Coming Out Letter to Parents

Haven't come out yet to them, my siblings know and so do my friends. But most everyone else in my life does not know yet and neither do my parents. I wrote my parents a letter, and I am going to come out to everyone else on FB with a t-shirt and cake. I wanted to make that part a little more fun. But my parents and extended family are quite religious, my dad is in fact a pastor, I am sure they will still love me but it is still difficult. Here is the letter, just want to know what ya'll think of it;

Dear Mommy & Daddy,
First off dad, I’m sorry that I kept this hidden, when you asked me about it I was neither ready nor prepared to share this part of myself with you guys. Also, I wanted to tell you both at the same time. I love you both very much, you guys have taught me so many good things and have always been there when we needed you. You guys raised me to be the woman I am today, for that I will always be so grateful. Although I may believe some things different from you, and that may frustrate you, just remember that what you taught me growing up will and has guided me through life’s difficult times.
You have not always understood me through life, but you have loved me regardless and always provided and tried to do the best for our family. I am sorry that I could not tell you this in person, I’ll get right to the point because I think you know what this is about, I am gay, or rather I am a lesbian, and I like women romantically. I finally realized and accepted this about three years ago, but I have known since I was five years old.
I remember having a crush on the little girl down the street and a couple girls in my kindergarten class when we lived in Rogers City. In fact I remember and even wrote about a few girls that I liked throughout my grade school years, but of course I was too young to understand what that meant. I couldn’t deny the feelings I developed for my best friend when I was 12 however, and when we kissed I knew for sure I loved her, but then we moved away and I was devastated. In fact it was when I reconnected with her a couple years ago that I finally realized what had actually happened back then. In Middle School I noticed that a lot of girls in my class talked about boys, I felt weird for not liking them too so I pretended to like a boy in my class to try and feel more normal. After that I tried many times to like different boys in order to fit in with all the rest of the girls in my classes.
This continued until high school when I finally decided to just forget about love, relationships and everything for a while. All those years I had wanted a relationship, I wanted to fall in love like in all those movies, but there was never any feelings like others seemed to possess. So I gave up in a sense, for six years, until I went to college. That first year at Multnomah was hard, the first semester was a huge adjustment, and I was very depressed for three months. The second half of the year I finally came out of my shell, and started thinking again about this love and relationship thing. (How could I not at that school? Honestly!! Couples were everywhere…) I resolved that if I had no feelings for anyone, I should just be single for the rest of my life. That lasted only a short time, I met a nice guy, we got along, and I thought that maybe things could finally change. Just like always I felt nothing more towards him than any other guy friend I had ever had, and thinking about actually dating a guy terrified me. This is when I finally began realizing that all my difficulties with relationships were not necessarily normal, that there was something I wasn’t admitting to myself in all of this. The second year at Multnomah seemed like a new frontier for my life, I was scraping off my old life and way of looking at the world and learning new things.
That is when I started supporting the LGBTQIAP community, I educated myself on the terms and explored more of this community that I had heard of, but never seen or experienced. To my surprise it was so much different then what conservative people think, they weren’t living a “lifestyle” they were living in a community, trying to get away from the hate and lies and just be who they are. To be honest I thought learning about the community would bring me guilt, shame, sadness, remorse, but instead it brought both confusion and acceptance. I began seeking answers, praying and asking God about these conflicting thoughts. What I was seeing made more sense than anything else about love I had ever seen and felt like I belonged in this community.
What I heard from God, what I learned was astonishing, because he was also full of acceptance. It wasn’t tolerance or forgiveness, it was definitely acceptance and love. While this response confused me at first the more I pursued answers and prayed the more I felt at peace with everything. I am telling you that I believe God created me as a gay person, this was his design for me. As long as I follow what he has taught about relationships it does not matter whether I’m with a man or a woman. In fact, about a year after all of this I was asking God why he had brought me here, yet again, this time I got an answer. He told me that he had to bring me through all this to see who he created me to be, so that I could then share it with others in my situation. That’s not the entire reason but it was part of the whole plan. I don’t expect you to agree with me, and I also don’t want you to expect that I’ll have all the deep, theological answers to this, I just know the peace and love that I feel.
I just want you to know, I’m not damaged goods, I’m not gay because of some bad experience or secret thing, I’m gay because that’s how I have been created, and that’s it. There is no need to worry I’m not going to go out and sleep around and become some party person. I still desire to get married, and maybe even someday in the future adopt children. Basically what I’m saying is that I am the same person I’ve always been, I just want to be with a woman at the end of the day.
On a side note, I told Eryca and Evan about this a while ago, please do not be mad at them for not telling you. I told them to keep it a secret, so if you want to be mad about that be mad at me, I just felt like I needed to test the waters and tell them first to see what happened. There was no ill intention in that decision. I love all of you guys, I hope you can still love and accept me.
~ Love your queer daughter Elyse ^_^


Like the letter says, I'm pretty sure my dad already knows and he asked me kinda once and I made up some story cause I wasn't ready. Well I am ready now, probably going to give them this letter in April sometime. Just wanted some feedback and maybe encouragement cause I'm nervous. :icon_sad::icon_redf