Me, Myself & Pride - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly!

I grew up in a small mining village in the North East of England, full of bigotry and supremacy. A place where the locals took pride in burning down and chasing out refugees from their homes. A place the neighbouring towns referenced as being the place to avoid in the area (not that they were much better - all cut from the same cloth). A place I never felt safe to be me.

I knew from an extremely young age I was gay and I had to fight with my ‘demons’ as society told me to. In my head, over and over again, for 15+ years. A disgrace to myself and my family. The worst part, I genuinely believed it - a horrible person not worthy of happiness. With help from unsuspecting family members; "If he does end up gay, it's because of your dodgy genes", and divisive language was a part of the everyday vocab. I convinced myself I was defective - a broken person.?

I’ve spent the majority of my life keeping people at a distance, not letting anyone in and building fake relationships with people. "If I get too close, I'll make it obvious, then everyone will find out, and they'll all hate me - aarrgh!" no, not healthy at all. It's most likely why even to this day I get flustered and panicky in some social situations.

Of course, I think back now as an out queer person in a happy, loving relationship with my partner and myself, "gurl you are stooopid, if only you knew". But living in that dark place from a very young age is a very different reality. It morphs the way you see yourself in a real troubling way.

I lived in the middle of nowhere - there wasn't an LGBTQ+ support network in my little village, nor were there any out gay people.

I felt like an alien.

I was alone.

I took the first steps to come out at 15 to a teacher, not by choice but because the walls were closing in. I was struggling, suffocating at breaking point.?

I’d been self-harming for a while, using a steak knife to butcher the very bottom of my ankles to relieve the built-up tension and self-hatred that relentlessly clouded my mind. I never wanted to die, I just wanted to apply the pain I thought I ‘rightfully’ deserved.?

But now, I was having thoughts of suicide, the hate-fuelled and convincing voices spinning around in my head like a plague “the world is better without you”, “you’re vile”, “you’re hated”, “just do everyone a favour and slit your wrists and kill yourself already”, “make it easier for the people around you”, “you’re only a dirty little faggot taking up too much space”, “you will not be missed”, “you’ll never find love anyway”, “you’re going to be alone forever, do you really think there is anyone else like you? You’re a walking human defect”, “Just look around, no one else is like you, ever thought why? You’re a mistake that shouldn’t be here anyway” the list goes on and on and on and on and on, infinite.

I held my wrists at knifepoint and pushed down deep into my skin with great intensity. The tension grew in my mind and I repeated in several locations from the wrist up to my elbow, I wanted to cut desperately but held myself back out of fear of what could come next. And then the tears flood. I dropped the knife and covered myself up with shame.

I started school the next day and I had to put on a non-school uniform jumper, and my teacher immediately noticed and told me I needed to remove it. The worry set in that everyone will see the marks I’d left, so I either told one person or told everyone. My options were limited and in a blind panic choose to confide in one, my teacher.

At that time, my teacher became my rock - I could FINALLY speak actual real-life words to someone about the lifetime of feelings I had stored up inside of me.?I was a nervous, stuttery, social mess, but at least I was speaking and had the first safe space in my life. They could see the pain and advised me to see the school counsellor.?

After weeks of convincing, I did, and I broke down. All of the thoughts I told myself were spilling out. My eyes like waterfalls. I couldn't find the “strength” to hold my emotions back any longer. It led me to tell another and make a new friend. With help, I very slowly began to believe that who I was okay.

With roughly three months left at school before I finished my final year, the small support system I had for the first time in my life was about to be ripped away from me. I was going to be alone - again. The cherry on top? I was outed. I felt like I was in free fall.

People began asking me in the hallways, I kept hearing comments made behind my back, "how does it even work", "do you think he likes it up the shitter?", “that’s just wrong!”, P.E got interesting too. Targeted and kegged (underwear pulled down unsuspectedly) in front of 30+ students in the changing room, some recently unfriended. Unfriending was done on their behalf. I'm guessing in the fear that I fancied them? Because logically, that's what being gay means - you fancy every male, ever. But let’s not give too much time and energy to the bullies and tiny-minded people.?

I remember spending a lot of time alone towards the end of school, a lot of staying late in Art class and roaming around the empty halls. I completely detached myself from everyone at this point.

College is where the change started to happen for me, I began studying design, and I was in a room full of creative people. A real mix of people - black, white, asian, gay, straight, bisexual, disabled. I immediately felt more at ease and surprising to me, making friends was quite easy. I came out to my new friends shortly after, mixed reactions as not a single person suspected it. I couldn't have asked for a more supportive group of people. They gave me the strength to embrace myself.

It wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows. There were periods of time, everything spilt back out from the walls I built to keep the pain out. But it was better.

The main downfall? My college friends were at college.

I came out to my family at 17. I felt I was old enough to handle any consequences that my family might throw at me. It was terrifying, this big secret I've been keeping to myself for as long as I can remember was finally about to be out in the open for all to see and judge.

Minus the fact for both instances (my parents are split up) I got myself horrifically drunk, it went great.

Both my mam and dad hugged me and asked me questions, and it didn't take long for my mam to start talking to me about ‘men’. I'm lucky that both my parents were nothing short of amazing. It took a while, but eventually, it became the norm!?

Again, with its downside, I did have family members who told me that it’s just because I’ve never been with a girl and I’m confused, and others who wouldn’t physically touch me anymore. As in actually avoiding making physical contact with me, as if I was a contagious plague. But the ones that mattered at that point in my life were supportive, and that’s what I was concentrating my energy on.

I had finally done it I was an out gay person, and then I realised I was one of very few out gay people. I was out and I was still alone. There were, of course, some gay people out in the area but we never clicked. Probably my fault for not addressing my own internal homophobia.

It was exhausting to exist.

The cultural belief system instilled in me started to take over again, "you're defective, even the gay people don't understand you". I was in the middle ground, too gay for straight people and too straight for gay people. Too masculine for females and not masculine enough for males. Exhausting.

I was sick of being exhausted.

It led me down a different dark path and I found a friend in drugs.?

It started out small, and I gradually introduced new friends that made me happy.

I still remember to this day the euphoria I felt taking an ecstasy pill for the first time at 17. In a house surrounded by people who at that time, I didn’t know much about. Popping it in my mouth, gulped some water and found a spot in the corner of the room waiting for something to happen. And BOOM the up! It was as though I had felt happiness for the first time in my life. (The black & white picture second in from the left)

Finally, here was the solution to all of my problems! Wrong.?

Over the span of 2.5 years, I went from alcohol to a cocktail of class B & A drugs to get my happiness fix.

Alcohol, Cannabis (often laced with god knows what), Ecstasy / MDMA in different forms, Cocaine, Amphetamine (Speed), Ketamine.?

I remember one night, polishing off 7 Ecstasy pills, a bag (over a gram) of MDMA & Cocaine mixed, speed, the steady stream of alcohol and butyl nitrite top-ups.?

On a separate occasion, I remember getting out of a taxi and walking home from a night out. Scooping the final dregs of my bag of white and throwing the empty packet on the floor. A couple of moments later, recognising I’d just thrown an empty bag of cocaine on the floor in front of a primary school. I got home, tucked away my other drugs in a drawer, lay in bed and cried myself to sleep.?

I was high 4 nights a week as a minimum, tensions were rising at home due to being a mess of a human, and my happy bubble was bursting. The even bigger story needed addressing again. I’m QUEER!?

I didn’t want to, I couldn’t muster the energy to have to deal with being queer again, but I started to realise that my “friend” was nothing other than a distraction and a distraction that had far too much control of my life.?

When I wasn’t high, the lows were crippling. I’d become reliant on substances and it made me hate myself more and I couldn’t afford that. I had experienced being at rock bottom and I knew I didn’t want to be there again. I knew I didn’t want to die because I’d already had that encounter with myself. So I needed to fix it and create a life actually worth living.

I started saying no and over time got myself off of drugs. Not without difficulty, I remember once being sat on my Nana's couch after having a huge argument with my parents and feeling nothing but debilitating numb emptiness. Which I have to admit was the scariest of everything for me, I’d been at the point where my mind was swarmed with emotion and felt nothing at all was worse. Feeling like a human vegetable and as if you had lost all sense of what makes you you.?

The healing began, I came off of drugs, knuckled down at University again, slowly changed my friendship group, and started addressing being queer and searching to meet other queer people. I started giving my energy to things and people that helped me be and feel better about myself.

A year later, I met my partner, and he made me realise I am worthy of real love, despite every instilled belief I had about myself.?

Together, we picked up sticks and moved from the North East to Manchester. I remember the first time we went to the gay village in Manchester. My partner had been many times. I was overwhelmed with emotion - I was scared. I felt vulnerable, and for the first time, I was in a place where people could see me. It took me a while to adapt in all honesty. It was a place full of people that I was made to believe I shouldn't be like, social misfits, and then it hit me, I belonged!

For the first time, I had a community of people. Yes, some are more ‘eccentric’ which people like to shun, but that's the beauty of such a place, no judgement. Masc, fem, man, woman, or people who don’t conform to the gender binary, they're all just words with social constraints attached to them.?

There are parts of gay culture I don't and might never be able to understand, but it doesn't matter, because all people are accepted. This place is mine, and many others' safe haven when out in public. I still now feel a sense of relief when I turn the corner, and I get to take off my armour for a short while. And I can only imagine it's more prevalent for people with harder stories to tell than mine.

That feeling that I described, for me, is why celebrating pride is so important. As someone who used to have very limiting beliefs about myself and others like me, this is a massive shift in my mindset from what it once was.?

I was once just as small-minded as the village I grew up in.?

It's a reminder of the hardships faced, a celebration of the moment, and the hope for a world where we are all equal - regardless of who you are and your story.?

A world where people (in particular young impressionable and vulnerable children) are no longer falsely made to believe that they are defective, or feel the need to shut themselves off from the world out of the fear of being targeted because of who they are.?

A world where people don't need to come out, and instead are encouraged to explore themselves without punishment.

A world without hate.

I wish there was a nice comforting endpoint to my “coming out” story but the reality is I’m still coming out to myself every day. There was no definitive point anything clicked into place because, in all honesty, I’m still unravelling trauma on a daily basis trying to navigate and understand my place in this world. Coming out isn’t a Hollywood movie, it’s a string of personal struggles and stories of empowerment and strength that makes queer people some of the strongest people on this planet.?

We are never truly “out” because the world we live in doesn’t allow us to be truly “out”.

LGBTQ+ rights have come so far, but the journey ahead is still so long. I am privileged enough to live in a city that supports me, but there are so many people in the world who don't have that network. Unfortunately, so much of the world isn't like the city I live in either. There are places in the world that I, my partner, and people like us can't visit without the risk of being hung, drawn and quartered for public entertainment because of our sheer existence. There are so many people in the world like me who live in these same places.?

Anything I felt and experienced growing up must be a drop in the ocean in comparison to what they have faced, and continue to face!

If you or someone you may know, may benefit from support here are some resources that might help:

MindOut LGBTQ Mental Health Service ?

Stonewall, Find LGBT Services & Community Groups in your Area ?

LGBT Foundation, Social & Support Groups ?