Silence

This is more of a speech. I'm very passionate about this and the words just flowed naturally. Many emotions went into this. I hope you can feel them.

I am silent, I live a life in which I can never truly express who I am because I am filled with fear of what people will think of me.

It comes up gradually, but then all at once. You are told that it is a phase and that it will pass and you try your hardest to believe that. But you know that those are lies. You tell yourself that it’s all in your head and that these thoughts are wrong. You try to push it out, but you just can’t. It hurts more than anything to know that you are stuck like this forever. I don’t know whether I was born like this or whether it has something to do with how I grew up, frankly, I do not care. I just want it gone. I’ve cried myself to sleep multiple times because of the pain that is growing in my heart. I strive to be normal because, to the general population, different is bad..

I wish the people who are on one side of the argument of whether it’s a choice or not could live a day in my shoes. I didn’t want this! Why would anyone want this? I really hope my children don’t have to go through this. I hope they don’t have to go through all of the jokes and ridicule and pure cruelty. Whether you choose to regard this or not, people are mean. People, especially high school kids, throw jokes around because they think they are being funny. What I don’t get is why someone wouldn’t say a racist joke around an African-American but when it comes to another group of people they don’t care what they say. It’s all in good fun, right? Wrong. It only takes one comment, one word, one joke to truly hurt someone. And in some cases you create a scar. An emotional scar that is bound by fear. The scar can never be healed or talked about because that person is scared. If you make jokes when you don’t know I’m in the room, what would you do if you did?

What’s wrong with us? What have we done to deserve this treatment? You see it on the news all the time: Teenager Commits Suicide. Some go to the extremes of harming others before taking their own lives. After all of the hype has faded, people see them as mad or insane for doing something like that. But in reality, they just shattered. Every small insult, comment, or dirty look made tiny hairline cracks in their soul. After a while, they broke. They reach the point of no return and no recovery. They feel alone, unwanted, and unsupported. They can never feel good about themselves because you’ve made them feel defected. A lot of us feel lost. We are searching for answers when there are none. As hard as it may be, we have to accept it. It’s never going away. This is what we are. This is what I am.

Considering that, what we are doesn’t make up who we are. I am just like you. I have likes and dislikes and I’m NOT a nymphomaniac. Just because I’m looking at you doesn’t mean I like you. Maybe I’m looking at you because you keep staring at me. You might not want to change next to me in the locker room and the feeling is mutual. I don’t want to see what all is going on down there. Yuck! In my case, I still like the opposite gender. I’m in a healthy relationship with a girl and she is fully aware of my sexuality. We’re all human beings and we both bleed red. We both have two eyes, two ears, and one nose. We also have one beating heart, mine just might beat for someone of the same sex. We’re not harming you, but you continue to molest us about it. All we want is the freedom to live a wonderful life full of happiness and love without being ridiculed for it.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. My mother used to tell me that when I was younger. It’s not true. We’ve all said mean things to someone at one time in our lives without thinking of the effects it has on that person. I’m here to tell you that sometimes the things you say aren’t forgotten. As much as we’ve heard they aren’t, words ARE weapons. Your words force us to stay timid and afraid. They keep us in “The Closet.” Yes, it’s a real place. But it’s a dark, scary, and lonely place that no one wants to be. All I ask is that you think before you speak. Don’t think of us as the LGBT kid, think of us as a human being and think of what you are about to say has the potential to hurt us.

As sad as it may be, I have to crawl back into my little hole. I have to go back to my life, where I watch everything that I say and pretend to be someone who I am not. I am going back to a life bound by fear, a life full of, silence...

Author's Note

This is depressing, I know. It is also raw emotion. I wrote this last year and I recall crying profusely while typing it out. People can be very cruel. I'm a pretty well known person throughout my high school but I am "in the closet." This is the third year that I have hidden it and I think I may want to come out. I am in a healthy relationship and I am not interested in seeing anyone else, but I would love to feel the weight lifted off of my shoulders. This is a very powerful speech and I hope you can see the emotions that went into it. Criticism and comments are always welcome. Thank you.