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P. 29
ChanGInG mIndSeTS
CHANGING MINDSETS
“I’m sorry and I miss you.”
I am 42 and live in the US. I have a successful counselling practice
and I love my work. I was born in East Africa and moved here in
1981. Two months after I moved, my father passed away and my
mom raised my brothers and me. It was very hard for her to be in a
strange country and be mistreated by her employers like a third-class
citizen. She changed when my father died and became withdrawn
and very angry. As a therapist, I now realise she was grief-stricken
and in shock.
When I was 11 or so, I realised that I was attracted to women. I
didn’t understand what I was feeling. I had got the ‘message’ from
other people’s behaviour in society, on the television and in the
playground that what I felt was dirty, nasty, vulgar, etc. I learned to
hide what I felt and eventually met a very handsome man in college,
fell in love with him and married him.
I watched a film called Losing Chase starring Helen Mirren about a
married woman who went mad because she was hiding that she was
gay. This was my life. I loved my husband very much but as the years
passed, I couldn’t cope with the feelings in my heart. I wanted to be
in a relationship with a woman; I wanted to know in this lifetime
what it felt like to have a woman’s arms around me. However, I was
terrified of my mom’s reaction because she was very homophobic. I
truly thought even into my late twenties that she would kill me. As
simple as that.
29
CHANGING MINDSETS
“I’m sorry and I miss you.”
I am 42 and live in the US. I have a successful counselling practice
and I love my work. I was born in East Africa and moved here in
1981. Two months after I moved, my father passed away and my
mom raised my brothers and me. It was very hard for her to be in a
strange country and be mistreated by her employers like a third-class
citizen. She changed when my father died and became withdrawn
and very angry. As a therapist, I now realise she was grief-stricken
and in shock.
When I was 11 or so, I realised that I was attracted to women. I
didn’t understand what I was feeling. I had got the ‘message’ from
other people’s behaviour in society, on the television and in the
playground that what I felt was dirty, nasty, vulgar, etc. I learned to
hide what I felt and eventually met a very handsome man in college,
fell in love with him and married him.
I watched a film called Losing Chase starring Helen Mirren about a
married woman who went mad because she was hiding that she was
gay. This was my life. I loved my husband very much but as the years
passed, I couldn’t cope with the feelings in my heart. I wanted to be
in a relationship with a woman; I wanted to know in this lifetime
what it felt like to have a woman’s arms around me. However, I was
terrified of my mom’s reaction because she was very homophobic. I
truly thought even into my late twenties that she would kill me. As
simple as that.
29
