Hello. I am Julia. I am a teenage lesbian and I am deathly afraid to come out to anyone- especially my parents! My parents are not supportive at all of gays or anyone at all that may be different. There has never been anyone gay in the history of my family. I have been stressing over this for a long time. Every night is a nervous breakdown for me lasting at least 2 or 3 hours. I can't sleep or concentrate. I just always feel so bad about myself and i feel like I can't live like this. Every single night I think to myself "Would I be better off to live and be hated, or die and be missed?" It scares the daylights out of me. I'm so afraid to talk to my parents about it because I don't want my parents to kick me out when I am only early in high school. I want to go to college. I still want to get married and have kids. But how can I deal with this? I have very very few people who accept me. I have one aunt and one cousin-in-law. That's all really. I need some help. Anyone!!! If you have any advice for me, anyone, please help me!!! :tears: ~Julia
Well I think you just need to calm down a bit, I know its easier said than done, but you have come to a great place. There are lots of people here at EC that are in or have been in the situation that your in right now, and most of them have come through the other side, so they will have lots of great advice and support for you. We are all very friendly so feel free to post threads or write on peoples walls or pm the staff. There is no rush in coming out, I know its difficult when you feel like your hiding it from people and they wont accept you but you will get there in the end. (*hug*)
Dear Julia, first thing, welcome on EC. I'm sure you'll find around here lots of people willing to help you and to provide some moral support. Make yourself at home. I'm very sorry that you feel that your parents won't be supportive. However, some people change their mind about gay people when they discover someone they love is gay. The rejection people show toward gay people without even knowing one single person who is gay is caused by ignorance, and fortunatly some people are able to educate themselves and change their mind. I hope that will happened to your parents one day, but for the time beign it might be better not to tell them about your sexuality. You're still very young and as you feel they could be not supportive at all, it could be better to keep that for yourself until you feel more comfortable with it. But you still could come out to people you feel comfortable around and that you can trust, if you want to. Once again there is no rush, coming out is something you have to do on your own time, when you'll feel ready for it. About getting married and having kids, who said that you couldn't do it ? Hopefully our society is changing and become more accepting. If you want to, you'll be able to marry a woman you love and have a family of your own when you'll be ready for it. But you have plenty of time for this. For the time beign, I think what you have enough to chew with beign comfortable with yourself and the first step is to convince yourself that there is nothing wrong with beign lesbian. That doesn't make you anything less than anyone else. I hope you'll find on Ec the help and support you need. Feel free to Pm me anytime if you need to talk, you'll always be welcome. Take care, Eleanor
(*hug*) I wish I had some magic words to make you feel better, but I don't. I can tell you that life does get better. We just have to keep moving along until we get past the rough bits. One day you will meet a nice woman and fall in love with her. Then you can get married and have as many children as you want. No one can stop you from doing that. Just remember that while we can't pick our relatives, we can pick our family. This family will always love you for who you are. So try to keep your chin up and feel free to lean on us anytime you need to. And remember that no mater how bad life gets, it sure beats the alternative.
