LGBTQIA; sometimes talking about it hurts too much

Tonight I tried to write a post about how suicide and self-harm figures are far higher in LGBTQIA people. It meant me looking at lots of suicide statistics. I wanted to try and explain how it feels to be young and confused about your sexuality, about how it seeps into questioning all parts of your life. But I couldn’t write it; I got through the first line and I felt too sad. I knew that if I went through with writing it, it would put me in a bad place. I found this interesting, because I don’t usually connect my self-harm and suicide attempts to being a Lesbian, to me they were always separate. Looking back, I think perhaps I wasn’t totally right. One day I will write what I meant too, but for now, have a bit about my experience, without the suicide part.

I don’t remember the moment where I realised that I wasn’t straight. But I do remember that that was my thought. I didn’t wake up one day and think ‘Oh, I like girls, cool, I must be gay’. Instead, I tried to join in with conversations about fancying boys, but I had to lie. I presumed that one day I would fall for a boy just like they did, one day it would be my turn. But years went by and I didn’t. I thought perhaps I didn’t understand what it meant to love someone in that way, so I dated boys that I thought were good friends, whose company I enjoyed. But it was never more than that. I thought I was broken, because I didn’t have the right feelings, and I thought this meant I would just spend my life on my own. I was scared of that thought, and I was very alone in it.

When I first considered being bisexual, it wasn’t because I thought I was gay but didn’t accept it, it was because I thought that if the pool of people covered two genders, maybe I could meet someone and feel what my peers did. I continued to date boys because it’s what people did, but deep down I knew I was different. I didn’t know what that difference was, I even considered whether I might be asexual, because at this point I couldn’t recognise the difference between loving a friend, and falling in love with a friend. Now I can recognise this very easily, and lucky my type is so specific that it isn’t a problem, but when I was younger I didn’t understand that difference. It was just painful and felt a bit wrong. I felt like as a human, I was fundamentally broken.

I remember when I first told a friend that I might be bisexual. The minute I’d said it, I felt an extreme release of pressure. It was over MSN messenger, and seeing it in writing, I knew that it was real.  From there my journey was to be expected. I dated some more guys, I dated some girls, I had bad and good experiences, and eventually I found myself in a loving relationship with a female, finally able to fall in love like everyone else did. But sadly for me that journey was littered with self-harm, eating issues, and suicide attempts.

I do not believe my problems are rooted in my sexuality, but for any young person trying to make their way in the world, I can now recognise how lonely this can make us feel. How different I felt. How separate I felt. Mine is the story of a girl who had it easy with my sexuality – my friends and family accepted it – and its still a story of loneliness and a lot of misery. So I can see how the self-harm and suicide figures are higher. I just hope that in the future, it can be an open conversation, so that LGBTQIA young people in the future don’t have to feel like they are broken. We may always be different, but we should never feel like we were made wrong.