A lot of your story resonates with me, although our situations are of course quite different, separated as we are by most of a continent, the Pacific Ocean, and different cultures.

Nevertheless, as a young man from a conservative "country" family in the Midwestern United States, I faced disappointing my quite traditional family. My mother never got over her bitter disappointment.

Now, after a lifetime of city life, I'm back in the country, living in a small village where people like me are exceedingly rare, because we tend to leave when we're young, and we mostly don't come back.

Sort of a self-reinforcing segregation or stigmatization? Something like that, I guess.

I wish you the very best in your future!