Coming Out
My coming out story happened in two stages, and the second stage is still happening. The first stage was coming out to myself, which was very difficult. I didn’t grow up in a horrible environment, but I didn’t grow up in the most supportive environment either. I was shielded from just about everything related to the LGBTQIA+ community. I can even remember my mom getting frustrated when she saw Ellen DeGeneres on TV and made me turn the channel. During my freshman year in high school, people told me not to hang out with certain people because they were gay. As it turns out, the person that they warned me to not hang around with is straight, and I am the one that is a lesbian. All I knew at that point was that being gay was not okay. Not at home, not at school, and not at church. Once I reached my senior year of high school, the constant suppression finally broke me. I tried so hard to be straight, I prayed every night that I would like boys instead of girls. But, I eventually started praying that I wouldn’t wake up the next day. I literally cried myself to sleep every single night. I was very depressed, suicidal, and even started drinking alcohol secretly. For the last half of the school year, I skipped breakfast because I felt nauseous. I ate my lunch in the school bathroom because I didn’t want to be around other people. Then, I would sit in class and think about the best place that I could crash my truck on the way home so that I would die, but not hurt any other drivers. I would cry the whole way home, then when I got home, I would drink alcohol until I felt numb. There were a few times where I got the gun out of my parents’ closet, but I luckily never committed suicide. In those moments, I thought that my parents would rather have a dead child than a gay child.