It’s Just a Phase

Aug 11th, 2011 11:48 AM By Natalie

My story starts about 10 years ago; I was only 13 when I met the most wonderful person in the world, my girlfriend, Meri. It was truly love at first sight for me and I hadn’t felt that way about anyone at that point. We were best friends before anything else and we shared everything. One day I told her how I felt and she agreed, that’s when our relationship began. Right away I had a bad feeling about how my parents might react if they did find out I was falling in love with another girl.

Secrets only last so long as my mom found out two years later by “accident,” but I know she had her suspicions. She was outraged and assured me that I wasn’t gay and what I was going through was “just a phase.” She wouldn’t let me see my girlfriend or talk to her on the phone. She told my other friends’ moms to make sure if I was there visiting that Meri was not. I felt hurt, I felt rejected and I started feeling more depressed everyday. Pretty soon I was at the doctor getting Prozac prescriptions. I started feeling suicidal on a daily basis. Families are supposed to love each other unconditionally and that was not true in my case.
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Coming Out Saved My Life

Aug 11th, 2011 10:03 AM By Slater

For as long as I can remember, something was not right. My body and my mind did not fit. I never wanted to hurt my family though so I suppressed my transgender feelings. It hurt me emotionally to fake who I was to everyone who I knew. I began cutting in the seventh grade. It numbed the pain I felt and let me have some control of my body as it was developing, was becoming even further from who I truly was.

I cut for over three years. I was in deep depression and nothing could pull me out of it, not even therapy and antidepressants. I attempted suicide once but it didn’t work. I thought about killing myself constantly, hoping I would come back in the correct body. I could not imagine living life like this any longer. It was time for me to make a decision: I end things or be honest.

I came out to my family and friends a few months ago. I have not cut once since coming out and I no longer think about suicide. I have never been happier. I am not saying coming out will make everything better but without it, I would not be here today.

I Almost Didn’t Make It

Aug 10th, 2011 05:41 PM By Ryan

I never used to talk about my experience as a young, gay kid in Colorado Springs, CO. It was just too painful, too personal for me to want to talk about. As I’ve grown up, I’ve realized that telling my story sheds light on the truth, and illustrates–vividly–why issues that affect the LGBT Community are so damn important.

I was a good kid growing up in a middle class family in Colorado Springs. I attended private Christian schools, I loved my family, and I had amazing parents. My parents were so devoted to their children, always showering us with love and attention. My mother used to make my lunch every day with a little note telling me how much I meant to her. Each day my parents would drive us to and from school, and once a week we had a family movie night–our’s was the American family ideal, and I was truly blessed.

Unfortunately, one day that changed. When I was 13 years old, my parents found my journal in which I had admitted to myself that I was gay. In the space of 5 minutes my life changed drastically, and permanently.

Being raised in a conservative Christian family certainly isn’t a bad thing, but being taught that homosexuality is pretty much the worst thing under the sun and also happening to be gay don’t work well together. From the moment my parents discovered I was gay, till I legally separated myself from them (at the age of 16) my life was a living hell. My parents became verbally and emotionally abusive–telling me that they would have rather had an abortion than a gay son, or that it would have been better had I been born mentally retarded or with Downs Syndrome. Pretty bad, huh? Oh it gets worse. Thanks to the folks at Focus on the Family, my parents were referred to a “conversion therapy” organization known as NARTH–the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. These are the people who think that being gay is something that can be “cured”.
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A High School Musical

Aug 10th, 2011 03:17 PM By corey

To start off, I am probably one of the biggest supporters when it comes to gay, lesbian and bisexual equality. I have had so many gay/lesbian/bisexual friends in my short lifetime, and some of their stories are tragic and sad. Sometimes it makes me wonder if some people have souls after hearing what they do to my friends. But I knew this one guy in my high school, and his story is what I am going to tell.

His name was Josh, and to be honest to God truthful, I didn’t know him well. We were in a Theater class, and I had seen him in all the plays at my school. But it was enough to know a little about him. Josh always seemed like the happy-go-lucky gay guy, and I admired him because of that. He graduated a year ahead of me, and went to Immaculata University, but I do not think he went for theater like I thought he was going to. And let me just tell you, he was a great actor!

Again, I didn’t know him well, so I don’t know if there was bullying or what going on, but he hung himself in his sophomore year. Rumor hinted bullying, but I refused to pry my nose in that business. It didn’t hit me at first, but I went to my high school for a visit and that’s when it hit me. The whole school was out of whack for a good couple of weeks after it happened. I unfortunately did not go to the funeral because I was working a double and couldn’t get out of it, but his father came in to my store that day, and that is something I will never forget till the day I die. I really hope that I NEVER see that look on a parent’s face due to the fact that their gay son committed suicide.

Difference

Aug 10th, 2011 02:49 PM By Kyle

Ever since elementary school I knew I was different, I have never been “one of the guys.” I was always hanging out with the girls, all my friends for the longest time were girls. I really started to see a change in who I was in 5th grade and my parents had just gotten a divorce shortly after the birth of my little brother.

Elementary isn’t what you want to hear about, you want the middle school and high school years. I am currently a Junior in high school, in middle school I got called names and I acted like it didn’t bother me because I thought they were just messing around. The year I realized that I liked boys was the most AMAZING year of my life.

8th grade my friend had a Halloween party and she invited one of her friends from her old school named Josh. My friend Todd and I got there a little early, we went and hung out in her room with Josh while she got ready with her friend in the bathroom. They were doing their hair, I sat down on the bed next to Josh. You know that feeling you get when you’re around someone you have feelings for? Like it is just you and that person and you just want to stay there forever.
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My Want to Help

Aug 09th, 2011 09:27 AM By Jessica

I have to say that from a young age I have wanted to try and help out with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. I grew up with a lesbian mother most of my life and I knew from a young age that I was bi-sexual. At the age of 16, I knew I wanted to start a LGBT teen group home for displaced teens, but I also knew I had to have a plan, that I had to be older before I could try to run my own group home.

So, I started planning with my moms. We started thinking what kind of house we would want and how we would want to run it. As I got older, I found out that LGBT teens and LGBT people in general have the highest suicide rates in the country. I found out that so many kids get put into the system when their parents find out about their sexual orientation. That so many of these kids get put into the foster care system, bounced around because no one wants them for the same reasons, and then they end up running away or getting into drugs and a lot of them eventually commit suicide.
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I’m Just a Girl

Aug 04th, 2011 12:11 PM By Regi

While my body is technically male by birth, when I was growing up I thought that I might be gay because I was more interested with things girls like. I love to cook; I love women’s clothes, I cry when watching sappy movies (I.E. the man in the moon) and I love Hello Kitty and, I really don’t care for being a macho jerk.

When I was in high school, I had some gay classmate friends hit on me, and while I did not find their attention offensive, I was confused about my sexuality because I really felt like I was a girl. I did not understand why I was not interested in men because I have always really liked girls and yet I felt like a girl.

The answer came in my late twenties in the form of a joke. There was comedian on TV doing stand up, and he was asking questions about why people say certain things.

He said: some gay men say that they are gay because their soul is female. He then asked: how would I know if my soul was female if she was a lesbian?
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Just Me

Aug 03rd, 2011 07:10 PM By Jeni

My name is Jeni and I give a damn because all it took was my best friend to give damn about me to make me see there is nothing wrong with me. Ever since I was 12 I knew there was something different about me. I always dated guys and I do not mind it at all but, I always found some chicks to be more attractive then others. I fought with suicide thoughts/issues for a long time.

It was not until I met my best friend, who taught me how to love myself for all of what I am, did I become more comfortable and open about my sexuality. I have come out to some of my family but, not all of them. It is a process, but I’m learning. I cannot help who I like/love whether it be a guy or girl, I’m who I am and I give a damn about stopping the criticism that comes along with being openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

We are all people, we all have feelings, and we all bleed red. I got myself out of my dark hole, I want to help someone else get out of thier’s.

For All My Friends

Aug 03rd, 2011 07:08 PM By Marianne

I’ve never had problems with people making fun of me for being who I am. My parents are open minded and believe love is love, no mater what gender. My friends are understanding and happy for me coming out as bisexual. I had always been going to private schools till about 3 years ago. That’s when I realized how big a problem it was for other kids in school, gay, lesbian, transgender, or even straight people, to stand up for their friends.

When I got into high school it only seemed to escalate to more extremes. People started coming up to us in class and telling us we should just kill ourselves no, and not waste the space. I have just started going out with one of my closest friends, she has been kicked out of her house, being sent to her aunt’s house, she was sent to therapy to “fix” her problem. Her therapist would even subscribe her too many pills at one time.

After therapy she decided that the only way to fix things was to start doing drugs, and it only declined from there. She got to the point that she thought the only way out was suicide. She was only 13 when she started to try to kill herself. Thankfully she found friends that started to worry about her, and finally convinced her that there where other was to get help.

I can only imagine the pain others could be going through right now. We just need to remind them that there are people who care, that things will get better, and there are so many people that give a damn.

Unaccepted

Aug 03rd, 2011 06:37 PM By Cristiana

I’m 15, almost 16 and I’ve been somewhat-openly bi for a few months now, only a few of my friends know, but that is because my school is all-girls and Catholic, that last three girls who have just been rumored to be lesbian at my school have had to leave because of the bullying. Just last month I came out to my mom and dad. They didn’t believe me. It’s not right for a parent to ignore their child. Every time I say something like, “oh that chick is really pretty” my parents yell at me. A parent should accept their child for who they are. Because of my parents, I used to think about suicide, but because my friends accepted me, I knew that at least a few people accepted me, a lot of them joke around with me about it a lot to. But it still isn’t right that my own parents don’t accept me when my friends do. That is why I give a damn.