Hello, I’m 18 years old. I think I’m gay… funny that I’m already 18 and I’m still not sure about it. I woke up one day feeling different, strange. I live in a very very closed society, and so, I’m not really sure if I should come out but I feel repressed. Other than that I’m a perfectly normal 18 year old, I love art and I think its really easy to talk to strangers because they don’t judge and if they do, you’ll never find out. I wish everyone who reads this the strength to be happy no matter what and the courage to look for it.
I had a pretty rocky adolescence, mostly self inflicted. I found out why I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror while my brother was on trial for something he didn’t do. Nobody ever thought they needed to talk to me about what my uncle did to me when I was two. I could never understand why I would have this nightmare over and over. Then my dad said it in the court room, out loud, for everyone to hear…”molested”. Knowing didn’t change anything, nobody talked to me about it. Years later I told my parents what my brothers did to me. My father dismissed it, childhood exploration. He beat them when I was younger because my Aunt told him what I said to her, but now as an adult it was dismissed. I tried for years to look at myself in the mirror, but I could only look at the pimple, a hair, my eye brow, my hair, never ever the whole.
My image of myself was terrible. Broken, used, ugly, unwanted; then I met my husband. It changed my world, but until the wedding day I never thought he would go through with marrying me. Who could after what other men have done to me? Then I never thought we could have our own children, I was broken, how could an amazing thing like that happen in such a disgusting vessel as MY body? Then I got pregnant. I wanted to do everything I could to make sure the baby was healthy, and I wanted to have it in a birth center so everything would be perfect. I wanted a girl so she could have a childhood without abuse. We found out it was twins days before I had them. I had two boys, of course. I was scared, I have been scared, what if I have a girl next time, and “childhood exploration” happens to her? I am trying to tell myself there are all kinds of big brothers who never need their sister to “explore” anything. These boys can be different, I will stay home, they won’t have idle time when they can get themselves in trouble, I will talk to them about sex and anatomy so there are no unanswered questions.
My husband helps me fight this battle in my mind. He is one of those “other kinds” of big brother. He protected his sister, and never “explored” anything. He tells me I’m a good mom and nothing will happen. It has been hard to look in the mirror still, I feel like I have let my future daughter down by having two boys. But I love my boys, they are my world.
Driving yesterday, my husband turned to me and said “I feel guilty loving my life so much…” I feel guilty not loving my life enough… but this morning I woke up and looked at myself in the mirror… really looked, I think I may have been missing out the past 20 some years by not looking. Hopefully I can look at myself the rest of my life and know, I have it good, and I am doing my best.
I came out when I was in 7th grade. I am about to be a senior in high school. Last February, I went to a LGBT conference. It was the first time I had ever been surrounded by people like me. I felt an incredible sense of community. One night, I was in an elevator, going to my room, intoxicated. A woman raped me. It was an incredible betrayal—my own community.
Last week I shaved my head to “rid myself” of the memory. It didn’t really work but I still feel freer. I do not feel like a victim, I feel like a survivor.
I met my boyfriend when we were five years old. He moved in across the street. When we were seven, we were sitting in my basement looking at my mom’s books. There was one on female anatomy, and Nick (the now boyfriend but then best friend) told me he knew that girls had “chinas.” I was quick to correct him and tell him that girls had vaginas, and all the other information my 7 year old self knew.
At age seven, I taught my now boyfriend what a vagina was.