Ok, so I started this blog on the advise of a friend who felt that telling my story may not only give me a space to vent about what has happened over the last few years but also may help someone else in a similar situation so here I am writing my first entry on this blog.
I knew I was different from an early age and was bullied on and off for pretty much the whole of my primary and secondary education but this is not a sob story about that it is my take on telling my family something I could never take back and something that changed my relationship with them forever. At college I met some of my first REAL friends and at aged 16 I discovered that a social life and friendship was FAR more interesting than study, (which I regretted age 18 when I picked up my A-Level results). In those 2 years I also struggled to overcome depression, self-harm, and came to understand that the reason I always wanted a particular girl in my class to be my BEST friend was not only for someone to talk to and share the good times but because I wanted some of them to be more than just my friends.
After a holiday fling before I set out to uni, I spent the next three years trying to convince myself that I could pull off the "expected" lifestyle and not have to disappoint my family by telling them who I really was. I managed it for a while and had a nice enough time with the guys I dated who were great mates but there was always something in the back of my mine telling me that something wasn't quite how it should be. It was only after a holiday with a friend just before graduation where I met a girl in a bar and we both clicked that I realised I'd been fooling myself for too long. I went home full of the joys of my holiday romance and the new found confidence in my long hidden identity and decided to finally come out to my family. For the sake of not spoiling a special day I kept my secret till after my graduation ceremony and the family meal that followed and a few days later after feeling sick all day and waiting till the final possible moment before my parents went to bed I finally spat it out.
My exact words were, "well you know when I was on holiday? Well I met someone and, well she's a woman, and I wanted you to know".
Well that sparked a whole catalogue of drama, my mum ran to the toilet and was physically sick, my dad shouted up in my face and once my mum had recovered proceeded to pin me by my throat against the wall and shout about how rediculous I was.
I had been brought up to treat people as I hoped to be treated, I had a singing teacher who was openly gay, my mum had friends from college who were a lesbian couple, my family knew my closest friend was a gay man, homosexuality was nothing new! To say I was shocked by the response I recieved is an understatement and as the ranting continued I made the decision to up and leave my parents house and seek refuge at my best friend's student house while I let them digest the bombshell. Driving through sobbs, hyperventling and shaking I was welcomed by the greatest guy in the world with a bottle of wine, a pizza and a huge hug. Little did I know this was not the worst day of this whole saga and acceptance was a long way off.
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