This Way Out

by Tufayel Ahmed

‘No. It’s against our religion . . .’ Mina remains obstinate. ‘THEN TELL ME WHY ALLAH MADE ME THIS WAY!’ I shout. I vowed to stay calm, but there is no way around it as the years of frustration boil over. I’ve asked myself a million times why a god that punishes homosexuality would make me gay. Was I born bad? What life could I really have if, at the end of it, no good deed would ever be enough to repent the sin of my existence?

didn’t realise how many different types of therapy there were out there: Cognitive behavioural! Psychoanalysis! Interpersonal! I’m overwhelmed. It’s like being in an ice cream parlour and being asked to pick a flavour. Where can I just get some plain vanilla lying-on-a-couch-please-fix-me-I’m-broken therapy?

For all the issues we’ve had of late, they are still my family and we are still tethered by a bond that can’t be broken or replaced, whether they accept me as gay or not.

Totally disagree. Sometimes its reality thst famy breskupz are necessary.

been too preoccupied by my old life, my family life, to really sit down and consider the future and how it will work? I think about the concessions I’ve been making – something as simple as excusing Archie’s inability to say my name right – and that I’ll have to continue making for the rest of my life, giving up more and more of my own identity to fit into Joshua’s world.

Yes!

‘Mum and Dad send their love.’ Mum and Dad can fuck off. Memories of the engagement party flash through my mind.

Get a life life goes on

feel like screaming. I down an entire glass of wine, suddenly brimming with multiple emotions. I am sad, angry and depressed, all at the same time. I pour myself another glass.

Amar is a very sick person time to move on

But now it is done, now that it has actually happened, the reality is worse than anything I could have conjured in my imagination. Leave me in peace. You’re beyond me now. I am haunted by his words, as if in that moment, I had lost both parents for good.

Time to move on with your life. Forget thr past and love those who love you for what you are.

This, I know, is a serious compromise on his part. Dad is hardened in his faith. I know the argument I made to my siblings, that we can have different understandings of faith, won’t wash with him. He can’t be bent or swayed, and nor do I expect him to alter his beliefs at this stage in life for me. But I owe him – and myself – this final appeal, as a son to a father.

Wrong beliefs can be changed or altered...its only an excuse .