Into My Life - A Journal

3/29/2018 - Love, Simon Inspired Post

I've always been honest in this journal (or story or whatever you want to call this) about my sexuality. I have been less honest in my actual life about it. Part of it is because of the abuse. I still don't feel safe at home, but I have nowhere else to go. It doesn't feel right to come out when I have absolutely nowhere safe to go if they react badly. 

In case I have not told the story, the way I realized it was connected to the emotional abuse. I didn't realize I was being emotionally abused until I was 19. I felt like my entire life was a lie and I didn't trust anybody (something I am still working on). In the few years following the most severe of her episodes, memories came back to me in flashes. I didn't realize until they came that I had been repressing so many memories and feelings. I repressed the most abusive of her episodes and I repressed all the signs that something was wrong. 

Some of those repressed memories involved feelings I had about some of my friends. As early as the fourth grade I can remember having feelings for one of my friends; feelings that were more than friend feelings. I didn't know the LGBTQ+ community even existed back then. So, I pretended I was not having those feelings. I did it through middle school and high school, too; only ever admitting the feelings I had on my male classmates. When all those repressed memories came forward, I lost it for a while. I was in such a dark place. I believed I was worthless and a terrible person because she kept telling me I was. I believed I was having these feelings that weren't "normal." They were feelings that my society taught me were wrong. I was severely depressed and started hurting myself. 

I admitted to myself that I was bisexual in about 2013 or so. I had spent at least two years at that point dealing with the effects of the abuse and repressed memories. I went to social media to deal with it. I found people who felt the same way I did. I learned about an entire community fighting to have the same rights as everyone else. It made me realize that the feelings I was having were not wrong at all. It's taken me a long time to be proud of who I am, even if I don't feel safe enough to always show it. 

It took about a year before I could come out to anyone. I told my best friend, who came out to me as I was coming out to her. From then on, I had someone who understood me. We helped each other through it. 

So, how is this post inspired by Love, Simon exactly? It's not because I have been in the closet for 26 years now. 

I never had representation growing up. As I said, in elementary school, middle school, and most of high school, I had no idea the LGBTQ+ community existed. I didn't know it was a thing at all, let alone something that probably millions of people can relate to. The first LGBTQ+ character or person I ever saw on TV was Ellen DeGeneres and Clarke Griffin in The 100. When I saw the trailer for Love, Simon I could hardly believe it. Love stories like that have never been portrayed like that before. I knew I had to read it and watch the movie. I searched three stores before finding a copy of the book, and I read it in just a few hours. When the movie came out, my brother came with me to see it and we had to drive an hour to the nearest theater that was playing it. 

It deals with LGBTQ+ issues we feel every day, whether we are in the closet or not. The best part was that it was not a serious, dark, or dramatic movie either (although I do love drama and horror movies). It was just an adorable high school love story with a happy ending; something I've never seen before. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel so alone anymore. Many other people have said this, but it is exactly the type of movie I wish I had when I was a teenager. It puts us, for lack of a better word, in a "normal" setting. It gives us a love story with a happy ending, which we all deserve, even though there are a lot of people who try to tell us otherwise. 

This leads me to my latest piece of news. For a while now I have felt more and more like I am lying and hiding. It feels like a weight on my chest that I am too terrified to move. I want to be honest, but I don't want anything to change. We've finally gotten to a point where my mom's episodes are farther away from each other. We can go months now without a huge episode where I have to leave for a while. Me coming out to them could change all that. I only have one friend as it is, and she lives three hours away. My family taking it badly could mean I end up lonelier than I already am. So, in the end, I still can't do it. I'm still too scared, and I can't come out when I'm this scared for my safety. 

In the end, however, I did come out to someone. Love, Simon came up as a topic one day at school. I was talking with a friend. He talked about how much he wanted to see the movie because he saw my phone background was from the movie. He told me he was gay and I told him I was bisexual. The best part of the conversation was the way we could suddenly relate to each other. It made the conversation even better.

Later in the week (or the next week maybe), I was talking to another friend about something that happened to her. Sexuality came up as a topic again, so I came out to her. She treated it like it was a normal part of a conversation. It added to our conversation, and she said she never would have guessed but that it was awesome. 

I may not be able to tell my family, but being able to tell someone else made me feel a lot better. They were all from my generation, but they all reacted exactly how I hoped people would. They supported me, but they kept treating me like I was still me. They treated it like it was simply a part of life, and it is. 

Love, Simon is just one of the stories that not only has the power to start conversations, but it has the power to education other people about something they will never understand. It has the power to make some of us feel like we are not alone. As someone who is depressed and extremely alone all the time, even now at 26 years old, I still need a story like that.