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.

The value of life, the value of your life, is one that will be questioned in variables and determined by the abundance of self help books with anonymous authors who will tell you a few basic things. These things, as I have learned through the many books “gifted” to me or sent to me in depressive episodes are this;

A life worth living, a life worth value, consists of:

• A deeply engaged social life.
• A job that pays high and treats you well.
• A deep connection and a non wavering relationship with family members.
• Extroversion and all it’s many gifts.
• Love and fear of the Lord
• A healthy diet and a light weight.
• A loving heterosexual, romantic partner (unless you have Borderline Personality Disorder, then you should stay away from romantic or non-romantic attachments for the safety of others)
• An adult attitude and an “adult” handling of emotions.

Sobriety is a different forest, and one I am picking my way through carefully. The level of commitment that AA seems to require is daunting, as is the god issue. But I have seen people speak there that moved and affected me in a way that was more beneficial than any serenity prayer. Balancing cynicism and nihilism with the all-to-clear possibility of death, I’ve relapsed this month but I’m trying to embrace the program without losing myself. When I relapsed, my wife yelled at me to give her the rest of the bottle of vodka, and all I could say was, “I want something to myself, that is mine.” I gave her the bottle. I want to believe I have other things to hold onto, but the glacial heft of a glass bottle is a hand held.

I’m in a DBT group right now. It’s comprised of four modules, and I just finished my second, which is distress tolerance. Of all the things I could possibly say about it, the most accurate would be that it’s a lot of work. Think of it this way: it’s a lot of practicing things that are aimed at reducing distress, regardless of what mood or state of mind one might be in. Thankfully my emotions are still pretty distressing on a regular basis, so I was able to more or less have something to compare the results to.

I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Reba Overkill. In its first post with us, it speaks through poetry to recall its struggle with being heard by the people who matter. Thanks for sharing with us, Reba!

Trigger Warning: allusions to sexual abuse, self-injury & suicide attempts.

it all came together a few nights ago, weak and bent
in your lap, feeling lost, feeling like it was years ago when
i was never anything like the me that you know. i was
someone who was trying to speak, nobody listened and i didn’t
understand because i can hear so fucking well, i listened and
i heard sirens, and songs that i would sing with people who i did
not end up loving very kindly. i heard calm assertions by
people in authority that left cracks in parts of me. i heard
the breath i took in when i woke up and was not dead, even
for all my trying. i heard people leaving hints for their departure,
inclining heads towards one-way tickets to not existing.