Mental Health/Depression/Suicide
Survivors are the true victims of suicide. For survivors, there is no such thing as closure.
Trigger Warning: What you are about to read will be disturbing to some, but that is precisely the reason we need to think about it?
By the time I was six years old, I had attended two funerals, one for my father and a second one for Grandpa Koester. Although I was too young to have labels for my emotions, the feeling-memories were imprinted.
When I was three years old, my father was dragged to death by a team of runaway horses. …
Relationships/Creative Nonfiction/LGBTQ
Is an affair a deal-breaker if you can’t find what you want at home?
Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead.
— Adele
I drove my best friend, Bruce, home after my husband, Doug, and I had eaten dinner with him. When he opened the door to get out of my Camry, I shivered as premature winter-cold rushed in. But the brisk temperature outside stung less than my frigid relationship with Doug.
As Bruce stepped out of the car, I said to him, “I don’t know what’s up. Something’s really wrong between Doug and me right now.”
For a moment, Bruce sat there half in and half out of the car…
I love my husband, and I love my wife, but I also love puppies and ice cream.
While no one expects me to love puppies and my husband in the same way, some reject the idea that I can love both my husband and my wife.
Erotic love tingles our bodies; it merges sexual urges and lust. Although we often hope — or mistakenly believe — it will last forever, its intensity cannot sustain a relationship. Love is not stagnant; it is a dynamic process that changes over time.
Maturity offers us the freedom to reexamine how we love.
With maturity, we learn that erotic love by itself holds the false promise that passionate love can last forever, and friendship love without erotic love can lead us to seek erotic love elsewhere.
We will all experience old age if we’re blessed to live that long, but it can be the best time in your life.
I’m now a part of an age group that our society would prefer to be invisible and may feel worthy of being discarded.
The advertising industry bombards us with products we must buy to prevent this tragic outcome. If it weren’t for their wish to scare us into buying their products, old people would be invisible.
Life doesn’t shrink; it expands.
For me, time carries a sense of urgency, but the urgency is to experience every moment.
…
I had fantasies about sex with another man, but when I did, reality didn’t match the fantasy.
I was married with two kids when I decided to give it a try. I didn’t want to be gay. I wanted a one-off blowjob to satisfy my curiosity.
In sexual fantasy, we’re in control of all variables: who the partner is and what sexual activity we’ll engage in. No need to compromise. If it’s not going the way you want, left swipe and move on.
In fantasy, we’re all world-class lovers. You don’t have bad breath. You know what to do and when to do it. And you always do it exactly right so it drives your partner wild.
Fantasies are often better than reality but never enough.
Not every man who has sex with men is gay.
An interviewer once said, “Any man who has had a penis is his mouth is gay.”
I tried (unsuccessfully)to explain…
Sadly, there are no such "gay churches" in Des Moines now. When I first came out, I could visit any one of five gay bars, all with a certain theme and a crowd of regulars. They also had out-of-town visitors and closeted men just beginning to explore their "faith."
Recently, the Brass Garden closed. It was mostly a dance bar. It is in one of the oldest buildings in the East Village and is now going through a $6M renovation as gentrification has pushed these bars out of formerly low rent neighborhoods.
The other bar, called "the Saddle," has had…
Loren A Olson MD
Gay father; Psychiatrist; Award-winning author FINALLY OUT. Chapter excerpt here: http://bit.ly/2EyhXTY Top writer on Medium. Not medical advice.
