As a now openly gay Asian American man, I can finally say that ever since I was little, I’ve felt this strong sense that this world was just not made for me. People around me actively tried to sabotage my hopes and dreams in the name of protecting me. Yet, even more egregiously, people would just assume that I wanted to live a rainbow-infused, openly gay sort of life–I didn’t.
My upbringing wasn’t really about finding love, it was just about surviving and getting away. When I had to take that leave of absence from medical school because of an onset of mental illness, which probably was induced by my childhood experiences, and return to my parents’ house (at least it was a different house), it was one of darkest experiences of my life. I remember I couldn’t get out of bed for a month or so when that happened.
And when I was more or less forced to come out of the closet when I was subjected to prolonged sessions of therapy, I felt like I lost many of the relatively conservative friends I had made in college who were genuinely very nice, down-to-earth people. I’m back to relying on my parents for emotional support at this point in time. I’m not saying being openly gay is a bad thing, even though my homophobic family does. I’m just saying that it does seem to be positively correlated with a certain degree of high mental anguish and presents as perhaps the more challenging path. But then again, maybe that’s what it means to be a real man: to venture in a direction where few dare to go.
The Ivory Tower 
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