The Day I Came Out My Life Nearly Ended

The day I came out my life nearly ended.

I’d like to tell you my story, the story of the day I came out and my life nearly ended.

I have always known I was different, I knew I should like men like all my friends did but I was drawn to woman, I fought and fought my urges, I tried to like boys,but I failed.

By the time I had hit 15 I knew I could not change, it took me months and months to pluck up the courage to come out to my family.

It was a cold February evening, I walked down the stairs and told my mum, dad and older brother I needed to speak to them and begged them to please not hate me.
It took me a while to get the words out, I was so scared, so desperate not to disappoint them.

When I had finally spat the words out, my family looked at me in silence, my dad was the first to speak “you are disgusting, you need help”.

These words still haunt me, but seeing my mother in tears and my brothers angry face hurt more.
I ran to my room in tears, I eventually fell asleep in my tear stained pillow.

Around 6am I was abruptly woken by being yanked from my bed by my legs.
My father and my brother began raining down blows to my head and body.

My mother was stood by my bedroom door staring and me, I begged them to stop, I pleaded with my mother for help.
I was stripped naked and whipped, kicked, punched, spat on and the final humiliation my father took out his penis and urinated on.
I was scum, I was a dirty lesbian.

They finally left, I laid there naked, covered in my own blood and my fathers urine.
Two or three hours later my mother came in and wrapped me in my bed sheet and dragged me to the car, I thought she was going to kill me, but she drove me to the hospital.
My mother warned me not to tell them the truth or she would kill me.

I told the hospital staff and police, I was jumped on when walking back from a friends.
Roll on to my 16th birthday, I packed a bag and ran, I lived in and out of homeless shelters, on the streets and occasionally others would put me up.

I was lucky in the end a charity helped me find my feet, I found work and eventually found love.
I am 37 years old now and have never spoke with my family again.

 The Day I Came Out My Life Nearly Ended but it made me stronger, I found the strength to run, you can not change how you feel.
Just because they are you family it doesn’t mean they will always have your back.
Be strong, be brave, be you.