Okay, ever since the start of the year, my family and I had planned to have a "family meeting" at the end of the year about future plans, etc. At that time, I was not yet out to my family. My parents have a building with an apartment next to their house that they were wanting to rent to me and for me to move into. At the time I first came back from college, I was in a very bad place of depression, self harm, and having uncontrollable outbursts over things. They had assured me that they would always try to help me through these difficulties and wouldn't turn their backs on me. I was really in a messed up state of mind for several months, and I was living at home. Sometimes, they would have to "babysit" me because I was seen as a "danger to myself". While this was still the case, I had come out to them. They said very little about it and maybe just thought I was simply "confused" due to my depression and mental health problems. I was really nervous though, because I feared a bigoted reaction..... which luckily did not happen. Anyways, as time went on, I eventually started getting very angry and nasty due to my depression. I was definitely very difficult to live with at the time, because I was just unable to control my temper and I would go off over every little thing. When I was getting like this, they told me that in order to continue to live with them I had to express "negativity" unless there was some point to it and to stop being such a hothead. Later on when I asked them why they were saying this they said, "Well things were better then, because we thought we had options and maybe we didn't have to continue to live with you and constantly deal with the outbursts, the glumness, and the constant negativity. However, we can see that with the way things are we don't really have that option for you to be anywhere else other than here, so we'll just have to deal with it all." Plus, they told me that if I hurt myself again, I'd have to go to the hospital and I'd have to pay for my stay in the "facility". Well, unfortunately I did do that again, and they didn't try to get me to "check myself in"...... thank God. They were actually very upset and wanting to be supportive of helping me with these difficulties. Over the course of time, when things were bad they didn't kick me out or anything. Things continued to be difficult and they had to "babysit" me on a couple of occasions, because I couldn't be left alone. Still, whenever I was getting down about things, they would constantly tell me that the way I was so negative was making things difficult for everyone. If I ever cried about anything, I'd just get told to "cut it out" and they would get angry with me for crying. That was really quite annoying, and it would often make me get angry with them. They would simply say that they didn't want to hear me crying. However, they would always say that they loved me and cared about me...... and it seems like that's certainly the case given everything. A lot of times, when I was in a particularly bad mental state, I would want to storm off and leave the house, but they would stop me and say that they didn't want me to leave with nowhere to go. Luckily, my mental health greatly improved in the past several months. Throughout the summer, I began to feel better and my problems subsided. I had been to several different counselors, and most of them seemed to think that there was something "wrong with" me. One of them just wanted to drug me into oblivion...... well most of them did except for a couple. As the months went on, I can say that my mental health situation greatly improved and I no longer have outbursts or feel the urge to harm myself. I feel like I have gotten past that, even though I never took any of the "meds". I'm not saying that's a bad route or anything, because it works for some people...... I just managed to get better without it. These days, I have generally remained in a stable frame of mind even when things were difficult for various reasons. Later on, I started talking about my sexuality more. At first, things seemed to be going kind of ugly for a while. They were asking a lot of very stereotypical questions. While it very much irritated me, and I frankly couldn't stand it...... they've gotten past that luckily. Now, they do seem to get where I am coming from. They still say that they feel it's "unsettling" with me not being straight and that for me to enact this, I'd have to be living under my own roof. Still, they haven't condemned me or anything. In fact, they have even said that they will always love and support me wherever things go with this. They show no signs of wanting to shun away from me because of it, and things seem totally fine with them. They don't ever bring it up or anything, and the relationship seems the same as it always was. Now, I am also actually on the track to get a decent job in the near future The thing is as far as the apartment, I'm actually going to end up saying I am not interested and I want to get my own place in the near future. It's not that I am wanting to remove myself from them or anything. It's just that I would rather be able to have my own place and do things entirely as I please. Obviously, I'd still see them and all. I'm sure we'd see each other plenty. It's just that since I have realized the whole thing about my sexuality, I'd like to have the ability to bring home whoever I want. I'd be able to do that if I actually had my own place. I'm sure that this will come up when we have the meeting, since they will probably wonder why I have decided I didn't want to continue living here. I'm hoping that maybe we will end up being able to work together for me to have a plan in getting my own place, and they will support me in doing this. They definitely will, I think. They seemed to handle the whole sexuality thing a lot better than I would have thought. I have to say that given the fact that I am bi, they haven't tried to influence the directions that things go in. There's been nothing said along the lines of "just date girls because it's easier". Even though they said they are unsettled about it, it's been more along the lines of "make your own choices and we just want you to be happy with yourself". So, that's good. I'm really hoping that this "meeting" will go well.
