New to a wholehearted identification with the LGBTQ community, new to thinking of myself—knowing myself—as gay, my skin was as thin as paper when it came to perceived attacks on my identity. I felt as vulnerable and exposed as in the months after people learned I had a mental illness, so many years ago. I felt naked, like by coming out I had stripped away some vital protection that came with people thinking of me as straight, or even bisexual—capable, at least, of feeling sexual attraction to men—and that now I walked around people with an intimate part of me laid bare. To be gay, bi, pan, asexual, or queer in some other way is so much more than sex, but that’s what I felt like everyone in my family and close circle of friends were thinking about when they talked to me. I felt so incredibly revealed.
lesbian Archive
Mental Illness and Romantic Rejection
“I just don’t think I could handle that kind of rejection.” – George McFly
When you’re a little obsessed with your own mistakes, and you can replay every stupid thing you’ve ever said in your head, dozens or hundreds of times, until you become the biggest idiot in the world and can prove it mathematically, you tend to take some things a little harshly. Romantic rejection isn’t easy for anyone, but experiencing it with a healthy dose of depression and obsession is a whole lot less fun.
Flower
I think of my heart not as a muscle, or a stone, or a vase to be filled, but like a flower.
A delicate flower.
When it’s content, it blooms.
Today, Like So Many Others, Is A Great Day
Editor’s note: This story mentions some severe triggers. Please be careful about reading this story if you are easily triggered by the topics mentioned in our trigger warning.
Trigger warnings: Abuse, including torture and child sexual assault, forced confinement, rape, violence, bullying, and hate crimes.
Yesterday/today was/is a great day. A day to celebrate. Any day that slaps me upside my head and and asks, “WTF you bitching about?” is always a great day!
“We Have a Process” or one TG/Intersexed/Lesbian/Decorated Veteran’s experience with the VHA
I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Lisa O’Connor. In her first post with us, she tells us her story of dealing with the bureaucracy of the Veteran’s Health Administration. Thanks for sharing with us, Lisa!
New VA motto: “In VHA, Nos Pedicabo tu Cruda.” or “In the VHA, We Will Fuck You Raw.”
Very appropriate motto. Not necessarily needed, as anyone who has dealt with the VHA will attest, but it is kinda cool, almost akin to, “Spes, omnes qui ibi intra, – “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” (TY Dante)
Bipolar mania and the high femme: Adventures in Sephora
I was bipolar for ten years, and while rifling through the sexual identity coatrack I found I was most comfortable as a bisexual femme. In the gay bars of 2002 this was the look that got me most often ignored or disregarded. A decade later in a different city, I amped the look up to high femme, in a sense queering it, by making the femininity into camp, a form of drag or masquerade. With a blonde bouffant, pencil skirt, purple lipstick and platform heels, I could not actually be serious about being sexy for the boys, I scared them.
Homophobia and Other Bullshit
Most of us can recognize homophobia in everyday life in certain situations: derogatory remarks, violence in newspapers, magazines, and headlines, perhaps something that has been done to us personally, like bullying, loss of a job, friends, family, or exile from communities and homes. In a lot of these cases, it is pretty clear what is happening and why. But when some of this stuff happens as a child, or can have another context put to it that makes the lines a little blurry, it’s more difficult to separate fact from fiction, and to identify behaviors and incidents for what they really are.
Coming Out and Breaking Down
After I sobered up, I started realizing pretty quickly that I was at least as attracted to women as I was to men. Not that I didn’t already know that, but now I knew it in a way that I could feel. It wasn’t about having loaded sex with anyone I could get my hands on anymore. It was about feeling things in my mind and body and relating to them.
gay with ocd…does that mean you’re fabulously organized?
So, in reading some comments on an earlier blog (which, forgive me, I did not even know existed for a few weeks after they were posted), I noticed someone had asked me to talk about being gay with OCD…That was in February. I’ve been pondering the connection in my life and if there even is […]