Society and parental experiences create a great deal of how we perceive ourselves and our life and even our orientation. I have a cousin who is in fact gay. He is now in his early 60's and married a lesbian as a cover. His Father, now deceased was an alcoholic. When this fellow became Drum Major at his High School back in the 1960's his Father instead of being proud of his son's accomplishment, beat the kid into a bloody pulp because: "All Drum Majors are faggots!!!"
This cousin was exempt from the Draft because of injuries sustained in a severe automobile accident in his mid-teens. To get away from his Father and to prove he was "a man" as his Dad would have wanted he enlisted in the United States Army only to be sent to Viet Nam.
In Viet Nam he unfortunately had every negative experience possible including having the barracks where he was sleeping at the time attacked by people throwing grenades. He was not injured, but one of his best friends was killed in that incident. He watched a 10-year-old kid try to shine the shoes of another soldier. The kid was wired with explosives and both the child and the soldier were killed when the explosives were detonated from a remote location.
My cousin returned from Viet Nam with severe alcoholism and drug addiction. He was in trouble with the law several times over the alcohol and he was hospitalized numerous time for alcohol treatment.
The last time I saw him was over fifteen years ago. At the time I was open and out and trying to enter a relationship. My cousin was so nervous at seeing me and how I was living that it was very sad.
His Sister and I had been very close. Before her own death on a fishing boat accident off the coast of California, she had told all the stories of being in therapy with him trying to then just save his life. His homosexuality was well known in therapy and because he had been beaten so many times by the Father figure he never could accept himself for who or whom he really was.
The last 30 years of his adult life have been living in denial of absolute facts and he has managed to survive that way. A friend of mine had seen him in a picture and mentioned that he had been seen in an Orange County, CA gay bar multiple times.
I never knew what to do for him to help him, so I have always just given him his space and wanted him to have some happiness from life.
Yes, there are people who for various reasons never acknowledge who they really are and achieve the happiness they deserve.