Confronting my son

One morning a letter arrived for Nick, my 17 year old son. Rightly or wrongly, I felt a strong compulsion to open it; the writing looked familiar - from someone who had recently hurt Nick very much. But it was from someone else, one of his friends, and parts of it were suggesting that my son was homosexual.

When he came home from work that night, I apologised for opening the letter, but challenged him about being gay. He strongly denied it, but I continued to put pressure on him. Eventually he turned to me and brought my world crashing down around me. "Ok, Mum," he said, "I'm gay."

I felt my legs go weak, and I had to sit down, still clutching the edge of the table. My stomach felt as if it was being squeezed in a giant vice; I was so confused and scared.

This probably sounds very dramatic - I had, after all, known enough gay people in my lifetime to accept them quite easily. But it had always been someone else's son or daughter, not mine. Nick had been very unsettled for a couple of months, and I'd tackled him about it: I asked him if it was drugs, fruit machines, drink... I never dreamed it might be this. Now I knew the truth, and I didn't know what to do about it.