The Claustrophobic Closet: The Long, Hard Journey to Coming Out

The Claustrophobic Closet:

The Long, Hard Journey to Coming Out

By Cody McDowell

Copyright 2012 Cody McDowell

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Names of people throughout the book have been changed or withheld to respect their privacy.

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Content Warning

This autobiography is very personal and graphic at times. While I would like for everyone to read it, I understand that there are some who do not feel comfortable with the topics of homosexuality, sex, and pornography. I do not treat these subjects lightly, as they are vital to understanding me and my experiences. However, if you do not wish to read about such things then I would suggest you choose another book. Those of you who don’t mind, please continue and enjoy my work.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to take the time to thank a few people for helping me complete this book. First and foremost I would like to give credit to J. David Poling, Sr. Dave helped me with his experience in publishing, his editing skills, and also came up with the title for the book. I would also like to thank Whitney Scheuermann and Andromeda Busby for their editing and input. They helped me gain the confidence to actually make this work available to others. Lastly I would like to thank my partner Kai, who has continued encouraging me these months it has taken to finish.

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1: Beginnings

Chapter 2: Gayboy

Chapter 3: Gay Porn

Chapter 4: High School

Chapter 5: Family Life and My Thoughts

Chapter 6: Seminary

Chapter 7: Alcohol, Accidents, and Apostolics

Chapter 8: The Novitiate

Chapter 9: Brother Ansgar

Chapter 10: The Graduation Gift

Chapter 11: I’m Coming Out

Epilogue

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Prologue

Nothing you know is true. This is a statement I have come to live by, though I must often remind myself (especially when I begin to get self-righteous or gain feelings of misanthropy). As I begin to write this I am in my 29th year of life. When I was younger I had a different mantra, one that was a bit more pessimistic: People are stupid. Sadly, my experience in life has not taught me otherwise in this belief but I would prefer to keep in mind the first adage.

This book is going to be a rather hodgepodge of types. Part autobiography, part philosophical musing, part coming-out story. I’ve always wanted to write a book though have never gotten around to it, as most people could probably attest. However, events from this last year have really stressed how true it is that the only time you have is now.

When I was studying to be a priest in college, the concept of the ‘now’ really threw me for a trip. I thought about it and spoke to classmates about it for days on end, trying to fully comprehend how ‘now’ is all we have, all we EVER have. There never is not now; everything else is just a metric by which we can measure what has happened. If you say you will do something ‘later,’ you may never have the chance.

What is the main purpose of this book? My first inclinations to write actually came from the request of multiple people. I’ve lived a very colorful life so far and when I get to know new people, they inevitably tell me, ‘Wow, you should write a book! I would be very interested in learning more about your experience in the monastery!’ or whatever other experience they found to be out of the ordinary.

That’s not the only reason for writing about myself. I do think people could benefit from thinking outside the box of societal norms. I have come to realize that I am a rather unique individual. Of course everyone is unique in their own way. There is so much about me that fits in so-called minority categories, though if one were to just look at me they probably wouldn’t guess. I will get into that later, however.

Another reason is that I want to finish something worthwhile for myself. I have a tendency to say that I’ll do something yet end up shirking the duty. If it’s for someone or something else I usually have no problem. It’s difficult for me to do things for ME. While selfishness is not a trait to be desired, everyone needs to have a little bit. There have been times throughout life that I have lost myself because I try to live in order to please others. That is not a way to spend the only life we are allotted.

What I write will be my own words, my own truth. Other people may have seen events in a different light, and I respect that. However, I will portray things from my perspective, and will use new names for people and places. There are parts of my life I am quite ashamed of, but it is from those dark places that we learn a lot about ourselves. There are also many private matters discussed later on, so I don’t want to embarrass anyone by revealing their names.

There will be drama, raw reality, ugly truths of ‘human nature,’ as well as stories of how beautiful people can be. I will do my best to balance the good and the bad; there are times I tend to focus on the bad, but I do finally believe that life can be good. It’s taken a long time, and at the moment I sometimes question this revelation (living in Phoenix has taken a toll on me), but I know I will soon be back to the place I love with the one who is most important to me.

Also, a note about time: it wasn’t until recent years that I really learned how to remember things in terms of years or time-periods, so events that happened in my childhood are often hard for me to correctly order. I have often been given different accounts by different family members when asking about these time issues, which has led me to cease asking such questions. Because of this, I will do my best to sort out early times but they won’t be so important in the first parts of the book.

I want to dedicate this book to my family: My father, whom I wish were still here; my mother, who did her best to raise me; my step-mother, who has been so much help since my father died; my sister, who has created a family where she is happy; and my brother, who remains to be probably the most interesting person I have ever met. And of course to my soul mate, Kai. It’s been a rough road to get to where we are, but I would be lost without him.

This will be the first of two books. Originally I wanted everything together as one but I would prefer two average sized books over one very large volume. This first book recounts life up through the monastery; the second covers traveling to Japan up to my father’s death.

I hope you enjoy reading this, whomever you may be. If you are a gay man in the closet, I hope this helps you realize you can and MUST be yourself. If you are lonely, that you find hope that there is someone out there for you, be they friend or partner. If you are seeking to be entertained, that you enjoy what I have to say.

So let us begin.

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Chapter 1

Beginnings

The hottest recorded temperature in Wyoming was measured on August 8, 1983. It must have been a rather hot summer when I was born, just a couple weeks earlier on July 19. I was born in the small town of Worland, Wyoming. It is doubtful that many people would know of this town, which is known for its sugar beet factory and lamb feedlots; needless to say depending on the wind it is a rather smelly town. I was the first-born of my somewhat young parents – my dad was 23 and my mom was 28. I was given the name Cody James McDowell. A few days after being born we flew back to Alaska where my parents were living. To my knowledge they chose Wyoming to be my birthplace because that is where my mom’s parents lived; they wanted to share my birth with the family, as well as have access to better medical facilities as we lived in a small Alaskan village of somewhere around 20 people.

I was a mild-mannered child, even from birth. Apparently the doctors feared that I was stillborn at first, as I didn’t cry after emerging from the womb. After a few moments I began to coo softly, looking around the room curiously. I always enjoy hearing about that. As a child I was very happy; most every picture shows me in various stages of delight or wonder. My parents realized I was very intelligent early on and were always very encouraging. I don’t remember much of my early years, but I remember being in a happy family.

My sister was born 23 months later. I didn’t know it at the time, but around this time my parents started to have marital problems. I don’t think I really picked up on this though; I was pleased to be an older brother. I tried to help out with her a bit, though I didn’t always go about it the right way. Once I tried to make her pretty by giving her a necklace. I wrapped it too tightly around her neck, which made her cry, and I didn’t want to get in trouble for making her cry so I covered her with a blanket and sat on her.

Another time she was in our Johnny-jump-up, one of those seats with a rope and a spring that you screw into the top of a doorway that you place children in so they can jump up and down a little. I decided to ‘help’ her by pulling it back rather far and letting go. The chair acted as a slingshot, throwing her across the room.

When we were in Alaska we moved a few times, following work for Dad. He was a carpenter so when one job finished we moved on to the next. Mom was a teacher and was able to get jobs at local schools wherever we were. From an early age I learned to be accepting of people, as I was the minority for a long time. Even though white males are usually the norm in the US, I was the only white kid in my class while in Alaska; my classmates were all natives, either Eskimos or Aleutians. Not everyone is the same, so who cares if someone looks different from you?

Besides being white, my looks are somewhat noteworthy. My hair is actual strawberry-blonde, which impresses people who are into hair. I eventually got used to barbers and hairdressers commenting on how beautiful my hair is, though it never stopped being embarrassing. And my eyes are three-fourths blue/green/grey depending on the day, with half of my right eye being brown. Even today I have people stop me and open my eyes wide so they can look. As a child it was something of torture for me; I did not like receiving so much attention, and there were many times when someone would find out about my eyes and call over their group of friends and crowd around me, asking me to look at them, if it was real, if I could really see, if I was color-blind.

I didn’t like receiving such direct attention, but part of me did love being the center of attention. As has continued now, I like to have attention as long as I don’t realize people are paying attention to me, if that makes sense. I can entertain people rather well, I like to get people laughing and have a good time, but when I start to realize that people are watching me I tend to get very self-conscious. It was a very odd dichotomy; while I did not enjoy having so many people crowd around and stare and ask questions, at the same time it was kind of nice. I have never hated my different colors; in fact I absolutely love them. I don’t get to see my eye very often and will admit there are times I spend extra time in the mirror just gazing at the colors, marveling at how my right eye splits neatly in half between the two colors.

I am also left-handed, which caused much grief in grade school. I could never use scissors, and other things were difficult to use: spiral bound notebooks, certain rulers, even just learning to write since all my teachers were right-handed. However I was lucky that no one ever tried to force me into right-handedness. Both of my grandmothers are left-handed and they were both quite pleased that I am as well; I still often get books and presents geared toward lefties.

Aside from my physical differences, it also became apparent early on that mentally I was a bit different from my peers. I was and still am intelligent, but nothing like a genius or savant. I was…original. One thing I have consistently been called in life has been ‘weird.’ In recent years I’ve tried to embrace this title, but it has for the most part caused me a lot of mental grief. I still struggle to understand why I am so odd. It frustrated me that I could figure out so much on my own, but just couldn’t discover why I was so different from other people.

Ironically it was often my weirdness that attracted people. I was also usually very kind and followed rules. I was very easy to get along with. Life was happy and something to be enjoyed, so that is what I did.

In Alaska we weren’t the only white people, of course. There were a few other families with whom we were friends, and I ended up finding a ‘girlfriend’ with a girl my age. She was a cute little blond girl with two older sisters, and I remember her mom as the lady who taught my mom how to cook ptarmigan. We started to plan our family and liked playing with each other. The thing I remember most about her, though, was the time she was with us when I fell out of the truck. We had picked her up for a play-date, Dad was driving, my sister was in the car seat in the middle, and my friend and I shared the seat next to the door. The door of the old pick-up truck was rattling and we were taught to open and close it tighter even if the vehicle was moving. Since we were packed a bit tightly, I was mostly leaning against the door; we weren’t wearing seatbelts. She leaned over, opened the door, and I fell out while dad was driving around 20 miles per hour down a mostly gravel road.

I don’t remember the fall, but I do remember sliding on the road alongside the truck for a few moments until I slowed down. Dad stopped very soon after once he realized what had happened and came running in a panic, fearing I had slid under the truck and that he had killed me. Glad to see me safe, he checked me over. I was crying but not for the reason he expected: while I was torn up quite a bit, I was mostly mourning my toy gun that had broken during the ordeal.

At some point in Alaska I remember living in an apartment complex or some such structure that housed three families. The people I assumed were the owners lived upstairs, we lived downstairs, and next to us another family lived in an add-on. That’s how I remember it anyway! The family upstairs had a child a couple years older than me, and he often wanted to play. However, he was a rather malicious child. I don’t remember him saying so, but my parents have relayed to me that he would tell me that if I didn’t play with him the devil would get me. I tend to believe that, for one ‘game’ he made us play involved us hiding in his room or various closets and taking our penises out of our pants, sometimes even rubbing them against each other. I didn’t really like this game, but I didn’t often say no to anything he requested.

That finally stopped when one day he decided to do it in our coat closet. He had me get my sister and then the three of us entered the very small space. He pulled out his penis, told me to pull out mine, and then began to tell my sister to do something, though I’m not sure what it was. Before she had the chance, though, Dad intervened. He became suspicious when all three of us disappeared, then could hear whispering from the closet; the apartment wasn’t very large. When he opened the door and saw what was happening he became absolutely furious and dragged us out, reprimanded us, then sent the boy home. I don’t believe that ever happened again, but it caused many questions for me later in life.

The third location in which we lived was a two-story apartment complex. I remember my parents not being pleased with the condition of the apartment we had been assigned to, so I believe we ended up changing to another room in the complex. My clearest memory of this complex, however, is that of being locked out.

Since both mom and dad worked, I had to take a bus to and from school. I really only have bad memories of riding the bus in Alaska. When we lived in the complex with the so-called devil boy, he and I rode together since we lived in the same place. Once I fell asleep on the bus and when we arrived at our stop where his mom picked both of us up, he climbed over me and left me. I woke up when the bus driver started shouting to get my attention when he realized there was still a kid on board and we were at the bus barn!! Luckily for me my ride home had followed the bus the entire route, so I was able to get home easily.

This particular instance, though, I had ridden the bus home without incident. I had to walk the last few hundred yards from the bus stop. I remember it was a clear day, there was a lot of snow on the ground. I had had a good day at school and was glad to get home. When I got to the door, it was locked as was often the case so I knocked. When no one answered I knocked again, and then again. I began to get frantic, knowing my dad should be home with my sister. I started pounding on the door, tears forming in my eyes as I called out for him. Eventually I gave up and leaned on the door, sliding down to sit in defeat.

I don’t know how long I sat there crying, but it was long enough for me to believe my family had moved without me and no longer wanted me. Why I came to this extreme conclusion, I don’t know; however, it was a precursor to how my mind will often jump to the most extreme conclusion when personal life is concerned. After some time I heard a truck approaching and saw my dad returning. He got out and asked why I was crying, telling me that he had just gone to get groceries and didn’t think he would have been gone so long. He didn’t really tolerate crying.

I know my father loved me, but he really wanted more of a boy than I ever was. He wanted me to help him build houses, go hunting, fishing, be a real man. I didn’t like to get dirty, couldn’t stand the sight of blood, and whenever he was chopping up animals for meat I had to leave for fear of becoming sick. I was really not what he expected in a son, I think, but he still loved me a lot.

He also wasn’t really sure how to deal with kids, it seems. Once my sister and I were playing hide and seek together. Dad was watching us, mom had to stay late at the school. It was my turn to hide, so I got into a trunk that held our toys. It was one of those very sturdy, air-tight trunks lined with particle board. My sister somehow found out I was inside, but instead of opening the trunk and getting me she locked it and sat on it. I started to bang on the top, asking her to let me out. When I couldn’t open it I started to panic and began screaming for dad. He was in another room watching tv, but heard me and asked what was up.

I somehow communicated the situation to him and he informed me that mom had the only key. I asked him what time she would be home and he wasn’t sure, so he called her. Instead of telling her what was going on, he merely asked what time she thought she would be done and he yelled back that it would be about 45 minutes…

I tried to not cry, but I was very scared. The trunk barely fit me with all the toys, and I was very uncomfortable. Not to mention that breathing was not very easy, what with there being no fresh air and particle board dust. It was not at all comfortable either, as my head was resting on top of a toy telephone while there was a pink bunny slipper under my rear. Dad told me to just be patient as mom would get home eventually, but I wanted out right then. This was another instance where I just had to give up struggling and wait, something I learned to do many times later in life as well.

Mom finally got home and when she learned what was going on became mortified and furious. She quickly unlocked the trunk and then started yelling at dad for not telling her what was going on, saying that I could have suffocated and died. I was safe, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

There were good memories too, however. Once I remember