My Therapist Convinced Me I Was Gay — And It Ruined My Life
Bisexual Men Do Exist!
Content Trigger Warning: Substance Use Disorder, Suicidal Ideation, Sexual Assault of a Minor, Rape
I sat, stiff and spiritless, in a muted mustard yellow, upholstered armchair, licking my lips, arms wrapped around my legs, hugging my knees into my chest, doing my best to hide. My mind was a battlefield.
I shifted my gaze from the ragged carpet to the audience of voyeuristic onlookers as my tongue wrestled with the words between my lips.
“I’m…well, I think…I’m…, I mean, I am, I’m…,” My senses heightened, adrenaline building up like flames and smoke underneath the rocket getting ready for takeoff before it embarks on its journey into the universe, the moment we watch, breathless, hoping it doesn’t blow up.
“I’m gay,” I whispered. Brittle words fell out of my dry mouth, my heartbeat heavy like plucking strings on a bass guitar.
I said it aloud for the first time, to a group of addicted strangers. Nothing about it felt right. It wasn’t right. Even though Julian, the openly gay therapist with fancy credentials on his wall insisted I was, I wasn’t gay. My admission ascended towards outer space like a fiery rocket, and I exploded, as my life catapulted into a downward spiral.
I met Julian a few days before; when I was admitted to Treatment Solutions, a well-known, high-end drug rehabilitation, a few blocks from the Ft Lauderdale coast. I didn’t have health insurance, but at this point, my first-time seeking help, my parents were willing to shell out the 30k that it cost for a thirty-day stay. After my sixth and seventh attempts at rehab, I was lucky to catch a ride to the free facility on the other side of town.
Julian was a small man, but plump. He took up a lot of space. He was effeminate and obnoxious — two things that I was trying the hardest not to be. His pouty lips pumped full of Botox, he sat like a smug Leprechaun in an oversized chair and convinced me I was gay, because, as he put it, “Men can’t be bisexual. It’s impossible, physiologically. There’s research that backs this up.” He printed an article from his computer and handed it to me at the end of our first one-on-one session. I was in rough shape; young, vulnerable, and naïve. I had no reason not to believe him. This educated queer man, a trained professional, and his bullshit research, completely invalidated me. It took another twenty years to sort it all out and almost cost me my life, multiple times.
Drugs and alcohol consumed me and were the reason I sought treatment, but it wasn’t all bad. My drug use allowed me two wonderful things, the ability to explore parts of myself without feeling shame, and the ability to feel numb after the fact. Unfortunately, both were always short-lived, and my dangerous substance use led to its own vicious cycle of shame. At Treatment Solutions, from Julian and his team, I was seeking validation, freedom from my addiction, and a connection to my authentic self. I left more of a prisoner, more invalidated, and even more disconnected.
Julian and I sat alone in his office, me in tears, him clutching a pillow in his lap, separating us, in a way that said, I’m as uncomfortable as you are. I thought back to the first time I felt conflicted about my identity, not yet questioning the messages I was receiving from others around me. When I was six years old, upon completing my first season of tee-ball, I received a trophy with a ‘girl’ figurine placed on top. I get it now, people still mistake me for a female before meeting in person, but six-year-old me didn’t connect the dots. My parents never said, “Now Casey, you have a unisex name, so people may think you’re a girl sometimes. Just giving you a head’s up, we’re gonna need you to toughen up a little bit. Okay, kid?” Because kids said things like, “You run like a girl,” I’d gotten the message that boys were supposed to be better at sports. I thought the invisible tee-ball trophy committee saw me swing and miss an oversized ball, sitting atop a tee, with a giant bat, so many times, that I hadn’t earned the little boy trophy. I decided competitive sports weren’t for me. Thirty years later I find humor in it — a prompt on my dating profile reads, my third-grade teacher would describe me as… awkward, unathletic, and probably a little gay.
As I navigated puberty, like other boys my age, I started to notice my attraction to women and found myself getting erections when I fantasized about them. Though I didn’t understand what was happening in my body, it was aligned with the messages I was getting, this is how boys are supposed to act. However, I began to realize I was different when I found myself fantasizing about men too and wanting to dress in women’s clothing. One day, scouring through my best friend’s parent’s closet so he could show us his dad’s collection of Playboy magazines, I found myself, hard, staring at the centerfold in one of his mom’s Playgirls. That was the first time I saw a man with an erection. It was marvelous. I still fantasize about him to this day.
Unfortunately, no one told me this was okay. I felt shame for the first time. I felt broken. I’d never heard the term bisexual. Middle school sex education teachers didn’t give us options. This is how boys behave, this is how girls behave. Marriage. Sex, Babies, and so on. That was it. Had anyone told me, “And some people are attracted to anybody,” I would’ve raised my hand immediately and shouted, “that’s me!” I spent much of my adult life listening to the messages I was getting from society; this is what masculinity looks like. So, I ran from anything with a rainbow. Fueled by a shitty education system, misogynistic ideals, toxic masculinity, hormones, homophobia, biphobia, and patriarchy, I couldn’t get close to anything remotely queer.
That conflict and a lack of support and validation led me down a dark path and filled me with shame. I rebelled in every way. I wanted everyone to see me but no one to know me. I was the good kid in the bad crowd and the bad kid in the good crowd. I was everything but authentic. By the time I dropped out of college, I had been abusing drugs and alcohol for most of my short adult life. I was meeting up with men much older than me, having sex with them, anonymously, in exchange for drugs and cash. I was gang raped by a group of men, in a six-million-dollar penthouse, thirty-six stories above the ocean. From the balcony, most people admired the Atlantic. I fantasized about what my body would look like splattered on the concrete, four hundred feet below. I showed up to rehab, a broken twenty-three-year-old, hoping to put myself back together. Yet somehow, thirty days later, I was discharged, in far worse shape than when I arrived.
I found a bit of hope when I met Julian. Here was an openly gay man, a therapist specializing in substance abuse, assuring me he was there to help me.
“When did you first realize, you were attracted to men, Casey? And have you ever had sex with a man?”
I told him about the Playgirl, and I told him about Frankie, the dishwasher at Ziti’s, a neighborhood pizzeria known for its New York style, $5.99 large cheese pizza, where I bussed tables after school and on weekends. Frankie, a Columbian immigrant, wore a white tank top with an American flag as his uniform and wrapped a Hefty trash bag around his waist to serve as an apron as he scrubbed pots and pans. I still remember how the Hefty bag felt pressed up against my face as he pushed down on my scrawny shoulders and ejaculated on my face.
I confided in Julian, “I don’t remember how it started, but I do remember the way his stubby, uncircumcised penis curved upward and how the fleshy mushroom head felt poking the back of my throat and jabbing around my ass, as it pricked and prodded its way inside of me.”
Julian nodded, taking notes, but didn’t say much. It was another twenty years before I even realized the inappropriate nature of what occurred — that the man, thirty years my senior, had assaulted me, a child.
I told Julian that I spent hours on America Online, downloading photos and videos of men, and cruising chat rooms. I noticed Julian never asked me when I first realized I found women attractive. I began to feel like he was leading me somewhere I didn’t want to go. While I told Julian about Frankie, I didn’t tell him about the rape, and I didn’t tell him about the meth-addicted, transgender sex worker that inspired me to come to rehab. I told him about my girlfriend. That I really cared for her. That I was attracted to her. I wanted him to see the bigger picture. I needed him to validate me. All of me. Instead of confirming those things, Julian said the words that began to unravel me. Bisexual men do not exist. I was devastated and confused.
I spent the next day like a ghost roaming the rehab’s hallways, broken, pondering the past. I grew up in a gay-friendly, progressive city, my parents were open-minded, liberal, accepting, and compassionate.
My mom told me on more than one occasion, “If you’re gay, Case, it’s cool, we love you no matter what,” usually while she blew smoke from her Marlboro Light out of a small, smoke-stained, kitchen window. I assured her I wasn’t gay but was never sure myself. No one I knew was bisexual. Even famous people we now know were bisexual, Elton John, Freddie Mercury, and David Bowie didn’t claim that as their identity. It was too confusing.
My story may sound tragic, but it has a happy ending. Twenty years later I’m no longer a confused, naïve, impressionable kid seeking to find his identity. I’m forty, with an amazing partner who happens to be female. I’ve been in recovery from substance use disorder for three years. My mental health is no longer a challenge. I’m an active part of the queer community. I have a lot to say, which is great because there’s a lot people need to hear. There’s plenty of research that successfully disputes the messages I got from Treatment Solitons twenty years ago. But still, there is so much work to do.
Bisexual men are the most underrepresented part of the LGTBQ+ community. Low on the queer totem pole. We’re still fighting for validation from the heteros and the gays. I’m leading that fight. As someone who spent most of his life navigating the center of the spectrum, in many ways, I’ve learned that the people who have the hardest time seeing the center, are those on the extreme outsides. Julian was one of them. I’d heard he left Treatment Solutions, bounced around, and eventually opened up a school, teaching about addiction. In March 2021, I received a text from Nurse Craig, Julian’s friend, and coworker, also a gay man, who’d been in charge of managing my medication while I was in rehab. Nurse Craig and I kept in touch sporadically over the years.
“Did you hear about Julian? He died, of Covid. It was shocking.”
I expressed my sincere condolences and gratitude. I shared that my experience with Julian had not been a positive one, and why.
The response I received, twenty years after my discharge, was shocking, yet not unexpected, Craig said, “I think it’s the socially evolved view, but the jury is still out on male bisexuality.”
No, no, it isn’t.
Casey Cannizzaro (he/they) is a recovery & lifestyle coach, writer, and substance use disorder counselor. He has been navigating substance use recovery for the majority of his adult life. He’s especially fascinated by the intersection of substance use and identity. He came out publicly as bisexual in 2019. He lives in San Diego with his partner, Shannon. They plan to move to Portland, Oregon in October. Casey serves on the Board of Directors of the secular recovery organization, Lifering, and is a member of the Bi+ Mental Health Justice Coalition. Follow him on Instagram or Medium or hit him up on Facebook. Feel free to say hello — his DMs are forever open.
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