JACK
SOUTH DAKOTA | SERIES # 3
When I first came out as bisexual, I was accepted and it was never an issue. Two years later, I came out as transgender. Now that… that was a whole different story. I came out to my family and friends over Facebook with a big outreaching post that was received with comments varying from, "I love you [birthname],” to "I love you and support you, Jack." And man, that was hard to handle. I lost a lot of people and it made my home life incredibly hard. My parents made me see a therapist who kept telling me that it was selfish to want to transition and that I was asking for too much. It was such a difficult time. No one in my family would really talk to me. I was just a terrified, little 13-year-old and I had never felt so alone.
At the time, I was dealing with friendship issues. I was trusting the wrong people and confiding in toxicity. I just took it all in and bottled it up because I thought that to be a “real man” meant that I couldn't cry and that I couldn't be affected by any of it. I hid inside of a hyper-masculine shell and I hid everything from everyone. I didn't accept that it was okay to be myself and that I didn't have to be this big masculine person all the time. I kept pushing myself. This cycle continued for a good 6 months until I finally found good friends around February of last year. They loved and supported me no matter what and didn’t care if I was cool or not because, let’s face it, I'm not cool and never have been. But after I confided in that group, things seemed to get better. I reasoned with my family instead of just fighting with them constantly. Eventually, I got better.
Even since then, I've gotten a lot better and I can finally be myself in a safe space of wonderful friends. My family has come around a lot, honestly. Not everyone in my family calls me my name yet, but they've become more open to doing it. To end this, I thought I would give you a message of hope in a rough time.
Everything can get better. No matter the circumstances, there is a 99.9% chance that the situation you're in right now is not as bad as you think it is. Whether you're having issues with friends and family about coming out or dealing with mental illness, I know that you can get through it and that you'll make it out okay. I promise.
