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any advice?

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by Scarlet, May 22, 2015.

  1. Scarlet

    Regular Member

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    so, i recently came to terms to being nonbinary, and that took a long and very secretive process. i think i hurt my best friend's feelings that i didn't tell her but it wasn't anything personal, i just didn't want any bias on my decision. anyways, i digress. i've known for a long time i wasn't a "girl" but i was seriously confused because i didn't want to be a boy, i just wanted to be me. it took a long time to even figure that out, i didn't even know that maybe i was having dysphoria when i would call myself leah. i love the name, it's a lovely name, but hearing it makes me feel sick, and i've always hated looking in the mirror as a girl, and i would view myself as hideous and just, all these bad things. things really started falling when someone accidentally called me liam instead of leah, it made me feel so happy and i joked about how i didn't understand how someone could mess up my name so bad, but it got me thinking "what if i used that name?" and i know liam is a masculine name, but it just... feels so right. i started using gender neutral pronouns and looking in the mirror doesn't hurt so much anymore. but i don't know how to come out to people besides my closet friends, my parents will feel like they were somehow failures, and people will call me a freak or whatever, does anyone have any advice on what to do??
     
  2. Jellal

    Regular Member

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    First off, have faith in yourself and keep your friends close. Having someone supportive makes a world of difference especially when you don't know for sure if you can rely on your family.

    I'll tell you how I came out to my family—I'm not going to say it wasn't rough, and I'm not saying it's the best way to do it either, but it was how I felt I had to do it. There were lots of nights where I had nightmares of my family rejecting me after I told them I was a girl. I had nightmares of them laughing at me and then becoming angry with me, and violent. I told them the truth, that I'd been having these nightmares and they'd been making me paranoid. That's how I started the conversation. And I think when they realized how much I feared them acting in a way where they rejected me, they felt more compelled to prove me wrong.

    Getting the support of your family is great if you can manage it. Even now with my folks it's still kind of been a rough time, not gonna lie. But at least I can sleep without that paranoia.
     
  3. Scarlet

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    thank you!! i think what i'm going to do first is ask how they feel about lgbt+ rights and then gauge how they may react when i come out to them. knowing that the people who know support me is a lot of help, you're right, so if my family doesn't support me, i know that there are at least a few people who do.