The Side-Effects of Coming Out

Allow me set the scene, if you would. I’m a girl. I am a high school student. I live in a small, conservative, REALLY Christian town. And I am very much bisexual.

I figured it out during junior high, but I didn’t tell any of my friends until the end of my freshman year. Most of them didn’t really care – as long as I was happy, they were happy. The only one who did care was radically Christian – like, ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” She just walked away without a word to me.
The next day I found out that she had told just about everyone she could.

Now I have nothing against Christians. I just have a thing against someone telling everyone at school that, and I quote, “a gay (was) in (their) midst” and that “they should pray for (me) to come to (my) senses.” I started getting bullied – called things like ‘fag’ and taunted between classes, and shoved into doors and lockers. None of my friends were in my classes, so I had no one to turn to during school. Eventually I just couldn’t take it anymore.

I began falling into these fits of depression. Everything just ached, so I took pain pills almost every day. I started cutting myself. My grades began to slip. All of my friends knew that something was wrong, but they didn’t press the matter when I told them that I was alright. My parents questioned me, but they wouldn’t see what they didn’t want to see, and just sent me to a psychiatrist – which, by the way, didn’t help at all. If anything it just got worse.

I know it’s not the worst story, but no one should have to suffer like I do. So I bear my scars with dignity, because I know that there are some people the DO give a damn- they just have to act on it.