My Texan Coming Out Story

When I was 16 I used to cut myself. I would cut myself on my left forearm. I never quite understood until much later that those scars would become permanent. I did this because I was struggling with my sexuality as a gay man. It wasn’t so much that I, myself, was struggling with my homosexuality; rather, that I feared how my Mother and Father would react to it.

Interestingly enough, I never once worried about conversion therapy. I was worried about being kicked out of my home as a teenager, and being made to be forced to live on the streets of my small town in Texas.

One day after school I came home to take a nap. My Mother came into my room and witnessed my left arm hanging off my bed. She exploded (as any Mother would). She wanted to know what was going on. She wanted to know why I would ever do this to myself.

I said “Mom, I’m gay.” She responded: “I feel as if the you I knew has died.” And that has forever stuck with me. I don’t know if it had more to do with the cutting or the homosexuality; perhaps both.

She never turned me out. I live with her and my Dad till this day.

So when people ask me about my “Coming Out Story”…I just recoil and say that I’d rather not talk about it.