Coming Out

Well, I did it. I threw open the closet door and am now dealing with the fallout. (For the two readers who don't also follow me on facebook....I'm gay. There, you are all caught up!)

And trust me, there is a lot of fallout involved.

So why did I do it? I didn't have to go public. I didn't have to tell my whole world, which mostly consists of varying degrees of conservative Christians, that I'm gay. I could have stayed quiet, kept only those close and supportive in the loop.

Announcing it was a choice, and it was a very deliberate choice.

The first reason was because I have lived a lifetime hiding, sometimes even from myself. I'm done. I have no desire to keep quiet about a very important part of my life. I have no desire to hide who I am. I am proud. Never thought I would say that, but I am. I have probably watched this video a dozen times in the past few weeks, and there are a bunch of parts that really resonate within me. But the main thing is this: "No matter what your walls are made of, a closet is no place for a person to live."

Watch it. Trust me.

And within that reason is another. I wanted people to love me for who I really am. I didn't want to sit and wonder...would that person still be nice to me if she knew the truth about me? Would this person still be my friend? We all want to be loved and to be liked, it is only natural. I don't just want my mask to be loved. And now that I am out, I realize that I also don't want to be liked in spite of being gay. There have been those who have revealed that this is clearly repulsive to them, but hey they still "love" me. Sorry, that just isn't enough for me anymore. Love me, love all of me.

Maybe the hardest reason to verbalize is the fact that I also came out because I wanted people to understand that what they say matters. As a kid, the word "gay" was synonymous with "disgusting", "unnatural", "sinful", "abomination", and "repulsive". I heard it from the living room couch and the church pulpit and the desks in my classroom. As a scared teenage girl, I just wanted to be loved and I never wanted my friends and family to use those words to describe me. And so I repressed as much as humanly possible. I slid into a life of trying to please, a life full of depression and self hatred. What you say has an effect on the people around you, and you may not even realize who you are talking to. You may not realize when you use a gay slur around your buddies that you are driving a knife into one of their hearts. You may not realize that your evident disgust over a couple holding hands makes your friend terrified to be honest with you. These things matter, your words matter.

Two days ago, I got the words "I am significant" tattooed onto my arm. I got it as a reminder, not only of this moment in my life, but as reminder that I don't want to go back, even when it is bound to seem easier. Because it is easier, in some ways, to live a lie. It is easier to make people I love happy, to be able to see respect and admiration in their eyes. Being honest comes at a price. But the price of life as I have lived it has been sacrificing my feelings of self worth. I have felt small and scared and disposable for most of my life. For the first time I feel strong and significant and happy with who I am as a person. Again....a closet is no place for a person to live.

In the midst of all of this, my kids have been a bright light. They don't know what it means to be a heterosexual versus a homosexual. They don't care. They love me, all of me, fully and completely and wonderfully. I am their Mama. They are the definition of acceptance, of every kind of person. They could care less what the color of your skin is, what you worship, or who you kiss. The world has so much to learn from them. In the end...I have no regrets, because life has brought me them. Life has brought me here. And here is not a bad place to be.

The Things We Don't Talk About

You guys know I'm all about being real around here, so get ready for a big old dose of my reality.

I have an anxiety disorder. (Not sure what that means? Hop over here and get a quick overview)

Yes, it's a mental health disorder. Which means that people generally don't talk about it. And no, it doesn't mean that I'm just a little stressed out with everything (ahem, the three kids) and so I have anxiety.

It started around 2nd or 3rd grade for me. I called home from school several times a week with stomach aches, begging to go home. It got to the point where I had to practically be bleeding from the head to be allowed to go call my mom because I had stomach aches every single day. I know they must have thought I was faking it. But I really did have those stomach aches every day, they were a symptom of anxiety...I just wasn't old enough to understand that yet. I came to just think that's how things were, that I was supposed to walk around feeling like there was a ball of lead in my stomach.

The panic attacks started in puberty.

I've had a brief reprieve from anxiety, a couple of years where the knot in my stomach and the constant worrying were gone. But almost two years ago, it started creeping back. And that is why I am writing about it now.

My anxiety in the past few months has been the worst it has ever been in my life.

My anxiety manifests itself in a fear of calling people on the phone, generally. Yes, that may sound silly to you. Which is why I tend to not talk about this. But "simple" things like calling a doctor's office or a new friend can take a huge amount of effort on my part. This is always, always there...but when my anxiety is "down" I can manage it and make the calls without too much extra effort. When my anxiety is mild, I may have to work up to making the calls. When my anxiety is high, I can't make them.

That's how it's always been.

Well, these last few months have been a whole new level of crazy for me. I've always been able to call my mom, she is my best friend in the whole world. Well, it got to a point where I couldn't even call her. Then, I started being unable to answer calls. And then? Lately, I've been almost completely unable to answer texts and emails.

You have no idea how deeply embarrassed I am to even admit this. I know this makes no sense. I know I should be able to do these things.

The hardest part is that it has been affecting, well, everything. Mainly, our finances. Because, guess what my business requires me to do?? CALL PEOPLE. Every day. Not doing that has made my business pretty much dry up and completely go to dust. Which means that I haven't been able to bring in money. Which has increased my anxiety, because we kind of need that money to, you know, feed the kids. And the more anxious I get about being unable to do my job, the less I am able to do my job.

I have never felt more scared and helpless. It's like being stuck in a loop of self destruction.

So, why am I choosing to go public with such a private struggle? Well, two reasons, really:

Because I know I'm not alone. Maybe for you it isn't anxiety and phone calls, maybe you suffer from depression or some other mental health disorder. Even though I know I am not alone, I need to feel like I'm not alone right now, and I bet someone else needs that too.

And because I'm not above asking for help. Yes, I am in therapy right now. But, to really put myself out there, I need help restarting my business. For my local friends, if you think you can be of any help in that area please let me know. Otherwise, I want you to give me a call. Maybe not today (not sure I could handle 100 phone calls in one day!) but sometime in the next few weeks. I am going to work on answering my phone again, and making calls (so if you get a phone call from me soon, know that you are special to me!) My therapist says I just have to start facing it and break the fear cycle. May sound simple but I'm breaking out into a sweat just writing about it.

So, there you go. I've got issues, you guys. But while I may be afraid of picking up the phone, I don't ever again want to be afraid of talking about this. Because it is real and it is me and it should be nothing to be ashamed of.

Now, give me a virtual hug, I'm going to go eat some ice cream, writing this post has stressed me out.

The image I will be thinking of whenever I get on the phone this week: The road to wellness has a sunset of course

Life is Hard

So I've been seriously obsessed with "Life is Hard" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Take a listen:

This song. It makes me want to smile and cry, hug the next person I see, and be alone, and dance, and sit, all at the same time. This song is like truth set to music.

This is how I so often feel. As though I'm conflicted in my very being because I think life is both absolutely beautiful and unbearably hard. 

Having kids with autism = hard. Exhausting, frustrating, heartbreaking, headache inducing. It's also amazing, illuminating, beautiful, and inspiring. Nothing has pushed the boundaries of my sanity more or pushed my personal growth more. So often I fear that people see me and think that I manage to laugh and work hard and love life in spite of having three children on the spectrum. Truth is, it is because of that very fact. 

And that is just life. There is good and bad and mundane. There is good in the bad and bad in the good. And I, for one, am one mess of a human being. Right now everything feels so big to me- a new home, kids in school, the full realization that our family is done growing and that our family is special times three. And a whole lot more that I won't blog about because believe it or not there are some things I keep private. But it's all big- it's very amazing and very scary and very emotional. 

When I think about it all, my first instinct is to say that this is just a small point in time, a phase of these stressors that will come and go. But I've been saying that for a while now. "Oh, right now things are kind of crazy!" has been my motto for about four years. I think it's time to accept it- this is life. That somehow feels freeing and wonderful to just embrace that all the chaos is just simply life. 

Come celebrate- Life is hard!