Dear Family, Friends, Acquaintances, and Internet Strangers,

I know it will seem weird to see a written post from me.  It isn’t my typical style to write anything and maybe you will soon understand why. 

I have dealt with severe anxiety for most of my life, especially social anxiety.  Anxiety that makes me feel that I am being judged constantly and afraid to ever express my feelings or personality.  I have been afraid to speak, afraid to write, afraid to show any individualism or thought out of my fear of being judged.  Judged on my intelligence, my speech, my voice, my background, my knowledge, my lack of knowledge, my looks, my appearance, my quirks, my hygiene, my physicality, my relatability, my personality, my opinions. Everything leaves me feeling anxious. I am afraid of others’ disapproval, afraid of judgment and afraid of rejection.  These fears and social anxiety have lead to several other issues.  Some of them being perpetual people pleasing, indecisiveness, compartmentalizing my personality, life long loneliness, keeping secrets and finally I can say that I have spent most of my adult life wishing I didn’t exist.

Honestly though I’m tired of feeling this way, I’m tired of my anxiety and fear of judgment so I have decided to change some things, work on myself, share my secrets and embrace a part of me that I have kept hidden for more than 20 years.

I am gay. 

I have so much I want to say.  I have hidden my voice and who I am for so long that I’m not sure I completely know who I am.  I have never felt comfortable sharing all of me for fear of judgment or people assuming I was gay.  Growing up in a rural community and in a conservative religion have been difficult for me.  I have felt that if people were to see all of my personality they would reject me or realize I’m gay and reject me even more.  This has been excruciating at times, depressing at others. I have always hidden parts of me.  Recovering from childhood bullying, religious and societal stigmas, a lifetime of exposure to homophobia and internalized homophobia, has been slow.  I am tired of perpetual loneliness from not connecting with people out of fear of exposing that I am gay.  I want to move on from the depression and anxiety tied up with this part of my identity. I want to recover and connect with people as my authentic self.

I want to be happy and accept who I am, who I was born as. The dark truth and maybe the happy truth is that this is what suicide prevention looks like. I deserve to be happy and feel fulfilled in my life. We all deserve to find life satisfaction.  To pursue happiness in our individual ways.  Nobody deserves to spend their life wishing they didn’t exist.

I have been worried about sounding too sad, too angry or too over the top in my post, but it doesn’t matter.  I have spent a lifetime being quiet and now I can use this moment to say whatever I want. This is my story and how I feel about being gay.  If it does seem sad though, it shouldn’t!  Being gay isn’t wrong.  LGBTQ+ identities are not wrong.  The only sad thing is living in a society that attempts to stifle these identities.  To remove the rights and protections from minorities for being different.  It is sad to have to conceal part of who you are out of fear, especially for so many who must hide their identity for safety reasons.  Unfortunately, LGBTQ+ individuals are extremely vulnerable to violence and suicide.  These are things that our society should not tolerate.

My story is happy though, it may have taken me a long time to feel comfortable enough to come out, but I was able to come out to a supportive family and friends.  I still hopefully have much of my life to live and I can make whatever I want out of it.  I am extremely privileged and I must recognize this and use my resources to help those who are not.  With recent laws and pushback against the LGBTQ+ community, I feel the need to raise my voice in support of so many who are worried about their rights or even their lives, to help breakdown the stigmas and prejudices still in our society.  I feel that our divisions, especially our political divisions, have obscured one important fact, that we are all human.  

I want to reach out to everyone who cares about me and ask for your support in my life and for whatever trajectory I choose to take.  I urge you to give your support for those in your communities who do not feel safe, for those who do not have the support that I do.  I also want to challenge the American view of excessive individualism and tribal attitudes as well.  Loneliness is dangerous to humans and our society seems to encourage extreme individualism which leads to loneliness.  We seem to only support those in our own tribe and that seems to only go so far.  We encourage the individual at all costs rather than the community. We should celebrate the individual identity and how it contributes to the community. Loneliness has been shown to be as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day; that is withholding the number of suicides. We also need to end stigmas against mental health. Remember we are all human and our differences make us special but our connectedness and care for each other is what we need to survive.

With the greatest love and respect for each of you,

                Joe

#comingout #loveislove #endthestigma #mentalhealth