Alan Downs > Quotes

“The damaging part of learning to live your life in two parts , whether in reality or fantasy, cannot be underestimated. It is an infectious skill that you learned, one that would eventually spread beyond the bedroom of your life. Life wasn't ever what it seemed on the surface. Nothing could be trusted for what it appeared to be. After all, you weren't what you appeared to be. In learning to hide part of yourself, you lost the ability to trust anything or anyone fully. Without knowing it, you traded humane innocence for dry cynicism.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“Always seek to allow others the space to be imperfect.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“Sadly, our culture raises man to be strong and silent. Straight or gay, the pressure is on from the time we're very young to become our culture's John Wayne-style of man.
* The more pain I can take, the more of a man I am.
* Showing feelings is for women.
* The more I can drink, the manlier I am.
* Intimacy is sex; sex is intimacy.
* Only women depend on others.
* A man takes care of himself without help from others.
* No one can hurt you if you're strong.
* I am what I earn.
* It is best to keep your problems to yourself.
* Winning is all that really matters.
Where did this stuff come from? It's everywhere in our society from the movies heroes we love to the politicians we vote for. Our culture demands that man fit in a tightly defined role.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“The experience of psychological trauma, as is typically diagnosed (posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]), has at least some of the following symptoms: • Reliving the trauma: This can happen through nightmares, flashbacks, or reexperiencing as a result of being in the presence of stimuli reminiscent of the traumatic event. • Efforts to avoid thoughts or feelings that are associated with the trauma. • Efforts to avoid activities or situations that arouse memories of the trauma. • Inability to remember some important aspect of the trauma (psychogenic amnesia). • Marked reduced interest in important activities. • Feeling of a lack of interest or expulsion by others. • Limited affect; such as inability to cherish loving feelings. • A feeling of not having any future (foreshortened future); not expecting to have a career, get married, have children, or live a long life. • Hypervigilance (heightened sensitivity to possible traumatic stimuli).”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“Contentment is created when your behaviour is consistent with your values. When you act in ways that are consistent with the core of who you are, even when your actions aren't approved by others, you increase your overall contentment. Happiness, success, money, relationships, and even the approval of others will come and go in your life, but what is ultimately satisfying is feeling content.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“Our own internal conflicts prevent us from gaining the emotional clarity needed to maintain a safe and satisfying bond. The situation compounds when two men, both overwhelmed with shame, come together in an intense and explosive expression of passion.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“The one and only skill that resolves the crisis of meaning is that of acceptance.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“that the majority of success in life is about showing up.”
― Alan Downs, The Half-Empty Heart: A Supportive Guide to Breaking Free from Chronic Discontent

“other and often occur simultaneously.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“After a while, we’ve all sort of given up on finding Mr. Right. It’s more about are you Mr. In-My-Bed-Right-Now and, whatever you do, please don’t stay for breakfast.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“aware of”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“What’s happiness really all about? How will I find lasting love and contentment? Can I find it in a relationship with a man? Is there such a thing as a healthy relationship between two men? How can I find real purpose and passion in my life?”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“Passion is a meta-emotion — an emotion that is felt only after observing other emotions over time.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“Being clear and straightforward about who we are, what we want from others, and our intentions is the cornerstone of integrity.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“John’s life had been like so many of ours. He grew up in a middle-class family with a loving, nurturing mother and a kind but distant father. He knew his father loved him, but they hadn’t been close since John’s teenage years. When John came out to his parents, they were upset but seemed to get through it fairly well, although they didn’t ask about the details of John’s life. He introduced his parents to his first live-in lover, but after that relationship fell apart, he avoided telling them much about whom he was seeing. It just made him feel like a double failure: first, he turned out to be gay; and second, he couldn’t keep a long-term relationship.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“The wound is the trauma caused by exposure to overwhelming shame at an age when you weren’t equipped to cope with it. An emotional wound caused by toxic shame is a very serious and persistent disability that has the potential to literally destroy your life. It is much more than just a poor self-image. It is the internalized and deeply held belief that you are somehow unacceptable, unlovable, shameful, and in short, flawed.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“The roots of our trauma with men come from two distinct sources: being a man in a hypermasculine culture and being a gay man in a decidedly straight world. The two of these combined turn the tables dramatically against us and make having a healthy relationship extremely difficult. We must relearn everything we know about relationships in order to make them work successfully.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“the deeply held, sinister belief that perhaps HIV is physical evidence of our own unloveableness.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“We made ourselves more acceptable to others in a variety of ways. Perhaps you learned that you could win approval by becoming more sensitive than the other boys. Maybe you learned that you could win approval by displaying a creativity that the other boys refused to show, or you learned to win approval by excelling at everything you did.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“A gay man’s first romantic relationship with another man is almost as influential in our lives as our relationship with our fathers. The excitement of allowing yourself to freely love another man. The freedom of finally allowing yourself to have what you want. The joy of sexual fulfillment. The closeness of male companionship. The ecstasy of new love. All of these things converge in that first romantic relationship, giving it exceptional power to imprint upon our lives like no other relationship ever will again.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“Two deeply emotionally wounded people cannot form a healthy relationship. They may struggle, compromise, and even stay together, but until they each heal their own wounds, the relationship will always be a struggle.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

“At first we were really happy together. It was the first time either of us had been in a relationship with a man and definitely the first time either of us had lived with a lover. It was such a rush to come home at night and have him waiting there. No sneaking around. We could do whatever we wanted together. Then, I’m not sure when it happened—it wasn’t any particular day—we started to grow apart. Every now and then I’d meet someone at the gym and we’d mess around. I was pretty sure he was doing the same with guys he met on the road. We never really talked about it. Just one day, I came home a day early from a business trip and found him in bed with a really cute guy I’d seen around. I was completely devastated. I guess I didn’t have any right to be since I had been fooling around too, but I was. I’ve never been the same since, and certainly never trusted another man to be faithful.”
― Alan Downs, The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World