Coming Out This Weekend - HELP please

Copied from my intro---I posted it in the wrong spot. To moderator, if this is spamming, let me know and I'll delete the first post where it is if you tell me how.

Well, how does one begin a first post? Just bear with me as it is a little back and forth... Hi, I'm dykromaticwoman, a twenty-four year old lesbian. I've known I was gay for seven years. My story begins when as a child I was raised the typical religious lady being told "homosexuality is a sin" or "an abomination." My family had and has no problem making comments that are outright offensive and rude not only about gay people but many types of people towards whom I reserve only love. I have gone through a major evolution as a person. I have in the past myself poked fun and discriminated against gay people out of ignorance and intolerance. Like it says in my profile, I never knew any bona fide gay people growing up. I didn't know they actually existed. I only knew that when I looked at women, I felt something men never made me feel. I chalked it up to being jealous that "they were just more fit than I" or "prettier than I," but never that I may be romantically interested in women. It was not an option nor a thought I even felt able to entertain.

Luckily, due to a hard childhood and family life, I did well enough in school to get a full scholarship to college and moved away as soon as I could. (Because I had so many familial issues, I excelled in school because it was what I alone could control.) Moving away and getting on my own was the best decision I could have made. It gave me the amazing opportunity to listen to new modes of thought and interact with people who had different belief systems and cultures than I. As such, I learned I cannot force my personal beliefs on others. The hardest lesson I learned was as deeply as I harbor my beliefs, it is possibly the same for everyone: that they believe their convictions just as deeply as I and how strongly tied to emotion they can be. There is no way I can tell anyone else how to live, behave, act, what to say, etc. I would not want someone to do that to me. We should be free to be who we are and to be happy. I now in the past seven years wanted to love others regardless and be loved. I didn't want that as a child. I wanted people to be just like me, or I didn't associate with them. I neglected to socialize with people who drank alcohol, did drugs (even pot), practiced a religion other than Christianity, or generally were not a carbon copy of myself. I feel like, now, I did that because it would have forced me to really evaluate my core beliefs rather than blindly accept and soapbox them to the world. I remember growing up, people used to ask, why do you believe this or that? I never had a response other than "my parents said it" or "my preacher said it." I never understood what I was saying and how hurtful it could be to others.

As I began college, I opened up more to my religious experience joining an active Christian group on campus. Through them, I found a discipleship leader, an older female who taught German at a local school. We began meeting at least once a week to discuss my relationship with God and to encourage me on my walk with Him and how to grow as a Christian. I was looking for something to fill an emotional void stemming from what I thought was distance from my family and issues connecting with them because of the past. I was unable to fill that void with God because my relationship with Him wasn't the problem: I was gay. I needed to acknowledge that to feel relief.

Well, as I began developing these feelings, I spoke with my leader about it because she and I had become extremely close. She was someone I felt comfortable coming out to in the beginning and one of the first I told as this was unfolding in my life. Her reaction quickly silenced my desire to come out. I suppose it was naive for me to expect everyone to be okay with it immediately just because we are close to each other. She just told me, "My brother is gay, and his relationship with God has continually suffered for that. I do not feel this is a decision you should be making for yourself." I took that reaction and never went back. I was spiritually and emotionally crushed, confused, and vulnerable. My defensive wall began to grow.

It has taken me many girlfriends, many experiences, and just the wisdom that comes with growing older to understand that I have to make myself happy. No one will do that for me. I had to learn it is OKAY to be myself, especially if I am a gay woman. I had to decide, truthfully (being honest with yourself was the hardest part for me because I'd waiver on being fully gay with no option on the backburner "just in case"), that being gay was who I am and who I am WILLING to be.

I am now euphoric to state that I am a proud gay woman, and I am ready to come out to my family. Now for the apprehension in this process. I currently reside with my girlfriend of almost three years. Every time a family member comes into town, I have to pretend we don't sleep in the same bed or shower in the same bathroom. I have to pretend like she's my best friend, just another "dude" and simply my roommate rather than the woman who takes my breath away, the woman who I yearn to be around. It breaks my heart. I do this because I haven't yet been able to face the possibility of losing my family, of letting them make a decision about who I am. I feel I will lose them.

Background about my family...my mom and I are best friends. We have been close all my life. My parents divorced when I was ten. The first time I went away to a summer camp, a Bible camp with my cousins (mentioned later in the post) in another state, (also the first time I'd really stayed away from home), I came home at the end of the week and my mom explained she and I were moving out and they had gotten a divorce over the week. This wasn't too much of a shock as my home life was not happy by any means. I have three older brothers. The middle of them was dad's favorite. Dad didn't like the rest of us or my mother. In short, the middle brother choked my mom and almost killed her in front of only me when I was seven. He was thirteen. He pulled me across the stove by my hair while it was on. My family has never talked about it since that week passed. Only my mom and I have talked about it, and that is rare. Now on to my dad. He does not think women are as good as men. My mom was not allowed to work or have a bank account. She was to clean and keep us quiet while he napped because he worked during the night a lot as a pilot for a major airline. We called my dad the bear in his cave. If we made him mad, we knew what would happen. He also shoved religion down our throats (as if he was the model of Christianity) and I was told over and over what I needed to do to be a good person. Now, back to moving in with my mom...she was the only positive influence I had. That's enough background from childhood.

So, in college, I came out to my mom really soon like I did with my discipleship leader. My mom was completely okay with it. She said she loved me no matter what, that I will always be her baby, and she wanted me to be happy. Since then, I have come out to my youngest older brother who really didn't care and just wants me to be happy as well. I have also come out to two of my close female cousins, the ones I went to that camp with. We grew up together and one is one year older and the other two years younger than I. They lived a mile down the road all my life. Other than that, no one in my family knows. My oldest brother was curious after I brought a girl friend home. My mom informed me that he "checked" the beds after I left her house to see if we "slept in the same bed or not." He has done things like that on occasion. I'm not so worried about telling him but more concerned about my dad and middle brother. They constantly make negative comments about gay people as if they are not people and can withstand the bullying. I can no longer sit back and act like I don't care and that it doesn't metaphorically stab me in the heart.

Even as motivated as I am to come out, I have grown infinitely closer to my family since coming to college. I've learned they do love me, even if it's in their own way, that I have a good family now even if the past was not ideal, and I have forgiven it. I have not forgotten, and that is what scares me about coming out. Violence and anger were a huge part of my growing up, and I am afraid to rock the boat. I can guarantee it will. I was afraid back right after the divorce that my dad was going to kidnap me in the night. I forced my mom to get an alarm system. I have had a fear that someone will break in ever since. Even today, I would not put it past him to come up here into my house and bully me into being straight using God as his excuse or worse.

So after this long-winded introduction and story about me, I really just need a community of encouragement and some advice on how exactly to approach it. I am going home this weekend for a friend's wedding. I am using this opportunity to come out to the rest of my immediate family. My aunt, the mother of those two female cousins I mentioned earlier, had a freak out last year when a family friend joked on her son's Facebook that he was gay. I know how they feel about it, and I do not feel obligated to come out to them personally because of that. I was close to her until that went down and because some things were said and how it unraveled, I haven't spoken to her or my uncle since. I do feel I need to make my immediate family aware before I go public with it out of respect for their adjustment periods, which I realize everyone has. I had to adjust to being gay myself. It took me four years just to say I am gay and will never date a man again because it's not what I want. So I welcome all of my lovely family on this site and what you have to say.

Thank you for reading, and I look forward to joining this community. Thank you and much love. :smilewave