Struggling to cope

Nick said that he would go away for a few days to give us both time to adjust, and I spent most of the time clutching at straws: phoning the Samaritans, talking to the Gay Switchboard, and contacting the Gay Rights organisations - but nobody could give me the help I wanted. I wanted to be told it wasn't true. How could it have happened to my son? After all, he was a Christian, he knew what the Bible said about homosexuality. I couldn't believe that God would allow such a cruel thing to happen.

After three days of this, I realised how selfish I was being. All I had thought about was how I was going to live with a gay son; but now all I wanted to do was find him, tell him everything would be alright, that I loved him dearly, and that between us we would work things out.

But Nick didn't want to come home. He wasn't sure of my feelings for him. I shall never forget those four months he was away. He would phone now and again and ask me to meet him: I can still see the haunted look in his eyes as we sat talking. At one time he shouted, "It's all your fault, Mum, you should never have given birth to me!" I longed to reach out and hold him, but he was hurting so much and I would have to wait until he trusted me again.

I confided in my Pastor and some of my close friends in the church and they all started praying for Nick every day. Their prayers were answered, and eventually Nick came home. It wasn't easy for either of us. It was like walking a tightrope, but gradually Nick came to trust me, and started talking about the feelings he'd been having over the past years, and how he had tried to have lots of girlfriends in the hope he would have sexual feelings for them. It never happened, and many times he had thought of taking his own life, but he didn't want to hurt me. He said that he'd have to spend the rest of his life hiding from society, as he was looked on as something disgusting that should be put in front of a firing squad and shot. He'd heard someone say that only the day before, and the sad thing is until then I would probably have agreed.