I had no idea how one email could give me the best week of my life, yet utterly break me further than I already was. The truth that I shared has taken away and given so much. My family has shamed me. All of you, my friends, have lifted me up. I had no idea what type of emotions would come with this sincerity.  

  I was overridden with anxiety, unable to breathe and violently shaking, as I sent the email. I was unable to sleep that night with mind shattering anxiety, and the giddy relief that came through my best friend's text.

  I was so terrified and anxiety ridden that I became physically sick and unable to attend school the next day. But all of your support and love lifted me from this for just a moment during lunch. I, for once in my life, had something that I could hold onto and be sure about; something that told me I did have a future.

  But, in a matter of days, I was shown that all good things come with a price. Somehow my mother was informed of this email I sent to all of you. My mother was as hateful as she proves herself to be daily; shaming me, rejecting my privilege to believe in God and calling me an abomination in the Lord’s eyes. She proceeded to kick me out of her home, saying that she didn’t need any more of Satan's work in her life.

  Then, as I was at my Dad’s house, she decided to take the right that was never her’s, and share the news to those I did not wish for it to be shared with. Now, my Dad, my friend, Katy, who hates homosexuals and many others know. My mother has ruined and tainted my only escape from my ruthless reality: the people that had no idea of my mental illnesses or sexuality.

   This brings me to where I am now. I have lost so much in the past week and gained very little. Even right now, all the security and sureness that I felt on that first day had been swept away by my family and my own beliefs and insecurities. I have lost every uninformed outlet in my life this week. I have questioned if homosexuality is truly against God’s will. I have racked my brain to try to find an answer on if this will make me unworthy, an abomination or a non-believer. I have lapsed from sureness to self hatred hundreds of times. I want to spend my'life for God, but I don’t know if I can because of this.

I am torn between fighting myself with deadly blows of self hatred, to believing God isn’t how my parents say he is. I don’t know whether to believe I can be this way, or if I have to somehow change myself. I just hope I can survive this.