Chapter 4: The letter

When I was 15 my cousin who had molested me sent me a Facebook message asking me to forgive him for what he had done. I tried to blackmail him and said that if he told anyone what had happened that I would tell my parents. now this was probably not the smartest way to handle the situation but I was beyond livid. I remember my parents calling me into their room on that fateful day. my parents were more upset with the fact that I had tried to blackmail him than the fact that he had admitted to molesting me. I was beyond outraged and still have not fully processed my feelings. to understand why my parents were upset with me blackmailing him was because I had gotten off of probation about 6 months’ prior from a stupid incident that had happened in the 8th grade. my parents in their own way were trying to divert the blame off of them and onto me as if I had done something wrong. this started a year’s long rage I was constantly angry at my parents and didn't know how to handle all of the emotions I was feeling. I remember a couple months after my cousin had admitted to his crime, and my parents mainly my mother thought this was the reason I was interested in guys and they sent me to therapy. not necessarily to deal with me being gay but because they did not know how to handle me. I wasn't some little kid anymore that they could put in a timeout. I was growing my own opinions of the world and how it worked. I told my mother I would never say the words "I Love You" again if she persisted with her inquiries into my sexuality because at the time I wasn't even able to admit to myself that I was gay. it was and still is extremely hard for me to separate out logic from emotion. I could disassociate myself from the situation and try to see it through my parent’s eyes. but I always came back to the fact that they were my parents so logic shouldn't have played a role in how they handled their son. up until my senior year of high school I had told my parents I was bisexual to give them some semblance of hope. but two weeks before my 18th birthday I told everyone in my immediate family that I would be coming out on my birthday. sort of like a two weeks’ notice for a job but instead I was leaving behind a younger more naïve version of myself and becoming who I really was. when I decided to come out I did it in the way of a Facebook post and when I pressed click to publish the post it was one of the most terrifying and one of the most liberating things I’d ever done. when I came out I sort of adopted a self-motto that if someone had a problem with me I didn't really care because I had enough of my own problems to deal with and didn't need their added shit. most people will never understand the depth of the emotions that I have felt. to have such conflicting feelings of loving a person so much you would die for them but at the same time feeling that if they died my life would be far easier. I do not pretend to be an optimist or a realist I am an extremely cynical person and my life’s events have made it so. the last three months of my senior year went by well at least in the perspective of school. I graduated with a B average GPA and was excepted into all the schools I had applied. I was ready to leave behind the crappy existence that had been my high school and formative years to become a new person. but as time would tell my struggles were just beginning.