Episode #107
Growing Up LGBTQ
ft. Charlie Becker
Growing up LGBTQ can bring unique challenges.
What are some of these and how can you navigate them successfully?
How can you find supportive friends and confidants?
How can you use CBT tools to find inner peace?
Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as I chat with celebrated LGBTQ author, Charlie Becker, about growing up LGBTQ.
Click to listen now!
Reference Guides:
Full Episode Transcript
Dr Julie
Hi, and welcome to my CBT podcast. My name is Dr. Julie, and I'm a doctor of psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life. So as I told you guys before, this is part two of bullying and the LGBTQ community with my special special guest, Charlie Becker. He's my brother in law, he's my friend, and I'm so grateful that he agreed to do a second episode because there's so much we didn't even get to cover in the first one. The first one on bullying was just talking about bullying and my experience and his experience, and we have so much more to explore. So we appreciate you being here with us again. And again, at the end of the podcast, you will be able to find his book and his other many books. But the one we're talking about today is Dodging Bullies that you can purchase yourself if you're interested. So thanks again, Charlie, for being here.
Charlie
It's great to be back.
Dr Julie
Let's get started with one more of your poems, and then we'll go from there.
Charlie
This poem is called What We Believe. Bullies are reckless and wild. I mean, when I was a child, I was scared of bullies, the loud ones with crew cuts, the ones who wore cowboy boots and tight pants, the ones who threw the ball so hard it stung my hand, the ones who laughed when I swung the bat and missed, the ones who spit, the ones who smoked and didn't cough, the ones who never carried books and spoke withraspy voices, put their hands under girlfriend shirts, drove and drank beer, the ones who roamed the streets in packs and terrorized daydreamers, stunning their senses so they could never find their way back or belong anywhere again. Sometimes I was afraid of God. Most times I was hurt. I never said a word. I came to believe in strange things, how if I could just be good enough, how everyone else knew the truth, how butterflies and lightning bugs could live in a jar if I punctured holes through the lid and gave them sweet flowers to eat. At night, I would listen for the sound of mist sinking into tree branches, jacarandas growing crown shape purple buds over the streets, the quiet calm of cotton sheets coaxing sleep above my body's skin. I would count fingerprints posing on cold, clear windows, breathe warm circles from my mouth, make friends with my heartbeat. Anything to make me feel safe. Anything.
Dr Julie
Wow. That was powerful. Thank you.
Charlie
So.
Dr Julie
Let me ask you this. One thing that stood out, one of the lines where you said that you said I didn't trust in God?
Charlie
No, I said I.
Dr Julie
Was afraid of God. You're afraid of God. Can you share about that a little bit? Because that stood out to me.
Charlie
Yes. I guess I grew up in a Christian family, Methodist family, and we went to church pretty regularly and sometimes twice a week. I'd have to say that my consciousness and my mentality was pretty focused on the church and the things that the minister said and the powerful things that he yelled from the pulpit. Yeah. And.
Dr Julie
What were the messages you got that made you fear?
Charlie
Well, again, just as a child, you have to be good all the time and you have to be loved by everyone and you have to be like everyone else. And if you were different and not acceptable, then the punishment was at hand. Wow.
Dr Julie
That's heavy, Charlie. T hat's the message you're getting from the bullies is you're not like everyone.
Charlie
It was a very confusing time being a child and having all these messages coming and trying to make sense of them and at the same time trying to figure out what it was that I really believed and who I really was.
Dr Julie
Did you wonder? Like Charlie has shared in their other podcast, he's 73 and kicking. It's going to be around a long time. His family's got good genes. When you were young, did you even know what gay was?
Charlie
I didn't. No, I didn't. No.
Dr Julie
Your family never made comments about people that were gay or anything?
Charlie
It was really something that nobody talked about. It was something that you were sheltered from, and it's over there. Stay away from that.
Dr Julie
The community you grew up in was not talked about. It was nothing t's not a world you.
Charlie
Knew of. No, it wasn't. It's funny. I remember that I grew up in New Jersey. My father worked in New York City, and so sometimes I'd go into the city to see him at work with my brother and sister and my mom. A nybody that looked different or acted differently, stay away from there. W e would never go to Greenwich Village because you know who's there. So you have to just like that.
Dr Julie
Yeah. So you knew they weren't... I mean, if they knew better, if they knew more about you, I'm sure they wouldn't have showed that. But yeah, that was the message, like, different wasn't okay. And that's a core belief in itself that a lot of people struggle with, I'm different, and that's negative. Some people are great. They love being different. But then many people are like, I just want to fit in. I don't want to be different.
Charlie
I think when you're an adolescent, when you're a child and adolescent, that's all you want is to be included and accepted and just fit in with everybody else. It's hard when you're not. And what's interesting, too, is that I think we all have things about us that are different from each other. And so we struggle, I think everyone struggles with feeling as though they really belong and fit in and are popular and are accepted. But if you have a major difference like being gay, it's more to.
Dr Julie
Deal with. Yes. Using our cognitive therapy tools, when you heard those messages or like you shared before about seeing therapists that said, Oh, you just need to get married. Your thoughts were, What did you think about yourself when people would give those messages to you?
Charlie
Like I said last time, I think that I decided at a very young age that it would be safer to be quiet and to be invisible. I was telling myself, Better just be very self contained and invisible because if you speak up, if you're noticed, you're going to be teased. That's what I was telling myself, Don't be noticed.
Dr Julie
Don't speak up. That's the thought. Then the mood was what? Feeling anxious?
Charlie
I think a lot of anxiety, a lot of confusion and anxiety.
Dr Julie
Then the behavior was to be quiet, which then isolates you even more.
Charlie
It does. Like we were saying then, when I eventually found my way to therapists and they would tell me, Well, you really need to have a different girlfriend, or try to work on your marriage, it made me feel as though I was failing yet again. And if I could just be someone else, if I could just repress these feelings, then I'd be okay. So that's what I was telling myself.
Dr Julie
And how sad that... We know, we've heard the story, many, many, many people in the gay community about everything you're saying. And then one of the big messages there, I think, is like, I can never be authentic if I can't be myself, then who am I? Who am I?
Charlie
And really, what is so fascinating to me now is that children are beginning to develop a sexuality and a sexual orientation early on. And how wonderful it would have been for me to know that there was this option that I was normal in my own way and that it was what I felt was for other boys and what I felt was perfectly acceptable for me, who I am. But that was not anything that anyone ever told me. So if you're a child and a teenager, how wonderful if you can have a boyfriend who is your age. Or go on a date with somebody who is potentially somebody that you might have a connection for because it's also within the normal. But I didn't know that. So all of these feelings had to be repressed and pushed away and couldn't be acted upon.
Dr Julie
So that's not even having the words with the tools, with the CBT is that the message and the belief is like, I'm different, I'm not okay, I'm a failure. Not to put feelings on you, but others, yourself, depressed, anxious, hopeless, thinking, am I ever going to find somebody, can I ever live my truth? Will I ever be accepted? And then the behavior is just to live a different life. Like you said, you got married. There's lots of people to get married that are gay because they don't want the world to know, or they think the family is going to disown them, or they're trying to fit in. They're not honoring themselves. And if you don't honor yourself, you can't be happy. You can't be happy. You can't be happy.
Charlie
You're spending all this time saying to yourself, What do I have to do so I will be accepted? What do I have to do to fit in here? And it's going for all the wrong reasons.
Dr Julie
And when you said a few minutes ago that struck me when you're like, I'm normal in my own way, that's powerful. That's like a T shirt, Ashley, when I say it out loud. I am normal in my own way. I am normal, even if my normal is different than yours. But you got the opposite message. And then obviously on top of it, the bullying came in so many forms. It wasn't just one kid saying something to you. It was nothing personal, anyone. I'm not putting Church down, but the message you got in Church was almost that bullying, like, You need to be this way or we don't accept you. So it can be really benign, not just in your face, because how you take that and interpret it was suppressing who you are and giving you negative message about you as a person that can be, I think, under the umbrella of bullying. Do you agree? Oh, I agree. Yeah. So moving on, we're going to go through Charlie's life. So we know what happened growing up, and he kept the secret you had never told his family, he was ever bullied, didn't really understand about being gay, never shared it. Now, are we in your 20 s that you finally... When is it that if there's a poem you want to share first or give some background of when did you finally come out? Who did you share? How did you find the community?
Charlie
Everything changed for me when I moved to California. The very first therapist that I found here through a friend, I was struggling so much. At the very first session, he said to me, I want to work with you, but to do that, you have to accept the fact that you're gay, period. It just gave me all the permission that I ever needed because he was gay himself and a wonderful, wonderful therapist and so bright and so brilliant. That just began a whole new life for me. Not to say that it was easy because still I have all these old messages and it's a struggle. Then you almost have to reach back to all the years that you weren't living your true life and begin there and begin, Well, now I'm going to start dating. Now I'm going to start to have all these sexual feelings. What do I do and how do I express this and who do I trust?
Dr Julie
This was after your marriage? Yes.
Charlie
Okay.
Dr Julie
You got out of the marriage and then you came out and then you were out here and then you met this therapist. Yeah.
Charlie
Okay.
Dr Julie
How long were you with this therapist? Do you remember?
Charlie
Not too long because truthfully, I wasn't quite ready, I think, to fully do what he wanted me to do.
Dr Julie
Embrace who you are.
Charlie
Avoiding and struggling inside.
Dr Julie
Interesting.
Charlie
Okay.
Dr Julie
I'm glad I asked you. That's funny. I asked you, how long you were with that therapist because here you were given permission to embrace who you were and you still weren't ready. Or you think, Oh, the gates of heaven opened up or whatever. It's like, Oh, but am I really ready for that? Just because something's given to us, it's okay if we're not ready and we're overwhelmed and we need to maybe take a step back and go slower.
Charlie
I know. And sometimes it's like you're still so stuck in your old ways. I remember suffering so much. What a wonderful door to open, but it's not like, Oh, yeah, I'm a lot all.
Dr Julie
As well. It's like, You're still rty.
Charlie
There's a lot of work to be done. A lot of things to change about yourself that you don't know how, and it's hard.
Dr Julie
Yes. So what's the next poem you can share with us?
Charlie
The one about coming out. Okay. Are we on?
Dr Julie
Yes.
Charlie
This poem is called My Vie En Rose. When I come out, I will be the real deal, a steal, one happy meal congealed as much as Mac and cheese or can't get these vegetables and spice, refried beans, one lean machine in between parties, a sacred, scratched out catnip afterparty, nights wrapped and snapped, a psychic healing, feeling and kneeling, reeling in the catch, a match I made from heaven, a sleeper, a keeper, one holy roller, fashion patroller, out of controller, unique, speaking deeper, seeking softer in a place where I recognize each face of the sky and I know mine. When I come out, I will be in bold ink, exaggerated pink, connecting links, sinking, clumsy, grateful sex with love and friends and truth. My coming out is a breathing full, laughing loud, talking slow, gushing, blushing, touching all that's new. It's a being, out rage, smashing closet doors, a howling, holding hands, expanding, standing still for the first time in my life. A growing living in my own self surrounded by friends who spent years seeking each other and found me.
Dr Julie
Beautiful. Beautiful. That's powerful. I love that. I love that.
Charlie
Yeah, it meant a lot to write coming out poems.
Dr Julie
I bet. Then you worked with some other therapists, I think, as time went on?
Charlie
Oh, I did.
Dr Julie
Oh, yes. Okay. And you went at your pace, right? I'm guessing you figured out, I'm willing to do this, I'm willing to do that. I'm comfortable with this. You had to come out on your terms. Is that a way to say it, maybe? Oh, yes.
Charlie
And so the first therapist that I had was wonderful, Dr. Michael Greenstein. And he was the one who said to me, We're going to do this, but we have to admit a certain thing is out loud. And so it was so hard for me and so confrontational for me that I took breaks. And sadly, this was at the beginning of HIV, and we didn't know about it. It was infecting people we didn't know about. Michael Greenstein passed away, one of the very first people I knew who died of AIDS. So it was a horrible loss for all.
Dr Julie
Of us. Oh, may he rest in peace. I'm glad you share his name on the podcast. Here's another part of living in the gay community where now HIV comes out. And another way of bullying people because it was blamed, you can cheer better than me, but it was blamed on the gay community, right? They brought this, I don't know, brought this out and all of that. And it was so focused on them where anybody can have a... Anybody is HIV. I know people that are straight then of HIV, obviously, right? But it was another form of bullying. Would you agree with that?
Charlie
Definitely. And I will always say that's why it took so long for treatments to be found. And people and research to be done because there was so much push back. Well, this is the gay community, and they brought this on themselves, and they deserve to be punished. All those same horrible messages. And now we're sick and we don't know where it's come from and what's happened, and we're dying and no one's helping. No one's offering any help. So horrible bullying.
Dr Julie
Horrible bullying. Shame, shame, shame. And other eah, another way to focus on that. So I know Charlie has a poem on that.
Charlie
Yeah, I just don't, before I forget. So I have to say that really, after this therapist, Michael, who passed away, I found other therapists that I just really bonded with and stayed with for decades. Wonderful. Same thing when I first started, they would say to me, We're going to do this work together, and you're going to learn about the lifestyle with me. We're going to do this together. It involved a lot of activities where, Well, I'm going to have you come to my home. We're going to do therapy in my home. You're going to see where I live. You're going to see I have in this normal life, I'm a gay person, too. I'm a year gay therapist, and this is where I live. I have a life, and this is what I do. And just normalizing my life and normalizing how I thought of other gay people and how and making me feel and included in it. It was just so healing.
Dr Julie
Wow, that's wonderful. So wonderful. Let's hear your poem regarding the HIV.
Charlie
Okay. Yeah, this one is I wrote in 1992. It's called Snow. It has started now, just as they predicted, blizzard through the night. And then we'll check each hour by the street lamp for our future. Your bed shelters you in an eye, unaware of the storm. Breathes go faster and faster. I see pneumonia clouds your lungs, blocks pathways, and you hurry, though you do not move outside the fall and rise of your chest, cold flaking to your lips. You tilt your head away, facing what I am not, my voice treasing as I silently find and huddle around the warm glow of our past. Temperatures fall, failing, I zip my coat in snowpile surrounding us. Roads become impassible, dim like the chance of waking you, finding an escape, rewriting an outcome. After midnight, I cannot see the lamp or the light or tomorrow's date. Only you drifting, wind and light and whirl, gasping, the incessant need to reach an end. When it stops, dawn comes, a white, sorrowful blanket covering ground and rooftops, gently pulled over your body, touching your skin, shrouding our sweet friendship, blocking my caress.
Dr Julie
That's beautiful. That's beautiful. It's interesting because you're 73, you've had decades of living as a child, being gay and not being able to speak up and then living through HIV. And to this point now where gay couples can be married, you've lived like the gamut of so much that how far and how little at the same time we've come in at least our country that it's not all perfect by any means. But just the fact that you can be out with your partner and be comfortable and feel okay and just be who you are. Right. Where 50 years ago, there's no way that was happening, right?
Charlie
Exactly, right. Like a child of the 50s, it was not happening.
Dr Julie
With HIV, when first coming out and all of that. Were you in community already with the gay community? Did you have support then?
Charlie
Yes. By then, I really had a lot of support, and I was in support groups. I t was the therapist that I stayed with for decades, he also had a group for gay men that I went to once a week on top of therapy. It was so healing and so wonderfully affirming. T hen there were all kinds of groups where I lived to belong to. A ll of that just lends so much support in helping with self acceptance and with helping other people.
Dr Julie
And looking back now, now that you know what CBT is, can you look back and see where the therapist helped you change how you thought and saw yourself?
Charlie
Right. They maybe.
Dr Julie
Didn't use those terms like I do, but that's really what happened, I think, right?
Charlie
Oh, I think so, yes. I remember at least two of the therapists, in fact, the one that I still have now that I've been going to for decades, he always refers to it as changing the tape that you play in your head. It's just fascinating to me after all these years, how much work it takes to do that and how much healing comes through the way that we talk to ourselves. Self talk is everything. Back as a child, I'm saying to myself, don't speak, don't talk. T hat's what I'm saying inside of myself, too.
Dr Julie
Now you speak and you talk and you share and you write, but now you're complete opposite, which is beautiful. It shows how far you've come.
Charlie
It's fascinating that this is what we can do to help ourselves and help each other and how powerful it is what we say to each other and what we say to ourselves. It means everything.
Dr Julie
It does. Because I tell people all the time, your brain doesn't challenge you. Your brain wasn't like, No, it's okay, speak up, you'll be fine. It's like, Oh yeah, you need to be quiet. Your brain just believes what you tell it. I tell people all the time, you need to be very mindful what you're saying to yourself because your brain will just take it in and remember it. You have to. To be able to start telling your brain something different, it also will take that in. But you need to be focused on being positive and loving towards yourself.
Charlie
Exactly. I don't know. This is probably what CBT would do also in your workbook, but just within the past couple of years, I did a whole exercise where literally I wrote down everything that I was saying to myself. I was hearing myself say to myself, and it is so amazing, the things that you don't realize. And then when you have it on paper, you go, Wow, did I say that to myself? Yes. I made that mistake and I said that to myself. And once you know that, then you say, Oh, no, that's not true.
Dr Julie
When you're talking actually about a thought record, right? So when you put down your thoughts, which is what you're saying you did, this is what I told myself, right? And then being able to see they're all what I call hot thoughts, right? That they're not 100 % true. Sometimes they're not true at all. And first to see it on paper and say, Jesus, no wonder I feel so horrible, right?
Charlie
I did say that to myself.
Dr Julie
Yeah. Who wouldn't be depressed and anxious and overwhelmed and hopeless, right? And then to be able to say, Well, none of that's actually true. So yes, when you put it on paper, you get a lot more thoughts down than if you just think it in your head. You might get, Oh, yeah, I said that. I said that. But when you put it on paper, it's like, Wow.
Charlie
I know. And there it is in front of you. And then you can say to yourself, Where did that come from? And then you go all the way back, probably to childhood, either somebody said that to you, or when they did, you started saying that to yourself. Amazing. It's just a our brains are so interested. Yeah.
Dr Julie
If I think it, it must be true. That's not true. That's what we think. If someone said that to me, the Church says that to me, whatever. My parents are saying things, They must be right. I'm a little kid. I don't know any better. Then you just hold on to that until someone says, Oh, no, no, no. That was all wrong. And we need to shift all of that. You're like, What? Where do I even start? And that's where having a great therapist, a great community, for other people that you respect and admire and say, Okay, you know what? They're examples. They're living examples. I can do this if they can do this, and there's truth in this. There's truth in this.
Charlie
I am not alone.
Dr Julie
I'm not alone. Yes. So as you're going through life and you're healing, do you notice that with the things that you went through with being bullied, that you're still being bullied sometimes, or things trigger those old thoughts and you say, No, that's my old stuff. Oh, right. Oh, I do. Does that happen to you today?
Charlie
Oh, yes. In terms of thoughts, now I have the capacity to say, That's not true. That's not true. That was never true, which is wonderfully healing, too. Because I'm an out person and I live an out life, really, I'm not aware of any bullying in terms of that. Good. I think that in life, bullying can happen at any moment to any of us. And so I always feel as though I'm fighting back at any time. I fantasize sometimes if anybody ever really says something directly to me about being gay, what I am ready to say now.
Dr Julie
Don't be messing with Charlie Becker!
Charlie
That doesn't happen anymore.
Dr Julie
That's good. When you think back in your life, I'm guessing, you could tell me if I'm wrong, that as a little boy, you never thought you'd have the life you have today.
Charlie
I know. Is that true? Well, yes. It's such a complete transformation from who I was. It's a complete.
Dr Julie
What a blessing to all of us because we love you because you're so authentic. Now you're being of service, again, because now you're not just like, Well, that was my experience. I'm living my life. Leave me alone. You're like, Oh, no. I'm going to share. I'm going to educate people. I'm going to be of service to others so that no little kid has to be on that park or the school yard and feel like they have to be quiet and invisible. I don't want that to happen anymore. To anyone. to anyone. Yeah, to anyone. Share with us, we have a little time left. There's so much we can talk about our time goes so fast. But with your book, is there one last poem that you feel you'd like to share with us?
Charlie
I could. Yeah. Okay.
Dr Julie
When you're ready. Okay.
Charlie
What we know. Bullies are assholes. I mean, by the time I reached 73, I understood them for what they did. The ones who wore pink power ties and fake sun tans. The ones who talk like a grand dragon sheriff with blood spots on his badge. The ones who look you in the eye and smile as they cheat. The ones who are smiling mug as they vote against your rights. The ones who shoot bodies full of shame, riddle brains with gossip and blame, wound our psyche again and again. We can ride a little longer in the lies and then use this way, this way to speak the truth and move on. At night now, I listen to the sounds of dreams rise from my partner sleeping next to me. Interracial hands clasp beneath a family quilt. The mindful moon of midnight stands watch outside our window as I count the years we've been together, falling, gently falling into the next day and the next. Everything to make me feel safe. Everything.
Dr Julie
Beautiful. Beautiful. Thanks. Let's share a couple of things. I want you guys to be able to reach out to Charlie if you'd like to. So is there, regarding social media and email that you feel comfortable sharing, somebody wants to reach out and share a story or look for support?
Charlie
That would be fine. I am on Facebook.
Dr Julie
And is it just under your name?
Charlie
So either Charlie Becker or Charles Becker. Okay. Instagram.
Dr Julie
Okay. Is that under your name? Same name. Okay. Same. Yeah. Okay. And then, like I said, we're going to put a link for your books on the podcast here for them to be able to purchase them. Okay, perfect. Yeah. So feel free, as always, you can reach out to Charlie, you can reach out to me. You can reach me at mycbt podcast@gmail. Com. Also, my Facebook is Dr. Julie Osborne. My website is mycognatebehavioraltherapy. Com. There you can find everything, my podcast, my email. Again, I have videos, a lot of information on there about CBT. I know me and Charlie together just want to say anyone who's listening, within the LGBTQ community or anywhere that you're struggling, that we're here for you. And always don't hesitate to ever reach out to us. And we want to be of service and be there for you or connect you with someone that we think can be there for you and give you that support. Maybe we might be the only ones you reach out to right now because you don't feel like you have anybody, but you're never, never alone. And there's always help out there for you. And don't tell yourself to be quiet and don't just think that nobody would understand. And I hope you'll... With getting Charlie's books and be able to read even more of his poetry, maybe we just got a little taste today, and I'm hoping you want to hear more and read more because I think it will really resonate with you in your life in so many different ways. So many different ways. I'm honored that you're my brother in law, we're friends. I'm honored that you took the time to be on my podcast. We reach a lot of people, which is my intent when I started. I just wanted to put this out there and help people understand that the way they think and believe about themselves is what creates your negative moods and your behaviors, sometimes destructive towards yourself, how you feel physically. It's very powerful stuff. And we got to start by understanding that what we think is not always 100 % true, and that there's people out there for us to help us change that. Because my stuff I've worked through and what you shared today, it's like we didn't even know where to start. We needed somebody to say this is the first step. You just owning, saying, yes, I'm a gay man and that's okay. It's not okay. It's normal. And for someone that even when you go out the door, if somebody else was going to say you're not, you could go back to somebody and say it is. That was your first step. Would you agree?
Charlie
Right. And now you can say there are millions of us all over the world. And so we are just as normal as everyone else. And we all belong together. And not that.
Dr Julie
People want to say people that are gay or LGBTQ, I want to include everybody. We've all been born into this world at the same time. It's nothing new. You go back and back to history like it's just there. And hopefully we embrace it now and that there's nothing to be. We don't have to be afraid of each other based on sex, religion, anything. We're just all people. And if we can think like that and think in a loving way and want to be a service, a lot of this bullying can go away and we can all live in peace and be more authentic.
Charlie
Because we're all just people and we're all just poets, really.
Dr Julie
Yes, yes, yes, yes. And again, Charlie, he goes out and teaches kids poetry. Charlie does lots of stuff. So if you guys are interested in, again, talking to him, emailing him, seeing how he could help you in your community, I know he's there for you just as I am.
Charlie
Well, thank you, Julie. It's been I'm so grateful to be here and thanks for sharing this experience with me.
Dr Julie
Thank you. You can tell we're just loving each other. We're loving each other. Thanks again for being here and please share with anyone that you feel that this might be a really powerful podcast for them.
And always remember to make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.