Shame hid in the cracks of the lie I was forced to tell. People said I must be mentally ill
I found myself faced by people of authority who pathologised my sexuality by insisting it was a symptom of mental illness
I came out as a lesbian when I was 15, 22 years ago. It didn’t end my world. I have a loving, supportive family and went to an open, progressive school. A lot of my friends were also queer. I had girlfriends. I cried to my parents about each broken heart. But at that time I was also, unrelatedly, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and became deeply unwell.
It was strongly suggested to me, over and over, that in order to get better I should stop dating girls and start dating boys. I was a young, vulnerable person working desperately towards recovery, so little by little I internalised those messages, alongside a great deal of self-hatred. I started to date boys. I couldn’t deny that I was attracted to girls, and when pressed called myself bisexual, but shame hid in the cracks of the lie.
Like teeth that fall and fill your mouth in dreams, I tumbled into these stories of my anxieties, my grief, my queerness, my love, my loneliness, my desires, my darkness.
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