It’s been a while…

Its been over 2 years since I visited this blog, and let me tell you, so much has changed.

The last post I had now that I read back was me not finding any friends. About a month into my fall semester of freshman year I bonded with one of my roommates, I’ll call her Khloe. Me and Khloe were inseparable I told her my darkest secrets, I came out to her, we were practically sisters, up until this year when things started going south, but I’ll get into that in a bit. In addition to becoming best friends with Khloe, I started babysitting, I got a job on campus, I was getting good grades, and I started to feel like I was finally coming out of my dark hole that I had been in for so long.

When freshman year was over I couldn’t wait to go back to school, I missed Khloe and my life at college. I fell in love with my job and became best friends with my coworker, who I’ll call Ivana. Sophomore year just got even better. I had a group of friends now, I was happy on the daily, and I didn’t have any reason not to be, life was great. Sophomore year was the most unproblematic year I experienced. As Sophomore year started to wrap up I became incredibly close with my 2 friends from work, Ivana and Michael. They were and still are my ride or dies. I wanted my friend Khloe to experience this too, so I convinced her to apply at the office we all work at. She got accepted, and I thought that nothing could get better! But it got worse, and I soon realized that Khloe and I’s values don’t line up. She is dedicated to her family and whatever they taught her goes, so when we started talking about mental health issues I became on edge. She considers people with mental illnesses as weak people, and if they commit suicide then it’s just natural selection, survival of the fittest. This was the start of the end of a friendship I thought would never end.

Junior year (aka this year) is where Khloe and I separated most. As she dealt with our job I could see her views more and more. I started to feel attacked by her opinions because I had been that “weak” person she talks about, and slowly I started slipping back. The first semester of this school year I tried to ignore her words and what she thought about the job. I ended up hanging out with my friends Ivana and Michael more often, trying to escape the fighting going on in my brain with contradicting views between Khloe and I. Slowly this started to take a tole on me. I started taking Khloe’s words to heart, and I’m scared of her judging me for ANYTHING. My anxiety has never been so bad in my life than now. Winter break hit and I never realized how much of a break I needed from Khloe, but I missed Ivana and Michael so much. This is when I started to realize that even if Khloe didn’t think so, our friendship was falling apart.

Coming back for the spring semester this January, I hung out with Ivana and Michael everyday, desperately trying to avoid Khloe.  I’ve come to realize that my true family is Ivana and Michael, and so I dedicate more of my time to them, I tell them all of my secrets, coming out to them, telling them about the painful stuff that has gone on in my life including my sexual assault and mental struggles which I never have told Khloe. This is how I realized that they were my real family and my true friends. I know they would never judge me for anything. Even though I’m distancing myself from Khloe, I still get anxious about her thoughts about me. These thoughts still torment my mind about being weak and at some point I started to believe her, as her comments about it increase. Am I truly weak? Looking back on this blog I realized how life really is a roller coaster, there’s so many ups and downs, but is it possible to be up and down simultaneously because that’s how I feel my life is at the moment.

Finally Coming Out

So, it’s been quite a while since I wrote a blog post…………..

A lot has happened. This past week has been so chaotic. I had class, I hung out with friends, I had an exam, my family came to visit. I don’t even know where to begin.

I guess I should just start with the fact that I came out. Just 2 days ago my roommates and I were talking and the conversation got pretty deep and one of my roommates asked the other what it was like to be bisexual. My heart started racing, my face was getting hot, my hands were sweating. There I went, I just blurted it out. I don’t know how my mind did that, considering I haven’t been able to tell even by bestest of friends. But, I did it.

It felt so good! I know only 2 people in my life know now, but that’s 2 more than there were last week. It feels like a brick wall was lifted from my chest, now only a concrete slab remains. They told me that they were honored that I came out to them and that they felt like now we all have a special connection. It was so relieving for me to hear this.

It’s hard to accept yourself when for the past 5 years you’ve been pushing what makes you, you, away. I didn’t want to be different. I already had so many flaws that I saw in myself that I couldn’t bare adding another one. I am overwieght and totally an introvert which basically put me on the “don’t talk to list”. It’s a sad fact of life that I’ve had to deal with. My whole family has had trouble with weight, so I never knew how big I was until I got to middle school. Although no one ever said anything to my face, I could see the girls talking during gym class when we would change. I felt ashamed of myself. I asked myself many times why I was so fat when I played softball 5 out of the 7 days of the week. I hated myself. I had virtually no friends in middle school.

Middle school was a dark time for me. I started to not care about my grades, and I started to seperate myself from my family and what little friends that I had. At that point it felt good to be alone to me. I had read stuff about self-harm and actually considered it a number of times but never went through with it. At this point in my life I hated myself so much, I would cry myself to sleep every night. Before I left for college I read some of the journals I wrote in when I was in middle and high school. When I was reading them I noticed how much I had fallen into the hole of depression. Every page was tear stained and crinkley from the tears. I was heartbroken reading how I felt during those times.

High school wasn’t much better. Kids weren’t as mean but, this time they weren’t afraid to say it to your face. One kid in band actually told me straight to my face that I would never get drum major because I’m too fat. And, after the results came out I started to think that it was true. My dream of being drum major was crushed by my number 1 and 2 enemies. 1) my weight and 2) she who must not be named. Even today, I hate my body. The interent is on this body positive trend right now, but that is one thing I’ve never been able to do. I have never loved my body, never loved the way I looked in any sort of clothes. I hate all my flaws and  I coudn’t bare accepting that fact that I’m bisexual to make me even more different from the crowd. To further displace myself from what society sees as the perfect female.

Although I still hate my body with a burning passion, I have come to fully embrass my sexuality. I AM BISEXUAL, and it feels so fucking good to say that (pardon my french).

Why?

So, it’s been about three weeks since my college classes started, and I guess my family just missed me too much. My mom texted me this afternoon asking if the whole family could visit me on Saturday. I am actually really excited. Although it’s only been three weeks, I miss them. It’s a weird feeling. I’ve spent the past 18 years give or take a few days living with these people. Seeing them every single day whether I wanted to or not. And, in one day everything changes. Now you don’t even see them for weeks or months at a time. The only interaction you have is texts or a call here and there. I never realized how different that feels. If you have siblings you’ll totally understand me on this one. But, when you’re living with your siblings every day, you wish for any moment to get away from them. To avoid them throughout the day. To annoy the shit out of them until they break, and then feel guilty about it 20 seconds later. But, when you move to college all you can wish for is one moment to spend with them. One phone call, or facetime to talk to them.

I miss my family a lot, but, that doesn’t mean that these three weeks have inspired me to come out to them. A lot of people don’t understand how hard it is to come out to people. You’re exposing yourself. Telling people that you’re different from most. Telling people that the person they’ve known for their whole life is someone they didn’t know at all. Yes, I know that they’ll still love me and accept me but, it’s still scary.  This past week I’ve tried so hard to bring myself to tell someone. To let my feelings loose to one person. But, my body just won’t let me. My mind is almost programmed not to tell anyone. I’ve been so close yet so far. I’ve been to the send button, but the only place my finger goes from there is the delete button. I want to tell someone! But, I don’t at the same time. Why is life so confusing! I don’t understand. How is it that some people know from such a young age and are positive about these things and coming out to their family wasn’t such a big deal to them. Why can’t I be like that? Why does my mind have to overcomplicate things by a million percent? Why am I sad that I feel like I don’t trust anyone enough with this part of me? Why?

My story…

My name is Bailey and I’m bisexual…

I am currently a freshman in college, and I haven’t come out to anyone, that’s right, not even my closest friends. All throughout highschool I knew something was different about me than the other kids at my school.  I never even considered the thought of being anything other than a straight girl, that’s all I had know my entire life. I grew up in a small neighborhood with lots of friends, all of which are straight. In high school I accepeted all types of people, it didn’t matter to me if they were gay, straight, trans, etc. But, this didn’t mean I was used to the feelings I was having. I didn’t understand why I didn’t fit in or why I would get overly attached to some friends.

Not until my senior year. Senior year changed my life forever. No, I didn’t have an ‘Ah Ha’ moment that made me relize that I was bi, and even to this day I’m not 100% positive that I am, but that 90% of me that does believe I am is large enough to hold onto the feelings. Senior year I started exploring the internet. I explored shows like Rupauls Drag Race (if you haven’t seen it, stop reading this and go look it up!) and watched countless of youtube videos about what I was feeling.

Most people say, oh your not bi, you just want to experiment. But, what if I’m done experimenting. These type of people have made me scared to share any little detail of what I feel to anyone. Do you know how hard that is? Not telling anyone anything? It’s draining. Keeping your feelings bottled up inside makes the day go by slower, makes my heart ache more than it should, and it makes me cry more than anyone knows. I’m not one to show emotion to people, so when I say cry more than anyone knows, I’m being serious. I don’t cry in front of anyone. Not even my parents or sister. I grew up believing that showing these emotions to people was a sign of being an attention begger. This is why to this day, I cry myself to sleep. Many days in high school I would cry myself to sleep because I didn’t know what I was feeling. Why I felt attracted to my best friend who was a girl but also feeling attracted to that really hot guy in my Jazz Band. Why would I get so pissed when one of my best friends was telling me that she started dating this girl I knew.

This was the point that I knew. I knew that I was bi. It’s not easy to accept these feelings at first but I told myself that I could just keep it to myself and not tell anyone. I’d be at college soon enough creating a fresh start, I didn’t have to tell anyone back home. One of my bestest friends, who I won’t name, is gay. I’ve talked to him about how confused I was, but I never told him what the resolution came to be. You would think that it would be easy to tell him, right? Wrong. To this day I think about it everyday, should I text him, snapchat him, and it always ends with me not telling him. I want to, believe me I really do, but, for some reason the words just won’t come out. Is it wrong of me that I haven’t told my parents, or my siblings. Is it wrong to want to tell my supportive best before my parents because I’m scared of how they’ll react.

My parents have always been accepting people and they never have had anything against anyone. But I’m still so scared. Does anyone understand this feeling. Questions race through my head, “Will they see me as a different person”, “Will they still love me”, “Will they be ashamed of me”. These are just some of the questions that bring out my anxiety. Living with this secret is killing my insides, filling me with lonliness. I never relized how lonly I would feel. Not being able to tell anyone what happened today or how I was feeling. Alone. That’s how I’m feeling, alone.

Alone…