I am 17 and am going to a teen LGBT group for the first time this weekend. I am not technically out to my family but I make it pretty obvious I am gay and they are ok with taking me. I am extremely shy so I don't really want to talk and I can't stop worrying about what will happen there. Does anyone have any experience?
I recently went to one that had around 5 people and it was awesome, I went to another 17-24 group with 15+ and was too overwhelmed to talk. The way they work where I go is they go around the room doing introductions, preferred name/pronouns and sometimes a quirky question as an icebreaker, after that you are free to sit there and listen without much input, but I hope you find a group that you're comfortable in and eventually get to open up.
Oh geez that sounds a bit terrifying since I am awful at introducing myself to groups of people, especially with my parents there.
Maybe ask them not to come, if you would prefer it that way. No teen is comfortable around peers with their parents and a good reason would to say it may make the other teens uncomfortable or make you unapproachable to them, if it takes convincing?
don't be shy to experience new things, who knows, you might meet a nice partner. for me, it was okay, a trans guy(into girl) gave me a huge wrong impression, even after groups he refused to talk to me, everyone else in the lgbt group is pretty cool. it could be terrifying at first but at least you'll be around people who might feel the same way as you do
I used to go to one every week. When I went we would usually break into smaller groups and say one good thing and one bad thing that happened that week. Then we would introduce ourselves to everyone. We would also have some time to write down questions we had and then we would put them in a box and everyone would chose one and the best ones were discussed. I wasn't a big talker, but I did make some friends from it. I found it to be more of a social experience personally, than a support group.
Mine was alright. Core group was about 10 people, had walk-ins once in a while. I used to go to one weekly. We'd start out, introduce ourselves with name and preferred pronoun (I found it amusing that occasionally, I'd be the only guy using 'he, his, him'). Then, we'd eat (meetings were around 6-8), hang out. Occasionally, there'd be a focus question/discussion later (like, asexuality or safe sex). Didn't make solid friends but still in touch, even though I haven't been back or seen most of the people I'd met through there since September.
