I Give a Damn

Dec 29th, 2010 08:02 PM By Charles

My name is Charles but go by CJ. I was born in Florida, but grew up everywhere else. I am the product of a mother who is dependent on men (although loved us in her own way) and an alcoholic father who took his life in 2007. With parents like this I had every insecurity there was for a kid. I have had eating disorders my whole life (which are better) and it was horrible for me growing up gay. I am the only gay person in my family and had no one to turn to for comfort or information on what I was dealing with.

The biggest issue for me was why I was gay and what exactly it meant to be gay. At 16 I had to overcome being homeless. Luckily I had a friend whose family was kind enough to take me. That turned out bad because as I turned 21 I developed depression from issues I couldn’t bare to deal with. So I started to drink heavily. It was an all day and everyday thing for me. It killed the pain. From then my life started to spiral out of control, for the fact that I just didn’t care anymore. I didn’t want to be gay, I didn’t want to live and desperately wanted to be what was considered to normal.

This effect lead to some serious attempts to take my life. For 4 yrs I tried to drink so bad in hopes that I wouldn’t wake up. Long story short, I am 27 and have been with a great guy for 2 yrs. Even though it does get easier for LGBT persons, without help, resources, or a place or should to turn to it can never get better for someone. I was a lucky gay kid who by chance made it to where I am ALIVE. For as long as I can remember the only person who cared about me was ME. In the back of my mind I always remembered that.

Plus I figured the suicides attempts never worked because GOD didn’t want another of his children to die. I am writing this (short lol) to let anyone who is going through some of these issues that I had to go through know that AS LONG AS THERE IS A BREATH IN MY BODY I WILL ALWAYS GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THEM!!!!

How My Brother Saved My Best Friend’s Life

Dec 29th, 2010 07:58 PM By susie

In 1986 my best friend came out to me our senior year in high school. Although I knew for quite a while he was gay I waited for him to tell me himself. During our high school years together he was teased quite frequently, I stuck up for him every time, but of course it was very painful for him. He wanted to be “normal” (no such thing). When he did come out it was very hard on him and his family. He was so worried about disappointing his family, he considered suicide.

This is where my brother came in. My brother Joe was an open homosexual and had told Mike he would be there for him when needed. Thank goodness he was because Mike tried taking his own life, called my brother and my brother got him help right away. He continued to be his mentor until my brother’s untimely death in 1996 at the age of 39. The sad part of my story is that my brother died due to alcoholism.

You would not have known he was an alcoholic, he was a professional business man and did very well for himself. He was in a loving relationship, had 6 siblings that loved him very much as well as supportive parents. Unfortunately he never came to grips with his lifestyle, you would never have known it, he hid it well and was always there for others who needed him. He was my hero and Mike’s hero as well, I just wish he could have seen what others saw in him.

I miss him dearly, but I know he would be so happy that there is so much more awareness out there for homosexual rights. I have 3 children of my own now and my middle daughter who is a sophomore in high school has several gay friends who are openly gay at their school and seem to be doing well. We need to continue our support for equality in our world, love that we have this website! God Bless to you all!!! Susie

When I Was a Teenager

Dec 29th, 2010 07:42 PM By Brian

When I was a teenager I had a hard time with school. In middle and high school I was bullied sometimes, it got so bad that I thought about killing myself but I could never bring myself to do that.

It would be the most selfish thing I could do and would never want to put my family and friends in pain. Instead of killing myself I use to cut myself off and on to deal with the pain and I never told anyone.

Until I one day I went to church at Living Hope Church. I told one of the pastors and he prayed for me. Since then I have not cut myself at all. My Faith and Trust in God is what has helped through the hard times.

I wanna let the young people know that killing yourself is never the answer. There are people who love and care about me. If you are being bullied I encourage you to seek help from family or friends.

I Thought Damnation Was My Only Future

Dec 29th, 2010 07:36 PM By Daniel

I remember the day I realized I was a homosexual. I was living in Germany at the time, I was brand new to the whole area. I was nine years old at the time, and I had no clue what was wrong with me.

I knew I was always different. I always questioned why I liked playing with Barbies versus Hot Wheels. I always wondered why my voice was higher and more feminine than other boys my age. I always asked myself, what is wrong with me?

Yeah, I was in the fourth grade. You wanna know how I found out? When I saw a man and a women perform sexual deeds on the computer screen. You would think that as a fourth grader I would not have access to that type of material. Think again. My friends were always curious, they were boys of course, and like all other boys, they knew where to find porn on the internet thanks to good ol’ daddy.

What ended up happening was we found a clip where a male and a female were in the process of intercourse. Now, might I add in that no nudity from the waist down was seen. However, everything from the waist up was completely visible. The boys were totally into the breasts of the woman with five cent make-up on, but I was gazing at the lean sculpted body of the man.
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I NEVER KNEW!

Dec 29th, 2010 07:28 PM By Larissa

Hi, my names Larissa and I’m 21 years old and I’m straight. I have a lot of gay and bi friends, but I never truly knew some of what they had to go through. Not until I read some of the peoples stories on this site.

Just a few months ago, I lost a gay friend to suicide because his family didn’t want him around because of his sexual orientation. How can some families not love their children for who they are? That’s the biggest question I have.

I hope that all my friends agree with me and help me raise awareness to the problems that are happening to the GLBT community. I hope that one day straights will learn to accept people for who they are not for what they look like or their sexual orientation.

I’m Larissa and I GIVE A DAMN!!!!

Its Just the Moments

Dec 29th, 2010 07:26 PM By Tori

About a year ago, when I was around the age of 13, I got my first girlfriend. Scared people would find out, we kept it to ourselves, not really getting to talk in school or hang out. Well one afternoon, one of the girls I liked on the bus got mad at me and told all the 8th graders I was in love with her. I was sitting towards the front of the bus and had my head phones in so I couldn’t hear what they were yelling till one of the younger kids tapped me on the shoulder.

So I took my headphones off, and right as I did they were yelling faggot and lesbian and go to hell and other things. It made me really upset, so not knowing what to do, I denied it. I denied who I was and it sent me into the darkest point of my life. I stopped talking to my friends and started to cut. I was even writing death notes at one point to myself. I made it through the school year barely. This year my mom told me she knows I’m gay and that she was ok with it. Knowing that I would still have my mom, me and my girlfriend came out at school, not by our choice though.

Since then I’ve worn many t-shirts and other things to show my pride in who I am. On Spirit Day I used purple hair spray to dye my hair, made a make a change t-shirt and even went all out purple and rainbows. Just because the other students have stopped tormenting me to some point, they still torment my friends. Is this right? No, its not. And, when you think teachers are the ones who are going to be there to help, they are not. All they say is to stop and give them warning after warning. In the handbook, it states that bulling is a instant referral and each and every student gets the right to feel safe in there leaning environment. But, why is this not carried out? Because teachers and people would rather have the easy part and stay out of it even if it costs a student’s life.

Even though in my life I’m to the point to where I’m free to be me, I ALMOST DIDN’T GIVE A DAMN!!!

I Didn’t Give a Damn

Dec 29th, 2010 11:38 AM By Ross

I never felt like I fit into the world around me. I didn’t know what it was that was different, I just knew something was. When I saw a movie called, “Something About Alex”, on HBO, I finally had a name for what I was. I was a homosexual, I was gay. What should have been a moment of happy realization, I found myself in a world of complete terror. I sent a note to someone I thought was a friend stating I thought I was gay in the 5th grade after watching the movie. This note then became circulated and very soon, I was a “fag” to the kids in school.

After a year of persecution, being physically and mentally harassed, I felt broken and worthless. I couldn’t turn to my pastor as I knew being a homosexual was a mortal sin and that God would not love me. I couldn’t turn to my parents who shared the point of view that the church did. I had no friends at school or in my neighborhood. I had no voice. I had no role model. I had no confidant. I had no life but one of being an “abomination” to God. In 6th grade, I held a gun my father had in the house in my hand and took the safety off and placed it in my mouth with tears streaming down my face. However, the fear of Hell kept me from pulling the trigger. Oddly enough, this made me feel even worse about myself that I didn’t even have the courage to do the right thing.
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Why I Give a Damn

Dec 29th, 2010 11:28 AM By Teresa

First off, let me tell you that I am straight. I’m a (somewhat) normal straight girl, but I give a damn. I don’t have any real religious beliefs, open to everything and everyone no matter who they are. But my parents are the exact opposite; hateful, close-minded, and very homophobic. They hate how I support gays and gay rights, wondering if I’m gay just because of the fact that I believe in gay rights. When we or they watch shows and they see a character who looks/acts differently, they will automatically say that they are gay. Almost all the time they are right, but it still hurts that my parents would make assumptions without knowing anything.

They don’t want gay marriage, believing that it’s wrong and not natural while I wholeheartedly do. I have a lot of bi-sexual friends who are girls and I don’t mind that at all. I hate that my friends get discriminated against by people and the government just because they aren’t straight like me. I felt so sad when I heard about all the gay teen suicides in September, feeling so bad for all of them and wishing that I could have talked to them, tried to help them and convince them that life is worth living and that people do care about them, like me. I want to be a counselor/therapist when I get older, wanting to help teens who are feeling lost and lonely, like no one cares about them and thinking that nobody would give a damn if they were alive or dead. Well, I do care, and this is why I give a damn.

High School Misery

Dec 29th, 2010 11:17 AM By Mark

I am happy to say I survived my teenage years in the mid 1970’s because someone gave a damn about me. High School was the worst experience of my life. I faced constant fear, ridicule, and jokes. Comments were yelled across the high school gym at pep rally’s. I don’t recall how many times I sat in my room wanting it to just be over. Something always stopped me from following through with it, but what I just don’t recall anymore.

I didn’t even know what gay was at 16, I just knew that I couldn’t talk about how I felt. I knew something was different just had no clue what it was. I dated women, I wasn’t a social loner, I had friends and was very outgoing in the community. I felt as if I couldn’t say anything or everyone would abandon me. I never told my parents what I faced either (including to this day).

The person who saved my life to this day does not know that she did. She gave a damn about me as a person when I was at an extremely low point in my life sometime around the spring/summer of 1976. In a small town of 7000 people in the Midwest (Ohio to be exact), being “different” was not acceptable regardless of what that difference was (remember, small farm-town). Someone moved to town that helped change my life. The new county 4-H extension agent. This person genuinely cared about the things that we were all going through as teenagers. This person helped me learn to “love me” regardless of outside influence. I learned to care about me and respect of others from her. (I still hid my sexuality until I was almost 21).
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Senior Year

Dec 21st, 2010 09:54 AM By Katie

Dyke. Slut. Whore. Penises drawn on my car once a week. First I was just the weird new girl, then when my sexuality came up it became this big ordeal. I had people whispering about me. My mom refusing to let me see my girlfriend. My dad telling me he would have to disown me if I ever came out. My first girlfriend ever flaunting me through school like a circus animal. I never thought it would of turned out to be such a big deal, but it lead me to feel as though I was worth nothing.

I went to the counselor two times a week. On meds, seeing a therapist, and thinking about suicide all the time. I tried to throw myself at guys trying to be straight, but I ended up feeling ten times worse and didn’t feel like myself. I had attempted a few times to kill myself. I didn’t see what I had to live for. I felt embarrassed and ashamed of who I was, I couldn’t accept the fact that I was lesbian. Most of my peers, parents, and siblings seem to think I was a freak, or it was just a faze or that I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. After all I had been through, I am glad to say it has gotten better and I have come along way.