LGBTQIAP+ Milestones: Book 3

Sixteen Wrecked

By Tides Tellmelowtides

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All my life I have been a little... different.

Don't get me wrong, I've done all the stereotypical little girl things. But for every normal thing I did there seemed to be something odd I would do to counter it. I was raised to love myself, so I never really thought anything of it until I grew older.

For every time I would have a tea party, you'd see me the next day making mud pies in the yard. For every time I'd dress up like a princess, I'd also want to be the bad guy the next time we played. To most people that wasn't normal.

And as I got older every time I'd look at a guy and think, he has a nice a$$, if you know what I mean, I'd also find myself unable to stop looking at the cleavage that the girl sitting a few people over was displaying.

It took awhile for what was happening to really sink in. Being that I had always thought I could only be heterosexual. That was the only option my mind would let me have, because that was my subconscious protecting me from my fears of knowing my families love is conditional. So I lived inside my little bubble of fantasy, pretending I stared at her chest in envy, acting like I didn't look at the underwear section in magazines just to see the mostly naked women (I was a f*cking pervert, still am).

Then it happened, I was kicked out of my security bubble, by a girl I went on a summer mission trip with, and would likely never see again.

I liked this girl. But I passed it off as friendship. I was terrified to talk to her, I convinced myself it was my general anxiety kicking in. But I knew the truth in the way I looked at her, and the way I loved her personality. And I guess she did too, because it wasn't too long after that she pulled me to the side and tore down my carefully crafted lies.

I still remember her exact words. They rang in my ears, solidifying my unnamed mental wonderings into something I was certain would kill me from the inside out. At the current moment it had felt like she had just burned my entire world to the ground, what right did she have to make me acknowledge this? To force me to recognize these facts and the undeniable truth that I wasn't straight?

"I know, I know you aren't gonna like this. But I saw how you were looking at me. And it's okay, you're okay. You can love people, whether they are the same gender or sex doesn't matter. Love is love, attraction is attraction and you are still the same person. Trust me on this, being in the closet isn't pretty. Step out into the light sometime soon."

But now I look back on it, and I know what she was doing. She was saving me from something much worse than I could have imagined. A life of silence and what if's and breaking my own heart.

Honestly, I could have never asked for better words of advice. But that did not stop me from traveling faster and faster downhill. Because I was convinced that I wasn't okay, I wasn't right. And so something needed to be done about it, but I was scared to tell anyone. I had locked myself in this never ending cycle of fear and pain. It was bound to have backlash, I just didn't know what it was yet.

The backlash hit months later, the weekend before my sixteenth birthday.

I had never really read the bible through that thoroughly. Sticking to the parts they shoved down your throat at church. Rather convinced for the most part that I didn't need to put more time into it. Church was always more of an obligation than willing attendance for me.

But the week before my birthday something changed. I was talking with my dad's mother and my mother. They had rather differing views on some things. I don't know exactly how it happened, but somehow we got onto the topic of gay people and how wrong it is. I was just sitting their the entire time thinking, if only you knew, you wouldn't want me in your house.

But for whatever reason when I tried to tell her that gay people were people too she couldn't seem to comprehend that. Because she's a firm believer in every single word the bible says. So when it came to gays, they were exactly what the bible called them, no exceptions and no changes.

For those of you that don't know, find a bible and look in the book of Leviticus, somewhere around chapter twenty. You'll find that whoever wrote that bible book had a rather strong opinion on homosexuality, and it was not in the positive.

I'll refrain from putting the entire verse here, because nobody needs to be exposed to that kind of negativity. But to paraphrase it, we are called abominations and it's said that if two people of the same sex have sex, they should be killed accordingly.

At that point in time I was far from distressed to see how utterly ridiculous that was. Love isn't nasty, wrong, disgusting or sinful. How is two gay people having sex any different than a man doing it with an infertile woman? Should they not have sex if they can't reproduce? Cause I've always been told sex is to help the couple get closer as well as reproduce, but the whole getting closer thing seems to go away when talking about gay people. Curious, right?

I spend the next few month in deep depression. I walked around aimlessly and I didn't do anything. Or talk to anyone. Still busy trying to process the fact that my grandmother thought I deserved to be dead for something I had no control over. I was born this way.

But I sunk deeper. And I kept sinking. It didn't seem like anything was going to pull me out anytime soon. My thighs and hips had become covered in scars, and fresh marks. The ever present burn of the self inflicted marks helping me to feel like I was getting the punishment I deserved.

Then finally, the last blow was when I heard my father. My own father agreeing to the bible's vision of gay people. I finally knew that I needed to follow through with what the bible said. I mean, my dad had always been my most trusted confident, I was a daddy's girl through and through.

So I began doing my research. Wanting to know everything that I needed to know. The most effective ways, painless or not. How to get yourself into a situation that was easy for you to get away to do it. I had everything ready, it was all planned and elaborate.

I wasn't going to be a failed suicide. The knife was in my hand, the marks drawn on my arm showing where the most effective cuts would be. The note sitting beside me on my floor. Alone, them thinking I was sleeping, my body would be found the next morning, it would have been perfect. Then, for whatever reason, while I was waiting for my father to go to sleep I found a link on a suicide prevention website to a wattpad story collection you might be familiar with.

LGBTQ Milestones.

I read them all. I read every single one. I know that I am not alone in everything that I felt. I know this was only a short while ago and I'm not going to be better immediately. But I have learned some very important things about the world and about myself.

I have a best friend, her name is Gwen. She's the most amazing human being on this earth. She doesn't care that I'm gay. She actually thinks it's quite awesome to have a bisexual best friend.

I may be broken, but I am beautiful. I am amazing and I am perfect just the way I am. I am bisexual, it is a part of me. But it is not me. And I have people who love me to remind me of that every day. Everyone should know just how much they are worth. It doesn't matter what anyone else says. You are you and that's all you will ever need to be.

I am sixteen, I am bisexual and my life is not wrecked.

Lastly, thank you everyone who ever published their own stories here. Your willingness to share your struggles saved my life. To know that it was normal to be this way, that I wasn't a freak of nature was beautiful and something I will never forget.

Lastly I would like to extend an invitation. I know that sometimes talking can help. PM me if you ever need too. Or just have questions about your own sexuality. Figuring everything out is terrifying, especially if you're in a situation like mine. I may not be able to answer back right away, but trust that I will.