Those in the LGBTQIA+ community dread coming out to their family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, strangers, etc. (we’re literally constantly coming out), but what about coming out to ourselves?

My “coming out” story is a meandering one, full of twists and turns and stagnant moments where I just needed to pull away from the path for a while and find a new one when I was ready (was I ever really ready?) The trans narrative says that I knew I was a man long before I knew that was a thing, but I don’t think I really knew knew. I knew I felt different sometimes, but who didn’t? I knew I felt alone and misunderstood a lot, but again, who didn’t?

Looking back, the biggest indicators were probably my stubborn need to prove that I could do “masculine” things when people told me I couldn’t and my very fervent obsession with boys. Now, I will say that some of that plays into my sexuality but there’s definitely a difference between being attracted to someone because you want to be with them and being attracted to someone because you want to be them. I was often attracted for the latter reason.

At the time, I thought I was just boy crazy; that I really, really just must want to date so many dudes all of the time. But then I realized what dating also entails (sex) and that people were getting the wrong idea about me and I tried to stop being so outwardly obsessive. My behavior toward a lot of real men, including celebrities, was also a little creepy (maybe my next blog entry?).

Thanks to a very supportive and open-minded best friend, who has definitely guided me through the worst of everything life has thrown at me (including saving my life MULTIPLE times), in college, I came out as bisexual. Actually, very soon after I officially came out, I would just tell people that I was queer. Queer seemed to sum up everything in terms of sexuality, gender, personality, etc.

I ignored other indicators around this time because I was going through a lot of other stuff like depression and grieving another best friend. I didn’t have time to ruminate on why I kept writing journal entries about my very strong fantasies of one day somehow looking like Nathan from the British television show Misfits (even though he was kind of an asshole).

After graduation, more depression hit me like a ton of bricks. It was that time in your life when you think everything is supposed to make sense now. This is when you’re an adult and you can finally go after everything you’ve ever wanted! Your options are limitless! You have so much freedom and independence! But I just lost myself in a dark, lonely hole, feeling sorry for myself and refusing to do much about it. I did start to get close with a trans person though and that made being trans more realistic, tangible.

I still remember one night as I was flailing around, trying to find something to define why I was having these weird, indescribable feelings all the time and what it all meant. I did a search about what being transgender meant and how you know if you are and what it all entails. It felt like Googling symptoms of some medical condition, as though I was sick (I’m not sick). I stumbled across YouTube videos of transmen talking about hormones, top surgery, reviewing different packers and STPs. I was enraptured, fascinated, hopeful – but then I got overwhelmed. I closed all the tabs and erased my browser’s history. What if someone found out?

You know what the ended up being the funniest but simplest thing that really made it all clear? Made it all click into place? Made that list of “symptoms” (as though being trans has a list of qualifiers. I was young!) all point toward the fact that I was trans?

Porn.

I’m no stranger to porn and I don’t know exactly what sequence of events I went through in order to come to this breakthrough, but porn really was the thing that opened my eyes. I realized I wanted to be the guy in the scenarios. That I’d never be the girl (I was watching cis straight porn). Because I wasn’t a girl. And I’m not straight either. But mostly, I’m not a girl.

Shortly before, I had been lurking on the FTM subreddit* but hadn’t posted yet and it still hadn’t quite dawned on me, I don’t think. Something I’ve always done since I can remember is do research and ask questions first before I make any solid life-changing decisions. I needed to know all the facts and first person accounts so I could better understand myself. Reading the thousands of posts on that sub made me feel less alone. Any time I posted about losing hope or how terrified I was to make this part of me public, they knew exactly how it felt and were always extremely supportive. This is why any time someone attacks Reddit/social media/the internet in general, I defend it. I credit Reddit as one of the things that saved my life.

*Disclaimer: I don’t visit that sub as obsessively as I used to so I don’t know if it’s still a safe, supportive environment, but it definitely was the perfect place for me in that moment in time.

The thing that was still holding me back from completely accepting myself though was a pretty giant hurdle: deep-rooted shame. If you grew up Christian or still identify as a Christian or, depending on the religion, religious in any capacity you might know the feeling I’m talking about. I’m going to be completely frank here and say that this is partially why I can’t bring myself to go to church services to this day. Even though I had support from my found family, from strangers on the internet, from books and other resources, late at night I would beg God to take these feelings away. I was certain I was disobeying God’s plans for me. Even though I didn’t really identify as a Christian, the shame was eating me up from the inside. Why would God make me this way? Was it God’s fault? Was I just making it up? I had so many doubts, one night I even convinced myself that I would wake up the next morning and go back to being “normal”. And really, how shit is that? After these nights of praying and crying, I felt even more horrible because it meant that a part of me must see other trans people as “wrong” and “sinful” and not “normal”. But I didn’t! It was just me that was wrong, sinful and not normal.

I started talking to an online therapist thanks to the urging of my best friend (this was one of the times she saved my life like I mentioned earlier). While the online therapist helped me in many ways and online therapy was very useful at the time, she didn’t quite know how to answer my fears and doubts about being trans. She would skirt the topic and suggested seeing someone in person. It’s possible she wasn’t qualified but it felt like another excuse to slow down all the progress I had made. Back to drinking and begging God to make it all stop!

I used to do this thing where I would be going about my normal evening activities and I would get up, venture into my bedroom and just stare at myself in the mirror. It was a pretty masochistic activity because I ended up just hurling insult after insult at myself, prodding every inch of myself I hated, and twisting my body in different ways as though it would help prove how dumb my body was. It wasn’t a very fun game. I would also often not recognize who was looking back at me but I mean, deep down, I knew it was me (unfortunately). It usually took a little convincing but at the end of the day, I knew the person looking back was me even if I hated every part of it.

One night, I stumbled into my bedroom to play another round of the Mirror Game and when I looked at the reflection, I physically jumped. Who the hell was that? I didn’t recognize myself at all. It was like flipping through a family album and feeling like you ought to know who those people are but you don’t. I had completely lost all sense of reality. I fell to the floor and started uncontrollably sobbing. I thought about ending my life. I thought about how easy it would be to not exist anymore. I didn’t want to exist in this body. I didn’t want to face what that then meant.

I reached out to God again, pleading: “God, I don’t want this. I don’t want this,” over and over again. I crawled into bed feeling heavy and vulnerable and I pulled my blankets close like a cocoon. Fully prepared to fall asleep crying, like I often would on nights like this, out of nowhere, I felt another thought eclipse the inner self-destructive turmoil. A warm feeling; a sense of, “This is right,” and it was growing. It filled me up. I know it sounds strange or maybe a little farfetched, but I will say it wasn’t a sign: a voice from up high or a burning bush. It felt like a definitive answer, a sense of something deep inside me finally breaking out of the shadows. Like this was a higher power’s version of support. So I pulled myself up over the hurdle and took my first step toward accepting myself as being transgender. I didn’t choose it and I didn’t necessarily want it, but it made sense. And that’s all that mattered. That was the night that changed everything.

This entry is getting incredibly long, so I’ll stop there and continue in a separate entry. BUT let me know how you came out to yourself! You don’t have to be trans or even in the LGBTQ+ community. Was there something you’d been denying for too long and then one night, you suddenly found yourself accepting it? I want to hear it all!