this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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First thing I'd recommend is some professional help, yeah it's expensive but it can really be worth it from the benefits it provides. Especially in terms of accepting yourself and being able to put yourself back together.
Now for my personal experience. I grew up in a very very conservative area. I've been through the whole being disowned by my relatives and my life completely falling apart due to a whole bunch of crap happening at once (homelessness, loved ones dying, being disowned by family for who I am) and it hurts.
It hurts a lot.
And it can hurt for a long time.
When I first came out to some friends back in highschool I lost basically my entire friend group except for 3 people. But after awhile I came to the conclusion that if they couldn't accept me for my sexuality then it's better to not be friends with them. Because what's the point of having friends that you can't be yourself around?
And my relatives disowning me for my sexuality. I call them relatives because can they really be considered family if they'd rather see me dead (or in their words "want to hunt people like me") than see me in a loving relationship? Family is the relationship not blood. If your relatives don't accept you for who you are cut them out of your life, it'll hurt at first but you'll eventually be thankful for the benefits to your mental health.
Relationships ending really hurts, and can really be a train wreck on your mental health depending on how they end. But try to think of it as just an end of era of your life. Yeah the ending of an era can suck, and often a lot, but this can be a new era in your life. An era that you can fill with people who accept you for who you are. An era that can be filled with love and acceptance. An era built on a foundation of self acceptance.
Yeah it's scary to reach out, I know how hard it can be after everything falls apart. But it's necessary to improving your life again. There's always those fears of rejection again, always the fears of it falling apart again, but you have to keep trying.
It can get better if you try. You just have to be a little brave.
The part that makes me sad mostly is how basically all my friends but 1 use the anti gay f slur really often. I can give you some examples if you want to know
Personally I would not be able to call those people friends. In addition to being, you know, extremely offensive, hearing people use slurs like that is dehumanizing and invalidating. I would encourage you to either get other friends or have frank discussions with your current ones about boundaries and what they can and can't say to you.
You may not be in a situation where it is practical to do that. If it is practical, don't let confidence be what stops you.
Thing is I'm not out to them and don't plan to come out. Basically this is the average situation. This happened some time ago. So a "friend" of mine decided to hug me and felt the need to point out that in his words translated to English "this is a hug of friends not of (fslur)"
I'm kinda lonely tbh don't know what to do