Hi Everyone, I can’t believe there is an awesome website and forum around for people like ‘us’
I would like to share my story about my life and Journey so far and I know it will be a long one, but it is my story and me so I do apologise for it . I have just finished reading AVB book for the 2nd time.. and after emailing him he thought that there might be some one who might get something out of it, like i got out of AVB book… (although i haven’t been through as much)
Anyway.. here goes
I am the oldest of 3 and the only girl, so I felt enormous pressure on me to be the model child and also the one who could do anything as I was always looking out for my 2 younger brothers.
I was bought up in a Christian family and environment, we were active member in the AOG church and as a family valued the teachings of the church. As i grew up, my passion to work in the church grew and I even chose to go to Christian school for my later years of high school. As I become more and more active in my church life, I was involved in anything from Sunday School, Youth leadership, Kids club and I even attended a few Youth alives’ (they were/are awesome by the way) but under the surface of all of this I had a growing sense that something wasn’t right, there was something ‘wrong’ with me.
While all my church friends were starting relationships within the youth of the church, I wasn’t interested in ‘getting’ a boyfriend, the whole idea grossed me out at the time. I continued to throw myself into the church, hoping that I was just a late bloomer, but as time went on the feelings wouldn’t go away. In a desperate bid to see if I could be ‘normal’ I started seeing a guy in the youth group but after several weeks, I realised that I just wasn’t attracted to guys, I was in fact attracted to women.
When I came to this realisation, I freaked out!! How was I supposed to work in the church when I knew was I was feeling was going against everything i stood for and everything that I had worked so hard to achieve in the church. I felt ashamed and i had no idea how to deal with what I was going through.
One day while reflecting on the situation I was flicking through a gay magazine and found a number – the Gay ads Lesbian Switchboard, that had trained councillors answering the calls of confused GLBTI teens. I took the number down but I was so scared, if I called this number would everything I was fearing become true, would it confirm that I was a lesbian. In a moment of weakness (I was probably very upset over something) I rang them, as soon as I heard the reassuring voice on the other end of the line, I broke down, I started to cry and I think the poor women on the end of the phone thought that I was a nut case. But after talking to the women I realised that what I was feeling was normal and that there were other people out there that were going through exactly the same thing as me. I finally had the clarification that I needed, I was an lesbian, now I just had to work out what that meant.
I hadn’t told any one of my ‘secret’, I had kept it a secret for over 12 months, I was scared that if I did tell anyone I would lose my friends and my parents would disown me, but I knew that for me to accept who I was I need to tell them.
It has been one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do, but I did it.
I lost all of my ‘church friends’ (apparently I am on a fast track to hell now). My mum cried, my dad didn’t say much but I knew he was hurting, but I had told them and I had survived. I have now been openly ‘gay’ for over 8 years and have been in a long term relationship for nearly 7 years.
One of the things that I do miss about going to church is the fellowship and the feeling of belong to something, and maybe just maybe I can find that again through this community and maybe meet some of you in Melbourne.
Jo
😀
“Be true to your self cos no one else will”
“Don’t think about what could’ve been think about what could be!!”
|
