My Journal - A Coming Out Story

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I'm Gay.

I feel sick to my stomach. I've been writing these words in my mind for almost a year now. Through the anxiety, through the euphoria, these words persist. My sexuality is a topic I've run from my entire life. It's a weight in my throat, and the fear of coughing it up gags me constantly. Honestly, I'm not quite sure why. I know my immediate family probably won't mind. It's hard to understand why it's so hard. I think I've spent so long obscuring the truth that even I can't see it clearly. I'm afraid of what I'll find when I do finally reveal myself. I've been creating this facade for so long that I feel trapped inside it. The trouble is I felt pressured to hide the truth so early in my life that I didn't even get the chance to understand what I was concealing. Now there are no return engagements. Now that I know how heavy the truth really is, I can't move it from where I've hidden it. I'm afraid, because I've allocated so much energy to creating someone I hate, and now he is all I know - all I am to anyone else.

I've known I wanted to write this essay since last August. I was asked about my sexuality like I have been many times before. I avoided the question like I always do. I was too scared to accept the truth and too ashamed to deny it. It's interesting how that works. I know deep down I'm proud of my sexuality, so I'm ashamed of myself when I can't admit it. Alongside shame, the question always makes me angry, because it's never prompted by me expressing any attraction for boys. No, I'm always asked solely on behavior, as if my sexuality can be identified by the way I speak or the people I talk to. It's frustrating because this train of thought relies on my sexuality being tied to my entire personality. It's as if my sexuality makes me predictable - unoriginal. I'm more than who I'm attracted to. You do not get to credit all my characteristics to one equally important characteristic!

So, with my anger and shame, I decided I wanted the world to understand what I was feeling. I wanted the people who have felt what I was feeling to know they were not alone.

Let's go back, before I knew what I was running from. I've always felt different in a way I couldn't place. In elementary, while the other boys were playing kickball, I would play four-square with my girlfriends. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe I just preferred four-square over kickball and girls did as well. Thus began the disproportion of gender among my friends. Having mainly girlfriends didn't bother me at the time. The first problems arose in middle school when I began to feel uncomfortable being the only guy in a group of girls. Society was telling me to make more male friends, so I did. But, as time went on, these relationships felt more and more disingenuous. I couldn't force myself to be interested in sports or girls. I couldn't relate to my friends the way I felt I should. So, I began lying. In an attempt to fix the problem, I myself became disingenuous. So now, on top of not relating to my friends, I wasn't even allowing them to know me. I wouldn't allow people to understand me the way I so desperately needed to be understood.

Then I became lonely. Not the kind of lonely where one lacks social interaction, but the kind where no matter how many people I surrounded myself with, I still felt alone. I felt alone because the person these people were becoming friends with wasn't me. I constantly felt like a spectator - never truly interacting with anyone.

By this time I knew what the difference was. I didn't really go through a denial period, once I knew, I was okay with knowing it, but I sure as hell was not okay with others knowing. Although I knew my life wasn't really mine at all, I was still afraid of losing it.

The loneliness became overwhelming. I felt an inherent difference between myself and everyone I knew. I felt stuck. I feel stuck. The thing about getting older is that you're always growing in to yourself, but I've stunted it. I saw something I was afraid of and pressed pause.

So here I am years later still not growing. I feel like I've been robbed of my adolescence and it's all my fault. I've been controlled by fear and it's excruciating. I listen to people attack without knowing. I listen when people invalidate my experience with no resistance. I can't do that anymore. I can't hold my breath any longer. I can't watch myself be something I'm not.

I want to love my friends without crossing lines, I want to love my friends and family for who they are. I want to be loved for who I am. I want to love myself. I want to be understood even if it means you hate me. At least then I can be hated for who I actually am.

I am gay

AND I AM LETTING THAT PIECE OF ME LVE