My Life Creating Joy and Health

Audrey Kouyoumdjian (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018 | 1. Auflage
200 Seiten
10-10-10 Publishing (Verlag)
978-1-77277-220-3 (ISBN)

Infos

If hundreds of people thought that your life was so fascinating that you had to write a book, would you? That's what I did. I had a story inside of me that was bursting to get out. My life was just like yours in so many ways, and reading this might just stir up your own memories. My life was very different than yours in ways you would never recognize. (but even my best friends didn't know it, because I was so afraid to tell) While loving two people, I was consumed by passion and heart-breaking struggles at the same time. I kept deep dark secrets because of fear, thinking they would protect me, and those around me, forever. My secrets turned to sickness and a desperate need to change my life. Continuing my journey, I finally arrived at a place that I had been searching for. I went from Straight to Gay.This book will help you better understand that by revealing secrets, and being yourself, you open the door to your new world of joy and health.

Textauszug

Chapter 1

Making Sense of it All

What’s in a Journey?

Once upon a time is the beginning of a fairy-tale. This is, by far, not a fairy-tale, because it’s not a fantasy but very real. It’s an unexpected story of everyday life, with unfamiliar lesbian love and unspeakable desire, fearful sickness and dark despair, helpless struggle, divorce, and needed change, with the ultimate gift of discovery and enlightened growth. This is my story of 60 years. It’s the story of what I remember—my experiences, my emotions, and my memories—most of which I have seldom shared.

Most recently, when I have revealed some brief highlights of my life, I’m asked many questions with a sincere interest in my sharing every detail. I sometimes feel embarrassed and uncomfortable just thinking about some of the choices I had made. My lesbian love life, while married to my husband, was a deeply hidden secret for over 20 years. I didn’t speak about my Multiple Sclerosis because I didn’t want to give it a life. I still don’t. I’ve struggled, and I’ve made adjustments that I would’ve never expected to make. And now, because I’ve worked through my life’s challenges, I’ve experienced so much, and I’m ready to share what I’ve learned.

Not once, not twice but many times, I can remember wanting something, and while working hard to get it, the feedback has been more discouraging than encouraging. I was told not to apply to be a physiotherapist because “there is too much competition.” After having been a physiotherapist for years, I was advised not to open my own physiotherapy clinic because “no one would pay for the treatment here in Canada.” Even my doctors told me, “Do not open your own clinic; it will be too much work with your disease,” and “Do not have children; you will not be able to take care of them.” When I finally got the courage to tell my best friends my secrets, after years of being in the closet, they had warned me not to share with anyone that I was a lesbian. They said that it would be too risky, and I would lose the love of my children, my family, and all of my friends. My lawyer assured me that divorce is always nasty, and ends in constant fighting. Another dear friend said, “You can’t have everything you want, so quit being so happy and positive to think that you can.”

I can successfully work around and through my challenges. I’m grateful that I’m working through my journey. I’ve been told that many people around the world would do anything to switch places with me, stand in my shoes, and live the life that I now live. I sincerely believe this to be true, and can’t be more thankful for living my healthy, abundant, and authentic life. I experience tremendous amounts of joy, everyday in my life, because of the unconditional love, loyalty, and dedication of my immediate, blended, and extended family and true friends, from near and far, which I’ve worked so hard to foster.

I see that my genetic make up, family life, education, hardships, losses, and good and bad times, have been my best teachers, leading me through my journey toward creating true joy and better health. I feel that I have a story that needs to be told. I feel that there are many people who would relate to my story, and who would like to know that they are not alone. While reading my story, I want you to be inspired to live the life you were born to live, and create your own true joy and health.

Be real, and focus on your dreams. Visualize often, to really see them. Work hard to create them. And know, deep in your heart, that anything and everything is possible.

Armenians Striving for the American Dream

It’s 1957, during the baby boom generation, and I thought growing up then couldn’t be sweeter. I was born the youngest daughter of 3 girls, and I strongly remember always being adored and deeply cared for by my parents and sisters; as a matter of fact, I was for sure the favourite. I should mention that each of my sisters thought they were the favourite too. I was always happy and smiling, and didn’t have a care in the world. My father, born in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1923, was of Armenian decent. At the age of 19, he was told he had to join the Turkish army. My grandmother, being frantically afraid to lose her eldest son to war, strapped a money belt to my father’s waist band, and sent him on his own to the United States of America. He immigrated to the USA, and earned his university degree in engineering, with the ambition of climbing the corporate ladder in order to provide a good life for his family.

Typical of the 1950s, my father worked hard each day, and was home by six o’clock, while my mother happily stayed home to cook, clean, shop, and care for us. I always saw my parents as loving, loyal, and caring, and I always wanted to be just like them, and to follow in their footsteps. As a child, I had never realized what an abundant life I had. I thought I was just like everyone else that I saw, and I thought every family was just like mine. I do remember my mother once saying that when she was growing up in the 1920s and 30s, she didn’t have much money, or many things, but her family wasn’t poor. Happily, they did their best with what they had. I had always felt like I had more than enough, and I thought that I had the exact same things that everyone else had.

I was born in Detroit, Michigan, a diverse city, yet I can’t remember being aware that people had different skin colour, or that people were liked or not liked because of their religion, or where they were born, or because they were different looking. If it was talked about, I didn’t place much importance on it. By the time I was 7, we were moving to my third home, and school number 3, in Philadelphia. Going to school, playing with friends, watching Leave it to Beaver and Flipper on TV, and having family dinners around the table was my daily routine in the 1960s. I always knew that one day, I would be like everyone else that I saw, and go to college, have a good job, get married to a handsome man, and have 3 children. That’s what the friends and families I knew did, and I would do the same because that’s what I was expected to do, and so that’s what I would do to be happy. The life I knew was easy when I did what I thought I was supposed to do.

We really did move a lot. My father would choose to change companies often, in order to get a more interesting, higher paying job with more responsibility. Up until I was 20 years old, I was moving to a new city, a new home, and a new school, with new friends every 2 to 4 years. From Michigan, we moved to King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, right outside of Philadelphia. I loved the apartment-living lifestyle: daily swimming with lessons, sporting competitions, barbecue parties, a playground, and close neighbours to play with, while having the independence to be out and about all day long. Since we often lived in apartments, I was quickly exposed to many people of varied backgrounds. I remember liking everyone, and kept myself busy while helping the lifeguard to clean the pool and organize the deck chairs, helping neighbours carry their groceries into the elevator, and keeping the doorman, Stanley, company at the front desk. My weekly allowance, in 1965, was 10 cents for taking the garbage bags to the incinerator. When it was time to move again, I helped my mother pack up many books, dishes, and trinkets, and I helped my father label and organize the boxes. I kept doing what I was asked to do, and was pleased to do so when it made my parents happy. I liked helping, and seeing people happy. It would be almost a full day before the moving van was all packed up and I would say goodbye to my friends. We’d then be on our way again. Bye, bye.

Moving From City to City to City to City

Saying goodbye to neighbours, friends at school, or even best friends, seemed to come naturally, as I moved far away, over and over again. We would all promise to write and keep in touch, and, in fact, we did. I did the work to keep the relationships alive. I cared about many of them, and keeping a connected link maintained our bonds. Friendships would begin, and as the relationship grew stronger with time, there would be a sudden halt, and it would be time to move. To this day, I continue to work to maintain my childhood friendships, though we may live far apart.

When my eldest sister, Wendy, was 17 years old (I was 8), she began to experience intense knee pain and swelling. She was told by the doctors that she must have injured it while dancing. As her knee pain worsened, she was unable to walk, and she became very ill. In less than one year, my sister was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma, and tragically had to have her leg amputated at the hip; she needed to walk with crutches and use a wheelchair. I don’t remember a lot of sickness, upset, or sadness from either of my sisters or my parents at that time, although I can only imagine now how sad and upset they must have been.

I suppose my parents may have intentionally hid their feelings, or maintained a sense of calm for the rest of us. Perhaps they were simply grateful that she was still alive, or perhaps they were of the mind, as we would say today, “it is what it is.” They seemed to just do their best and move on. Or, maybe, I was too busy playing outside with my matchbox cars, trucks, and friends to notice...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.8.2018
• Vorwort: Raymond Aaron
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-10: 1-77277-220-8 / 1772772208
• ISBN-13: 978-1-77277-220-3 / 9781772772203