LGBTQIAP+ Milestones: Book 4

It Hurts, It Hurts, I Cry

Anonymous

~

WARNING - this is my story, and all of this has happened, this is the first time i have shared this with anyone, even Al.

It all started when I was just a kid. My dad was an EXTREMELY religious person, so was my mom. I was always different as a kid, never wanted to wear anything girly, I used to wear my brother's old clothes. Any of them that fit me that is. When I was six, almost seven, one of my best friends called me gay. Let's call him Patterson, I got scared because of what my parents had taught me. Gays go to hell. God didn't make us as boys and girls just to ignore the rules. If I ever met a gay, get away from them because they are bad. I had gotten so scared, that I told the teacher, the principal, (he was my uncle) and my parents. I was so afraid, that I pushed Patterson away for no good reason. At that point, I only had two friends, Patterson and Matt, both were guys. I changed myself to be more girly after that so nobody would ever think that I was gay again. I was lonely after that because Matt always wanted to play with Patterson, Matt had liked me better when I acted like a boy. Then a girl came up to me and asked if I wanted to play Super Unicorns, I said yes because I was desperate for a friend, whatever personality, as long as they were a girl. Her name was April. (Kind of, I don't want to use their real names. Nobody's name is going to be real) We became great friends, and then on the bus I took home, another girl asked if she could sit by me. I said yes, and we became friends, May then introduced me to her friends, Lucy and Elle. We all went to the same school, so I introduced them to April. April then introduced a new friend, Dee. I was so relieved to be surrounded by girls so that my parents wouldn't be mad at me for seeming gay. For years, I dressed in frilly things covered in pink and sparkles, and I was happy. Not really though, I was just happy to be like every other girl, I hated everything to do with pink, I hated how people expected me to be perfect, I hated the way that my parents forced me to go to church twice a week, and I hated that I was forced to wear a dress every time. I hated everything around me except for my friends, I just hated the reason why we ever became friends. I was so desperate to be more girly, that in first grade, I started to 'date' my boy crush since preschool. I actually really liked this guy, he liked me, and like little kids, we planned our wedding. In second grade, he left, moved to California. Never heard from him since. At this time, we had pen-pals for class. I met my pen-pal and became friends with her. Susie had just replaced my 'boyfriend'. We all grew up, Matt became my friend again, and April, May, Lucy, Elle, Dee, Susie, and I all became the best of friends. Fifth grade came around the corner, and I fell in love with the boy who had bullied me for three years. He had bullied me about everything, but even more so now that I was no longer dressing in irresponsibly frilly pink things. I almost never wore dresses anymore, and that year was the first time I ever heard the term transgender. I loved him more and more as the years went by, and ended up hating myself, hurt eating at me more every day. Ever since I was called gay by Patterson, I had never stopped smiling at school. I was always the teacher's favorite, the one quiet student in the library that loved books, the smiling little girl who did everything she was told, the religious little girl who grew up on the Bible and could quote any phrase that she had memorized. I was bullied, and not only by the guy I liked, but I just smiled and agreed with whatever they threw at me. The teachers didn't know that I cried in that cramped school bathroom almost every day, neither did my friends. Nobody did. End of fifth grade, my parents and I got into our first big fight about, surprise surprise, the religion they had forced onto me. I hated that church so much because of every scaring thing that happened there, I broke down crying there more than my fair share of times, puked so many times I couldn't count, and all of those songs reminded me that I would never be good enough for anyone, not even a God that might never even exist. What had he ever done to help me? He could have gotten rid of the hurt or at the very least, erase any thoughts or this stupid problem of being transgender. Sixth grade I stopped wearing dresses and my parents started to get mad at me more than anyone else in my eight-siblings family. Seventh grade I cut my hair and my parents forgot my birthday. My friends all got crushes or some sort of thing that could make them happy. I still smiled, I almost never cried, unless I was pushed over the edge too far. Then it was eighth grade. I hated myself more than ever, I finally accepted myself as a guy, and took on the name Alex. I asked my friends to call me that, while trying my hardest to get over that boy. Elle changed, from Elle, to Al. He helped me to get over the bully, and the bully and I became friends. Sort of, more like mutual sarcasm buddies. I changed my name, to finalize something in my life, to Milo. I found out that Al was pansexual that year and I fell for him, he also fell for me. We started dating. The bully and I stopped being friends and started to bully me again. I had so much hurt and so many secrets stuck inside my head that the bullying pushed me so far over the edge, time and time again that my teachers started to notice. Sometimes I would have to  ask my teachers for a minute to myself while everyone else was in class, just so that I could cry in the corner of the coat room. I couldn't tell anyone that the reason why I cried was because I was a transgender, I couldn't even tell my family. For this reason, I couldn't feel right sentencing Al to be with me, so I broke up with him. I broke down one day and told one of my sisters, and she was so supportive of me she cried. I told others in my family, but still not my parents, grandparents, well anyone really. I only told three of my sisters and one found out, but they were mostly supportive. People in my class were getting worried that something was wrong with me, so I painted on my smile again, and in doing so, everything went back to nobody noticing me except for my friends. I slept as much as I could, trying my hardest to escape my reality the only way I could and my grades paid for it. On February 14, 2018, my mom and I got into the biggest argument yet, ending in both of us crying for two very different reasons, me because of everything I held inside and everything that had just been added to that list, her because I broke down and had told her that I was transgender. Both of my parents knew now, they told their friends, and every single one of their religious mushroom friends told them to fix me. In the beginning, my mom just asked for time to get used to it, but it turned out so wrong after that. Al and I got back together about a month or two after breaking up, I only wore boy's clothes, and everyone in my grade suspected my big secret. They try to be nice, but then again, I was asked where I got the drugs that made me this psycho. Four months have passed since I told my parents, and everything is awful, if anyone calls me a boy, my mom will ignore me for days, my dad started to take as many out of state jobs as he could so that he never has to see me, and I found out that all of the relatives on my dad's side are homophobes. I am too dysphoric to even go outside most of the time, and my mom is sending me to therapists to see if any of them can fix me. My sisters stay away from me most of the time because whenever I am around my mother, we get into fights. almost a week ago, we got into yet another fight, this time she told me to stop faking being a boy, she would never talk to me again if I ever transitioned, and that she would always love me. Would somebody who loved you threaten to kick you out of the house if you didn't wear a dress to graduation? I was really upset after the fight, so much so that I wondered if I would make my mom happier if I had just died. I cut my left wrist with a knife from the kitchen once, but I didn't want anyone from school to know when I had to change for gym, so I left it at that and cut my feet instead until I was calm again. It hurt so much, but at that time, I felt that I needed a release form all of the emotions. I was scared that someone from school would find out so I wore long sleeves. The bully made a joke two days ago about me committing suicide and told me that when I cut, it was short way across the wrist for attention, longways up the arm for real progress. I got into an argument with my mom that night, and stupid me took his advice and cut the longways. I decided to kill myself the next night, but then at school Al asked if I was cutting. I said no, but he didn't believe me, he just left it, at lunch I saw him smile and then he hugged me. Al had saved me for another day, and he probably will for as long as I can look forward to seeing his smile.