Community Rainbow Waves

BeKindNomad – Jude

While this might be a little lengthy I assure you, it’s the truncated version of the story. I’m always open to speaking further about my life and experiences for anyone interested and especially if it may help someone else.

Let’s do a little travel back in time. Before Ellen’s famous coming out “Puppy” episodes in 1997. Before AOL went unlimited and allowed the first wave of people to surf the web and access information in a whole new way. Let’s go back to the 1980s where a young girl so desperately wanted to hang with the boys. A young girl who played with He-Man instead of Barbie. A young girl who felt like her skin was crawling every time she was forced to wear a dress. It was a “dark ages” because there was no information about anything LGBT+ anywhere around. Fast forward a little and the only time a gay or “trans” person was seen on the screen was a prostitute, druggie, or some other evil or mentally deranged type of character. But I kept finding myself drawn to girls and even those a little older than me but I didn’t know what this “draw” was because I had no vocabulary for it.
I wasn’t overly religious but I was asked to be a godmother to my cousin who was born in 1991 so I had to get confirmed and that meant I had to do confession as part of the final “classes.” I told the priest I was confused and didn’t know what was going on but that I was finding I was attracted to other girls. The priest turned to me and asked how I thought I’d look black and blue and unless I wanted to find out I should leave the confessional. I was surprised but as I wasn’t overly religious to begin with I didn’t feel “betrayed by my faith” as many others might have felt.
I was constantly tormented and teased in school as the “weirdo” and the black sheep in general. There was a small, dark phone booth in my middle school that I would often hide in to avoid the tormentors. In the tiny room were a little bench built into the wall and a little rack where a little newspaper-type booklet was placed in the slats. I would flip through it often just to have something to read and noticed a section for gay and lesbian. What are these words? What do they mean? I wasn’t entirely sure but, at the same time, I felt like these were incredibly important words. There was a listing for a local support group for youth. When squirreled the booklet away but was too nervous to call.
I was distracted by constantly being beaten up at school, beaten up at home by my father, and feeling like I had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. I fell in love with the Phantom of the Opera in middle school because I felt a kinship with Erik (Phantom). I felt like my attraction to the same gender was like his deformity. I felt grotesque and shunned by the world and so I started to turn away from the world in kind. I retreated to my mind and turned to writing. I’d write all kinds of stories but the recurring theme was a female “hero” always rescuing some female “damsel” – really likely the same old stories everyone else told except same-sex based. When I discovered that my parents were breaking into my writings I felt everything and anything I did was violated – I had nothing! No one to speak to, no one to trust, and I couldn’t even “speak to myself” through my writing. I retreated even further into my mind – opting now to just keep my thoughts to myself and never write anything anymore because even that was being violated. The more I retreated into myself the more I became “odder” to others and the more I was tortured and beaten up by my classmates and at home.
I spent the summer before I entered High School as a freshman just riding my bike. I’d get out of the house first thing in the morning and would ride anywhere and everywhere all day so I wouldn’t have to be home and deal with my father. High school started and I went to classes and joined the drama club because I always had a passion for theater thanks to my grandmother (who passed back in 1992) and the love I had for Phantom of the Opera was still strong because it was “my story” too. He was deformed on the outside and I was deformed on the inside because I liked girls. There was a boy in drama that was gay and said I should check out a support group. I remembered that booklet and eventually called and spoke to a lovely young woman (who I believe was about 18 or so) who told me all about the group and “coming out” and told me when the next meeting was going to be. I felt that maybe I wasn’t crazy or disgusting and maybe it was okay to like girls. I told a senior girl I was crushing on at the time that I liked her…
…Apparently, I was wrong…
She told the school principal and before I knew it I was being kicked out of school and being mandated into a mental hospital for “observation” for a month. It was true! Something was very wrong with me. I was a filthy disgusting creature just like I always knew I was! In the hospital was a girl and a boy, both around my age (maybe a year or two older) and they were lesbian and gay – the girl was discharged within the first few days of my being there but the boy was very friendly and told me about this local support group that I should check out when I got released. It turns out that it was the same group I called about and planned to attend a meeting before I got tossed in the loony bin. We got out around the same time and he agreed to meet me at the next meeting so I wouldn’t have to go alone.
When I got there it was a small, dark room with just a couple of chairs. There were a couple of older kids (18 or so) who ran the group and then a couple of others around my age and so. I was instantly attracted to one of the girls there and so I reached out and we went on a date. We wound up dating (in secret – I didn’t come out to anyone yet) for a little while when her mother kicked her out so my parents said she could stay with us. My sister and I were hanging out on her bed while she was in the shower and I fell asleep so my sister left to go to her room and my girlfriend just crawled into bed next to me. The next morning my mother walked in and saw us sharing the bed, both sound asleep, and started screaming. She grabbed me and pulled me out of the bed and started beating on me and screaming for my girlfriend to get the F— out of the house. My mother then proceeded to out me to my entire family and, thankfully, most of them said they weren’t too surprised and didn’t have much issue with it overall.
Unfortunately, that girl wound up cheating on me with someone I was on a volunteer ambulance squad with and that was the end of my first same-sex/lesbian relationship and I was thrust out of the closet. From then on I decided I would beat everyone to the punch and just introduced myself as “Hi, I’m the lesbian…” and while it startled people it also took away the power many would have over me. Most of my relationships wound up ending because I was cheated on. Around 2005/2006 I was working in an animal shelter and a woman (6 years older) saw my MySpace and we started chatting. We agreed to lunch and hit it off instantly. We were together for 4 years and my family was very accepting at this point. I started to talk to her about feeling like I was in the wrong body. For a long time I thought maybe I was just a butch lesbian but – once again – I had no vocabulary to understand what I was feeling – only that I was feeling something wasn’t right with how I saw myself in my head versus what I saw in the mirror. So, I stopped looking in the mirror. Despite her being married to a man previously and my telling her I think she’s bi versus lesbian she was adamant that she was lesbian – to the point where she told me if she wanted to be with a guy she would have stayed with her ex and that she didn’t want me to keep talking about this “wrong body” nonsense. I proposed to her, she accepted, and at one point a bunch of friends of mine planned to gather in the city (NYC) for dinner. I was excited to have everyone meet her and so we went. I introduced her to one guy and his live-in girlfriend and several other friends. Not long after I found out she went out to hang out with the two friends and they wound up kissing – before we knew it – she and I were breaking up and the guy kicked his girlfriend and her kid out of his house and now my fiancé and he were suddenly dating. I started online dating almost immediately after and hooked up with a girl from TN so I hopped on my motorcycle with everything I could manage to fit into bags strapped all over it and rode for 22 hours straight until I reached Nashville. She told me about Drag Kings and that I might be interested in that since I kept feeling like I was in the wrong body. We went to the gay clubs in Nashville where I saw Drag Kings for the first time and learned about transitioning for the first time. A month later we moved to Raleigh, NC where I started to do my own drag (dressing up as a male) and thought maybe I’m a “male-identifying lesbian.” I still didn’t have a grasp of what being transgender was or even that was what I wanted to do. I was clueless.
When I talked about “doing drag full time” as my mind understood it, my new girlfriend gave me the same old story. “If I wanted to be with a guy, I’d be straight and I’m not.” Okay, I will put the relationship ahead of my fulfillment. I wasn’t even sure what to do so why risk a long-term relationship on a “who knows what?” When I found out that she was cheating on me for some time (including one of them being with a GUY!!!!) I was done putting others ahead of my happiness. We split and I immediately went into full research mode about transitioning and March 22, 2014, I started my first shot of testosterone. But… my sister was getting married in August and I very quickly grew facial hair and my voice dropped – I needed to come out to my family quickly.
I spoke with a couple of cousins (I’m an Italian New Yorker, I have a lot of cousins) who I knew would be supportive and they said the same thing – “we’re not really surprised.” With support of some form, I told my family and they were confused but also gave me the “not really surprised” kind of response. Oh, but could you still shave and wear the dress for the wedding? I once again suppressed myself and did it so that my sister’s special day would go off without a hitch.
I’ve not dated since 2014 for a variety of reasons. I’m tired of being with people who would physically beat on me, who kept repressing me, and constantly being cheated on. I have been treated so badly by so many, including so many who claimed to love me that I didn’t believe that there were any people with genuine kindness or love in them. I got so tired of being told someone loves me “in spite of” this or that quality of mine. I have since been split from my family and have found myself to be incredibly alone and heartbroken but, at the same time, I feel like I’ve been stripped down to the barest form of myself so that I can rebuild myself better and stronger than ever. To be honest, I still wonder if there is any genuine kindness in people but having come across Dominique who seems to exude this incredible light of beautiful kindness from deep inside her soul I find it gives me a little touch of hope that there are beings out there with true love in their heart. That someone out there will be willing to be patient with me as I cleanse my scars and love me BECAUSE of who I am instead of the dreadful “in spite of.” I know that I have so much to give as a person, as a human, and surely there must be someone out there for me. It’s just very hard because I’m “too female” (ugh) for straight woman and “too male” for lesbians – or so I’ve been told multiple times. Finding someone who seeks to love me for my soul is perhaps the hardest journey of my life but I’m open to the universe guiding me and that person together. In the meantime, I continue to learn about myself and grow and learn. I may have “come out” twice – first as a lesbian and then again as a trans man – but I find that life is constantly about growing into yourself and all the many ways we come to embrace and express ourselves. So, until the person who will love my soul comes along I will keep on living and learning.

Jessi, the gay woman

I was about 17 when I realised. I developed a crush on not 1 but on a group of 3 girls on the bus. 2 of them were sisters. I didn’t have a big coming out, not even with my parents, but I grew up in a place and around people that I knew wouldn’t have a problem with it. The first time I did actually tell my mom was right before I was going live on a radio show. My mom NEVER listened to the radio but that night of all nights she was. So I figured I would give her a little heads up I was going to be on the radio. So I ran into her bedroom and yelled “I’m going to be on the radio!” and then ran back out just to run back in and yell “to talk about my bisexuality!” I didn’t give her time to respond and she never actually did but I knew she was gonna be okay with it otherwise I wouldn’t have done that. Now we’re so many years later, changed a bit (or a lot) and I’ve come to the realisation I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with a man and can only see myself in a serious relationship with a woman. The older I got, the less I was interested in men to not at all anymore. Which is also why I identify as gay, because I don’t want to give myself a specific label like lesbian or bisexual. I’m happy with being gay.

Larissa

I’m a 30 years old queer cisgender woman that knew from a very young age that I liked girls. However, I didn’t really know that I was a lesbian at that time.
As far as I can remeber I had crushes on girls, but as a kid growing up in the northeast of Brazil (a very “tradicional” region) I had no queer references whatsoever. I just knew that girls were suppost to like boys, so I faked it, throughout my entire adolescence. I dated boys and kisses a lot of them so that no one would suspect that I was actually in love with a girl friend.
It was only when I went to college in another state across the country that I had the courage to try to kiss a girl. In a traditional Brazilian festivity, carnaval, I kissed a girl for the first time and that made me realize how much I wanted to do that for my entire life. Since It was a party and there was a lot of alchool involved none of my friends said much about It, and I actually ended up with some other guys for almost an year before finally having the guts to admit first to my self, that I was definitely not into guys.
It was watching shows with queer characters that helped me build the stregnth to come out, in special Naya Rivera’s Santana in Glee. I related so much to her that I started to feel the need to be honest with myself, to stop hiding who I was, that’s when I leaned on my first openly gay friend to start going out more, meeting girls and telling people around me that I was gay. I then came out to my childhood friends who still lived in my hometown and it was such a releaf to hear them say that they loved just the same. It was time to tell my family. In a visit to my parents house, on a long weekend that my dad was way I told my mother. Her reaction was as far from undestanding as it could possibly be, she didn’t speak to me again for several months. As I left the very next day, heart broken, I didn’t really know what to do next. My mother told my older sister who called me and said that my mom was devasted, crying all the time and not eating, begging me to go to a therapist. I knew that they were expecting me to be “cured” by this therapist but I went anyway to try to make amends. It turned out the therapist was a really nice woman who knew my sister and their intentions and told me at the first session that she wasn’t there to cure me, but to help me cope with everything I was going throutgh. My father was the real light for me at that time, he asked me to have patience with my mom, that she was taking it pretty hard but was trying to be better for me and that he would love me for the both of them until then.
A lot of scars had to heal before I started to feel whole again and be proud of who I am, but as I was going through all of this with my mom I kept reminding myself that I needed to treat her with the same love and acceptence that I expected to get from her. Now, eight year later, she has come a long way. It took patience and love, but most importantly I knew I wasn’t alone.

I’m still human- CONTENT WARNING: THIS COMING OUT STORY CONTAINS DESCRIPTION AND/OR DISCUSSION ABOUT SELF-HARMING BEHAVIOUR, BULLYING, AND SUICIDE

I knew I was different when I was about 6 years old. I never liked girly things I would play football with the boys and chase the girls playing kiss chase. I realised I was attracted to women when I was in high school. I told my best friend that I was gay when I was 15. It didnt go so well soon the whole school knew. I was bullied really badly i had my hair set on fire, people tipped cans af coke over my head, i got beat up on the way home every day. I had to cut out chewing gum from my hair every day. It was a nightmare I fell into a deep depression and started self harming. When I was 16 I tried to kill myself I couldn’t take it anymore, I was being tortured for being myself. I hid my sexuality and got a boyfriend. He was also gay and didnt want the same abuse I was getting so we pretended to date. We would hold hands and hang out together. Things got a little easier after that. When I was 19 I started going to the gay village in manchester I would dance in the clubs hook up with women but would give them a fake names because I was so scared everyone would find out I was gay. When I was 21 I got very drunk and shouted at my mum that I was gay while trying to climb the stairs. My mum just smiled and said she had always known and that I shouldn’t be ashamed of who I am. I wished I’d have told her when I was at school instead of lying about why I was being bullied. I am now 39 years old I’m married to the most beautiful woman on the planet. We have been together for 15 years and every day I find something new to love about her. I wish I hadn’t experienced the abuse I suffered as it has had negative effects on me like I dont like people coming up behind me or standing to close to me. I still suffer with bouts of depression and low self esteem but I wouldn’t be the person I am today if i hadn’t gone through that. I’m still human after all. Xxx

Bisexual

I knew I like boys and girls since I was at a very young age (5-6) I didn’t really think much about it until I was in year 7 and everyone started dating, up until high school I only had a couple of crushes on boys. When I got in to year 9 I was getting really close with one of my friends and we started “talking”. And that’s the same year in school we looked at different sexuality’s and feelings, I finally realised the way I felt about people had a name. I’m out and a proud bisexual.

H. E4L and forever grateful for the Earpers WayHaught

I kind of had an inkling I wasn’t straight back in late 2015. I was really into The 100 and I remember I was unreasonably attached to Lexa and Clarke. It was the first canon LGBT relationship I’d ever seen on TV and for some reason, that meant a lot to me. Then I started watching Wynonna Earp in 2016, because I’d heard about WayHaught and I got really excited that another show might have a canon couple (of course, I got totally hooked on WE within an episode.) And the whole time I’m watching Clexa and WayHaught especially I remember thinking “I wish I had that.” I started seriously thinking about my future and realised that, when I didn’t actively think “I want a husband and kids and etc” if I closed my eyes and tried to picture getting married…it wasn’t always a man. Sometimes, it was a woman I could imagine marrying. And right as I was having that realisation and trying to reconcile it with my religion (Christianity) the whole Lexa thing happened and I got angry. That was one of 2 representations I had to try and figure this out and they just get rid of her?! I decided that I wasn’t going to think about it anymore. I’d kind of figured out I was definitely bi at that point but because of the whole religion thing I decided “hey, at least there’s still a big chance I’ll end up with a guy.”

My nephew was born in the June of 2016 with a serious heart condition and for a decent few weeks, I thought it was God’s punishment. I’d figured out I was bi and God didn’t like that so he punished my family. I was 15 and I didn’t really process things right so I legit thought for weeks that it was my fault. And then I started going online more and I found the Earpers and that whole community made me feel a lot more comfortable. I found people of my faith that weren’t straight and talked to them about everything. And the whole time, I still had WayHaught on Wynonna Earp showing me that girl/girl relationships were alright. Right after the season 1 finale of WE, I told my sister that I thought I was bi. My mum figured it out within a year and told my dad for me. I didn’t officially come out to any of my friends or anyone from my high school until the end of 2019, after I started uni, but most of my close friends kind of figured it out because I stopped fighting it and actively started talking about LGBT stuff.

I was out and proud from my first day at university and that felt so amazing. It was the first time I hadn’t hid my sexuality at all from anyone and that was one of the best experiences of my life. Turned out a decent number of people I started hanging out with, both in lectures and society meetings, were also LGBT+ so for the first time in my life, I had a significant amount of non-hetero friends, one of whom is as big of an Earper as me. I found my people, both on and offline.

I hope my story hasn’t ended just yet.

Okay here it goes…I knew I was an LGBTQ2IA community member about 10 years ago when I stopped being in denial about my sexuality. It was exhausting coming up with excuses and thinking that I could fake love a guy if I found myself in a relationship with one. And I almost convinced myself into thinking that was an okay thing to do simply because I knew my mom wouldn’t approve of a gay daughter and most of all because it would make life easier. But something inside of me wouldn’t let go, I couldn’t imagine living happily with someone I didn’t truly or honestly could be in love with both emotionally and physically. I saw and still do to this day see how unhappy my mother is in her marriage and I cannot forcibly bring myself to live life similarly.

I did come out to one person, but she proved to not be trusting. I have not come out to my family. I know I won’t get a positive reaction from my mom. I love her to death, but she’s got this traditional way of seeing relationships that I simply don’t fit into and it hurts so much to know that she doesn’t have a problem letting someone go if they don’t retain similar interests with her. Sexuality is a big one and that has kept me in the closet. I cannot risk Losing shelter.

But life has been sad and maybe strange from an outsider’s perspective. I have so many years been my mom’s helping hand in everything from household duties ( cooking, cleaning, running errands, going to the market ) to renovation projects at home, and now in the past 8 years, at least, helping her with her with the same things, but now also helping her with her health, she’s been sick with some major illnesses and now she’s struggling physically – she is getting frail. I have literally never left her side which means I have never dated and never been in a relationship. I took online classes to acquire my higher education and it allowed me to help her while going to school too, but I never had the opportunity to explore my sexuality and to know what it feels like to intimate with someone.

God this feels so embarrassing because I don’t know if anyone can relate to my story.

It took a lot to say outloud to myself, one night lying in bed many years ago, that I am gay. It was so liberating to say because I could finally be honest to myself about my feelings. But I knew I couldn’t step out. Over the years it has eaten away at my mind so much, it is tiring and exhausting. I got into reading fanfiction last year and it has helped me cope a little with my situation. But I feel like I need something more. I recently turned 30 in March and I feel like time is running out. I want to know what it is like to love and to be loved. I hope it’s not selfish to think or feel this way when I have my mom that needs my help.

I recently have had the opportunity to apply for work at law enforcement agencies, police officer positions. I hope between all the stress here at home I will be able to get into the physical shape needed in order to get through the physical agility tests. I hope through this I can finally come out and not be fearful about it and hopefully find a girlfriend – a loving partner. I can only hope right?

I came across this website through a fanfiction writer’s tumblr. I learned about Dominique’s instagram which led me to her website. I have never shared my story with anyone, and doing so on this platform is nerve wracking, but in knowing that if one person can relate to my story it will make me feel a little better and it will mean the world to me that this one person can feel better too knowing their not alone.

Thank you for taking the time in reading my story and thank you Dominique for creating such a wonderful and genius website that allows for stories to be told. I was really moved by your coming out story and as a result it motivated me to share mine.

Lesbian – my long journey to truth and love

I knew I was gay before I knew what gay was. I remember watching Hocus Pocus as a child and being in love with Alison. I knew how I felt, but remember thinking “that’s not right though because girls like boys.”

When I was 11 and started high school I had 2 friends who soon stopped talking to me because I wouldn’t say which boy in our class I liked, I could have said which girl I liked but I knew that “wasn’t a thing” having still never heard the word gay and with no education on the subject or representation on TV or in films.

I actually can’t remember the moment I found out about different sexualities but I know at some point my understanding went from “girls like boys” to “okay girls can like girls but it’s wrong/frowned upon.” Whatever my understanding I knew that I liked girls, and girls only, but I also knew that I would never tell anyone.

I am a people pleaser, I didn’t want to stand out or ever be controversial in anyway. In fact that’s something I still say to people when they say that being gay is “my choice” – if they knew me at all they would know I would never choose to be something anyone deemed as unacceptable.

I really tried hard to like boys, I could write a book on the disastrous dates I went on when people tried to set me up. I never had a 2nd date with any of them, I’d get home and cry and make excuses as to why they weren’t the right fit. I just thought that was my life, I’d just be on my own, it was easier than coming out and not knowing how the people I love would react.

I wrestled with these demons and never told a soul I was gay until I was 26 years old.

And then everything changed, a new girl started at work and as soon as I met her I was in love, we had the same interests, the same values, we soon became best friends.

We had been friends for around a year and a half when she came upto me as she was leaving work and said “text me when you finish, I need to tell you something.” I didn’t think anything of it, so when I finished I was text her “hey! what did you want to tell me?” She replied with something cryptic like “can you think of anything it might be?” for a brief second the thought flashed in my head “Oh my gosh she likes me” but I quickly dismissed it. Emma was a beautiful 19 year old dancer who everyone was after, I was a 26 year old spectacle wearing lump. So I replied and said no I didn’t know what she wanted to tell me.

Then came the text.

She liked me! It was a long text and I still know it by heart but the gist of it was that she liked me, and she knows I probably don’t think of her that way but she just had to tell me because sometimes she got the feeling we were on the same wavelength.

Well, I didn’t reply for a good few hours, which I still feel bad for. I just led there in bed thinking okay this could go 2 ways, I could reply and say no sorry I don’t feel the same and carry on living this lie without the disruption coming out would cause, or, I could say yes actually, I feel exactly the same and be true to myself for the first time in my life.

Thankfully I went with the second option, the hardest part was coming out to my family and my friends. My sisters were both amazing, my mum and dad took a bit of getting used to it but are now the biggest advocates. I lost a few friends but those closest to me were just so proud of me. Not a day goes by when I don’t appreciate how blessed I am to be surrounded by such an amazing group of people.

So that text from Emma was back in 2014, the 11th of July to be precise, from that day forward we spent every moment together. We lived between our parents houses until we could afford to rent a flat of our own. Then in 2018 we bought our first house together, and now we have 2 beautiful dogs and will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary next month.

If I could tell 26 year old me that in just a few years your girlfriend will be proposing to you in front of your whole family and everyone will be cheering, I don’t think I’d believe myself.

Ours is my favourite love story, I know not everyone is as lucky as me, but it’s important to give hope to anyone who is in the same position I was – it gets better, and being true to yourself is never the wrong choice.

People ask me if I wish I’d come out sooner, the truth is that no, I don’t wish that. I wouldn’t change a thing in my story and risk it being any different than it is now

I am Chloé, 19 , BI and proud

I started “wondering if” about a few years ago I think, I remember getting really defensive any time there was any form of negativity towards the community and in the beginning I just thought that I was an ally. More and more I saw the LGBTQI+ community represented and I felt so happy and proud.
When I learned more about Bisexuality I began wondering if it would be possible that I “belong in that category” (for lack of better words). I knew I liked boys, but then started wondering “but can you like girls as well?”.
About a year and a half ago I had a dream in which I kissed a girl, and I noticed that that wasn’t weird at all.
More and more since that moment I noticed the representation of Bisexuality in shows, movies etc.
About a year ago I noticed a girl flirting with me and found myself thinking “I would’nt mind if she kissed me” (which didn’t happen). And then I started rewatching shows, watching new shows and finding comfort in strong and proud Bisexual female characters (Hope, Josie, Waverly …)

At the end of January this year I came out for the first time online, a few weeks later to my younger sister and my mum and a few weeks ago to my dad (with a powerpoint nonetheless, extra I know).
I have been so much happier since then and have found this amazing community so all I want to say is THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART

Free

I knew I was “different” in the early years of high school, 14 years old, and I denied it… hard. I had seen and heard how people in my family, in my community and in my friends group reacted to any sway on the sexuality spectrum, and so I hid it. For so many years, from every single person, to the point where I had hidden it from myself again, any thoughts or feelings for someone of the opposite sex and I would chalk it up to envy or just admiration and leave it at that, even though I knew I was actively lying to myself. When I was 18 a close friend of mine came out while we were still in high school And she faced some relentless bullying because of it, despite having friends and others who supported her, And that made me decide that I would wait until I graduated, which turned into I’ll wait until I’m not living with my parents which turned into I’ll wait until I move out of this very closed minded town.
I came out to that very same friend 2 years later because I was having some incredible inner turmoil over all of it, of what it would mean to be myself. To allow myself to breathe and live my life without lying or hiding.
And from then on I found it harder to hide my true self, and even harder to want to hide. I had been hiding for so long that once I started to accept that part of myself, there was no holding back.

I moved to the other side of the country, I had many reasons for that decision, but ultimately it was for my mental health, I had been through a lot of traumatic experiences and after four years of treatment for my depression and anxiety I felt the only way I could make progress and be able to live was to leave the town and people who had contributed to my state.
And when I moved I came out officially and publicly at 22 years old. I know there are people from my home town who no longer acknowledge my existence, that didn’t welcome me home as the same girl they loved when I left, but that is not mine to carry, I am being honest, and living my life which has seen me heal and grow into the best version of me.

By acknowledging who I am, I was able to acknowledge the pretty crappy things I had put up with because I had been convinced, by my own mind and by others that I didn’t deserve to be happy because I loved differently,
Since coming out, I have been in the healthiest relationship that I’ve ever been in, she helps me heal, and grow and strive for better everyday, and being in a healthy relationship is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, being open and vulnerable and trusting after years of closing myself off from pain or fear or my past is the scariest thing but it has been the most rewarding.