I would do things differently now

I never thought about relationships much when I was younger; I do not recall even thinking about being attracted to anyone else until my adolescent years. I never was attracted to women physically, I could hold down conversations with them like it was no big deal, but I was never attracted to them physically, and I never understood why.

It wasn’t until I started my freshman year of high school that I began to realize that something about me was off, but I never acknowledged it myself. Rumors began to spread amongst my small town high school that I was gay. Looking back now, I realize I denied myself the truth, but at the same time I was sparing myself from the daily ridicule and likely assaults that were frequent in my high school for people that were different. I lied to myself and everyone else, giving into their narrow-minded and bigoted views of what was considered to be normal.

The bullying never stopped, I had to bring in the principal and the head coach to get the bullying to stop that went on in my afternoon speech class where most of it took place. It was always verbal, never physical abuse, despite enduring what I had gone through, I had hope that the principal would do right by me and get them to stop. They didn’t. Instead, the bullying intensified, her only suggestion was to say sorry, including me, the victim in this ordeal at the hands of two bullies two worked together to make my life hell.

I had no safe place other than home; I tried to stay home from being sick on days that I would have to do projects in my speech class, my grades suffered in the process. My principal was not sympathetic, and I had no allies in school that would speak up for me. I contemplated suicide the following spring; I was in a trance where any positive thoughts about myself and my life were gone, and everything that I expressed was negative and a dreary outlook on life.

I had a dream that changed my life in some ways I can’t explain beyond the fact that it scared me to avoid suicide. I dreamed that I was attending a funeral, I see my family and friends are there, but I have no realization who it was that died. It was an open casket funeral, and I went to the front of the altar to see who it was, and I gasped I was beyond shock to realize that the person in the coffin was me.

The service had wrapped up, and I saw them carry me into a cemetery outside of the church, there at the burial service, I went up to myself to mourn my life being over and instead I found myself being dragged into my coffin by my body and then shut into the coffin. I began to panic and started to have trouble breathing and thought I was suffocating from being in the coffin. I woke up from my nightmare, and I had difficulty sleeping after that. I never thought of the idea of contemplating suicide again.

I tried to come out to one of my friends in high school, and she offensively referred to me as a shopping buddy, and then referred to my sexuality as a choice, and I severed ties with her because this put a strain on our relationship. I came out to my mother, and she overreacted, and she still does not accept me. Although she has no choice because she knows that I am her only child and if she wants someone to take care of her, she will have to be on my good side if she wants to be taken care of by me when she is older.