Have you ever struggled thinking about your coming out?
If the answer is yes, this article is for you.
If the answer is "I'm not gay", this article is for you.
If you like minions, this article is for you.
Just joking, they're here because I'd like to have your attention as a "friend" and not as a "reader".
So keep reading and delete all the prejudice you have on this matter starting... NOW!
When I discovered my sexual orientation
I was six years old the first time I saw another boy with some interest. I know it wasn't about friendship, since I felt a bit weird looking at some of them.
But that was not the point when I realized I'm gay.
I accepted I'm gay when I was at the start of Medium School (from age 11 to 13). I actually had some signals before, but that's when I clearly stated "ok, I'm gay".
That moment was the hell for me.
I don't know if this sentence is "correct" for journals and law, but in my mind I've been bullied. At least with words.
I was the "girls' friend" and they stickied a banana on my t-shirt witht the sentence "I love bananas". I discovered that sticker once I got home and my mom asked me to explain the situation to my teacher.
So that's correct! Gays just stay with the girls!
That's one of the common stereotype.
Nope, I didn't stay with girls because I don't like being a boy or anything like that. I stayed with them because I didn't feel comfortable talking about vaginas and so on (the ONLY topic that was allowed).
I didn't hate boys, I just discovered that I finished in a pretty bad class.
I felt uncomfortable with both sexes and, when people used to group up, I was left alone because I was a little fat or because I was "the gay".
Also, when we were having a course about sex and prevention, when the word "gay" came out everyone was looking at me.
I, officialy, was "the gay".
Then I started to participate in LGBT groups
When I turned 14, I started to join some LGBT associations and groups in my city. I discovered a friendly environment where my sexuality was not something to hide.
Because that's how it felt when I was in medium school. If I didn't like girls in that way, there's must have been something strange about me.
I also tried to have a relationship with one of my friend (girl friend). We broke up after three days and now we're closer than ever and she's happy to know I'm open with myself and my sexuality.
Also, she discovered her sexual orientation too. She's bi (bisexual).
And then...
Then I finally came out to a friend who was extremely open and kind with me. I was denying myself saying I would have never kissed a boy and stuff like that, but he just was comfortable speaking about the topic and he helped me a lot in this phase.
He told me that nothing was wrong about me and that I should have tried to give my friends a chance. My classmates were pretty fine and kind, so I decided to try out.
I came out to one of my closest friend at school. He was a little surprised about that, but then he just ignored that (in a positive way). Now we are even closer and we talk about everything (yeah, I also talk about handsome guys and so on with him - and he's totally straight).
I then decided to come out to my entire class.
They were pretty fine. One of them was annoying, but then he left school.
But, after that, I had a bad moment covering the light.
My family was against one of my best friend at those time (the first guy I ever came out at) and they decided to flag this "friendship" to the police.
From 14yrs old to 16yrs old I had two psychologist, one psychiatrist and one social worker all together trying to figure out if I was dangerous or not.
I started to cut myself. I loved feeling the pain and I felt my life was going down every day. I had some "good moments", but that's it.
In fact, when the police made some research, they discovered something pretty stupid, awful and horrible that I've done when I was 11.
Anyway, I was 11, so we never met again since I was a kid. They just made me sign up some papers.
The same thing didn't happen with social workers and therapists, that tried to make me understand I did something wrong.
And I was perfectly aware of that. I can't say what I did, but I can say I always clearly stated I did something awful, I know that if I repeat that now I would be in trouble and so on.
But, After two years
It was over.
I was finally free from all those therapists and my life improved dramatically. And some of them was really helpful, don't get me wrong. I also had some good experience. But my psychiatrist was awful and she didn't want to know me better.
I had some relationships in the meantime, but they were meaningless and those boys just wanted to have sex. While I was more into having a serious relationship.
I was on the front line at almost every pride in my Country and I started my own blog about LGBT topics. I started to be "the gay" in the school again, since everyone knew that, but who cares.
Once you come out, WHO CARES. How can somebody insult you calling you "gay" if you came out? Just answer "I know".
But I still used to cut myself. It was an habit.
Then, I decided to trust my friends when they were saying they cared about me, so I stopped for a bit.
I started again later on, but I'm now proud of saying I didn't cut myself for almost a year now. That's the longest period of "no-cutting" I've ever done but, best of all, I don't want to cut ever again.
I'm happy.
I'm 100% happy of my life. I have the life I wanted to have, I love an awesome boy who loves me back, I share my awesome life with most of my friends and some of them are really like brothers for me.
Conclusion
That post was not about "me and just me". I hope this story can help a lot of you struggling about their sexuality or about their coming out.
When you come out, you remove a part of your mask. You become your true you and all of the connections you made in your life (family, friends) become more real.
Maybe some of them will hate you. So what?
So you prefer to keep hiding your true identity and your true love just because someone don't like you?
Of course you have to analyze the situation of your life in that moment, but when you feel comfortable... don't feel scared.
If you live in a friendly and kind friend environment, you and your friends will just benefit from that. The same for the family.
Hope that helped. I'll talk about my story and my activism later on. This post was just an introduction to help you understand there are some positive stories out there and you may want to read about them.
See ya!
PS: all images are free to use and they're taken from Pexels and Pixabay.
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Dear @ziogio,
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Thank you so much!
That really makes me happy. It took me a bit of work to write this story without using complex words. I used to write the same post over and over again in italian, but talking about that matter in english seemed hard.
It's been a pleasure to read this reply. Keep working on your awesome project!
"I was happy to be rid of therapists" and "I cut myself" shouldn't appear in the same post unless they also appear alongside, "That therapy worked and I don't cut myself any more thanks to it!"
It sounds like you have two things going on. Thing 1 is you're gay, which really isn't a huge deal. Especially in 2016 anywhere remotely urban. Thing 2 is that you don't cope well with difficult situations, which manifests as self-destructive inclinations.
Thanks to your parents' poor judgment, you had some previous therapy for thing 1, when thing 1 isn't a thing that really warrants treatment. You should have been getting therapy for thing 2.
On the plus side, it sounds like you're good with yourself and your life is moving in a good direction. But life's hard in general. Even for straight people who don't face judgment from bigots. If things go south all of the sudden, you lose your boyfriend, your job, your family, your money, your health, or any combination of those things, and suddenly it seems like everything's falling apart, you've developed better ways to cope, right?
Of course I developed better ways to cope.
I didn't get therapy for the first reason. I got therapy for some "dangerous" friendship online. Then I started cutting and my therapy went trough it as well.
It became an habit and I wasn't doing it to get better or anything. So, now that I'm out of that habit, I'm able to see many ways to escape hard situations.
Don't worry and thank you for the comment :)
If you can count on one thing it's that this community has your back. Thanks for posting something so personal.
I posted it on several places in Italy because I want to be know for who I am. And, since in my country I fight for LGBT equality, it seems good to me to share this story with this community too :)
Thank you so much for sharing your story/ journey with us. I'm thrilled both to hear you're in a better place and the attention being received on this post!
I'm very happy you joined us on Steemit!
That story is already public in Italy, but I wanted to let you steemians to read something about coming out as gay and as a teen in the same time.
To me, it's probably the "same" story. Actually, it's pretty normal, I'm the one who wrote it!
So I didn't expect much. But then I realized that here it was new and I'm happy you appreciated that so much!
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Thanks for sharing your story. I am sorry to hear that being gay affected you in such a way that you felt it was necessary to cut yourself. I hope that one day you will see that you are just fine the way you are, and that cutting yourself is completely unnecessary.
It is a little bit different story, but you may enjoy reading my "coming out" article. I struggled with some of the same things that you did.
https://steemit.com/tag/@timcliff/finding-a-balance-between-being-out-and-accepting-other-people-s-uncomfortableness-with-being-gay
So good to hear you are family! Esp since I like your blog articles. One thing missing in Steemit is LGBT voices... good to know I am not alone.
I'll read it!
Also, I didn't cut myself because I felt bad about my orientation. Don't worry and thank you for your comment! Keep steeming!
Thanks for sharing your story. Everyone follows their own path, but all gay men can recognise elements of their own journey in your experience. That's really empowering.