Ian Thorpe, one of the most decorated Olympic swimmers in history, recently revealed that he is gay. So, for the time being, the Australian athlete replaces former gay poster boy Tom Daley as the new face of homosexual normalcy. Yet, like Daley, and their American counterpart Michael Sam, their lives have been anything but picture-perfect. (For my earlier blog on Michael Sam, see: http://www.josephsciambra.com/2014/02/celebration-nfl-prospect-comes-out.html) Thorpe, whose father was also an athlete, has suffered a life-long battle with mental illness; particularly depression and alcoholism. Much of the angst and turmoil seems to surround his father, whom himself has admitted that he grew up with an abusive dad. In his most publicized break with reality, Thorpe was arrested near his parent’s home under the influence of pain-killers and anti-depressants. In his 2012 autobiography, Thorpe wrote: “I like different things. For me, I'm a nerd. I'm just someone who happened to be good at sport as well. I educated myself by reading books on planes, traveling around the world. I like beautiful things in the world, I like the aesthetics of those things…” Because of this, the rather introverted and artistic boy had been dogged by questions of homosexuality since age 15; resulting in a self-contained guardedness; Thorpe added: “The truth is I've spent most of my adult life trying to avoid relationships…if people get too close to me I often end up pushing them away.”
Earlier, in 2013, another Olympic champion, UK Gold Medalist in Diving Tom Daley, became the darling of the gay set when he reveled that he was involved with a much older man. Like Thorpe, Daley struggled with family and personal issues as a child: he was bullied so severely by other boys that he had to switch schools; his doting stage-father died when he was 17; so traumatized by this death, that, though he had only ever dated girls, he fell in love with a man only slightly younger than his dad. Of the relationship, Daley said: “I’ve been dating girls and I’ve never really had a serious relationship to talk about and now I feel ready to talk about my relationships. Come spring this year my life changed massively when I met someone and it made me feel so happy, so safe, and everything just feels great. And, well, that someone – is a guy.” Interesting that he stressed the emotion of safety. Concerning the traumas in his past, Daley’s mother said: “He is capable of compartmentalizing his life and lets stuff like this go over his head. He has to. But I had that motherly instinct to protect.” She added: “…I am the only parent left to defend him.” In my experience, gay men who are prone to so called “compartmentalizing,” never really deal with the problems at hand; for, they keep placing them on a shelf, promising to return to it at a later date; when, in the mean time, more shelves and compartments keep being added. Instead, they seek out the safety and protection they never had, or sadly lost.