Hi, my name is Daisy. I'm new here, and I'm in need of advice for coming out. I came out as bisexual a year ago, and my mom just walked away and then her and my dad pressured me into saying that I was just confused. So I thought I was straight again, but then realized that I never quite fit into the label heterosexual. I woke up one day and thought, "Asexual." It was weird because I had never heard hat word before in my life, but something compelled me to look it up, and I felt like that's who I was, and I was happily identifying as asexual heteroromantic.... Until this one day when me and one of my friends were at Panera. A girl said hi to my friend, and I wasn't looking at her, but then she said, "Wait, are you Daisy? We went to high school together!" and I turned around and got butterflies. She was cute, and I liked her. That night, I lay awake thinking about it, and now I know I'm biromantic after all, I wasn't confused. But when I came out to my parents as ace, they pretended at first to support me, but then a day later when we were all in the car together, they told me things like "Well, you won't know until you try it with someone you love", and told me that if I didn't feel sexual attraction or didn't want sex, that I wasn't even human. It shattered my trust in telling my parents things now, and I want to come out but I'm scared that they'll kick me out or react violently. What should I do?
If you rely on your parents for safety and security, in other words, a roof over your head, it might be better to let the matter rest for now. I know that may seem incredibly difficult, but talking about your sexuality seems to be source of conflict and distress for you. Do you really want to live with that and all of the negative feelings that go with it? Coming out is a process and it doesn't just begin and end with telling all. Sometimes, it's best to focus on our future and set a personal goal of independence and financial security before telling our parents, or other significant people who may react badly. If we look at these goals as part of (rather than separate to) our personal coming out journey, it can help to take away the feeling or inertia -- the feeling that we have come to a halt and nothing is improving. If you work towards these goals and make some good friends who will love and support you, no matter what, you will be in better shape to tell your parents with certainty about your sexual orientation. As things stand, you are not in great shape at all. There are many reasons why parents find it so difficult to accept the facts about a son or daughters sexuality and it can help us to understand what the issues might be. They are explained here: Empty Closets - Parent and Family Stages of Grief When you do eventually come out to your parents, it might be a good idea to point them in the direction of PFLAG for support and guidance, but my advice would be to wait a while and work towards achieving those personal goals and build up a support network.
I would not come out just yet not until there is a plan of a place to go or some kind of a support system if things head south. You want to make sure that you will be able to support yourself if things go south at all.
