I'm caught in a conservative, Christian, homeschool enviornment

If I'm honest with myself, I've known I was different for a long time. I've never seen the problem with same sex couples or the like, when my 'friends' use the word 'gay' as an intended insult. I promised myself upon moving when I was six, that I would come back and marry my best friend, a sweet girl who I'm still in contact with today.

I think I really came to a realization as to my orientation in the fourth grade. A girl in my class, whom I'll call Angel, captured my attention. She was beautiful and everyone wanted to sit next to her, and I did everything I could to gain her attention. And over the course of the year, I earned it. Angel received word of my attempts to get her to notice me, and called my over, in the middle of the playground, a wonderful smile on her face. I've always loved it when people smile, the emotions of those around my affect my own emotional stability greatly. So when she proceeded to call me gay, shun me, and laugh in my face, I broke down instantly. Not to say I was innocent, I was very much a bratty child, but that hurt me deeply.

Everyone seemed to forget about the incident, falling into a sort of passive-aggressive 'let's see who can make her cry first' routine. But I didn't. And the next year, I came back to school to set the incident out of everyone's mind. I was embittered and finally seemed to be in Angel's good graces, and I thought that I was happy. But one girl came and took that all away from me. I was used to being exceptional in everything I did, standing above the rest of them, but she took that away from me. I was in awe, and I get the risings of another crush, and I fell into a pit of hatred. For the rest of that year I tormented the girl, rising up the social ladder of my petty little private school. She wasn't disposed to hatred, but I pushed her too far, and we ended up being 'enemies.' That same year, I realized how terrible I was being, and begged her to make amends. We did, and we've been friends since.

It's been some times since my experiences out on my little private school's run-down playground. I'm homeschooled now, and a straight a student. I'm the oldest sibling in my family, the oldest of five. I've had my share of passing crushes over those years, and I've come out of my foggy state of denial absolutely terrified. When I came to realize my bisexuality, I tries subtly coming out to my father. Whether or not it was in consequence of my actions or not, for the next six weeks I attended Sunday School services detailing why homosexuality is very very wrong.

I fell into a very dark period after that, contemplating suicide and experimenting with soft forms of self harm that I couldn't admit were unhealthy. I still look back on it and know that the only reason I didn't and haven't taken my own life is because I'm waiting until my siblings are adults to consider it.

My sole purpose in life has always been to make those around me happy. I would give anything to give my hard-working mother one day of peace.

And that's why I'm here, I suppose. I love my parents and family so very dearly. But I read all of these inspiring stories of how supportive one girl's parents are or how their parents tried to understand, and I break down crying. Because I KNOW that my father could NEVER support me like that.

I just want to be normal.