Natalie Weiss

As previously published on October 19, 2020 on LAUNCH without fear.

Trigger Warning: Hi, all. I just wanted to preface this post with a trigger warning. This post details my struggles with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and suicidal ideation. If you or a loved one is struggling, there is definitely someone and something out there that can help. If you need help, please reach out to someone. Visit https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ to chat with someone or call 1-800-273-8255 if you are in need. The organizations To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) and The Trevor Project are other great resources.

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I go to therapy every week now. You know, because I’ve already met my deductible for the year. Because therapy is expensive. Once 2021 rolls around, I’ll have to scale it back to once a month again.

I’ve detailed my mental health journey in a series of posts on LAUNCH without fear. before. But of course I left out a few significant details. So I am seeking to remedy that here, in this series.

I didn’t think I was good at being an honest, vulnerable person. And then I had my first college class in four years this August. It was on Zoom, of course. It’s a creative nonfiction course. In the first class, our professor had us do this exercise called scene magic. We imagined a scene from our lives and wrote it out, following these prompts that layered in description, action, dialogue, reflection, and figurative language. I wrote about running the 2018 Chicago Marathon. You wouldn’t think that running a marathon and coming out are similar things. You wouldn’t think I could weave those in together in the same essay. But I did.

I remember sitting in my therapist’s office, back in late 2018, and I said something to the effect of this: I’ve run two marathons. I have gone through the training for two marathons. And it is difficult. But coming out to my family will be by far the most difficult thing I have ever done, and may ever have to do.

So sitting in the conference room of my workplace, on a Zoom meeting with this class for the first time, I wrote the scene of running the marathon, and I told of how all of the training and all of the pain I’d feel in the days after was worth it. I wrote of how I’d look back on that moment, when I kept going – 26.2 miles to be exact – and I didn’t give up, and I wouldn’t give up in the future – when I’d sit down with my family, and I’d finally come out.

I didn’t think I’d share that part of the writing. The whole piece wasn’t about coming out, after all. But it was the strongest part of the essay. It was the only part that made me feel something. And so I did. A group of strangers listened to how I was gay. And that is pretty vulnerable.

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The night of February 15^th, 2015 is a night I won’t forget. It’s funny to think about it now, after earlier this year I had a pretty good streak of going to a workout class at 5 am, but I was so stressed out that night in 2015 because I had to be at work at 6:45 the next morning. I remember it like this.

I lay in bed, knowing that I should sleep. I wrote earlier, and I finished the piece I was writing with this line: “Every heart has an hour of existence.” It truly feels like this is mine.

I don’t realize how true that line is about to become.

My room is pitch black. I used to always sleep with a night light. Always. I also used to sleep in my parents’ room a lot. I was a really nervous kid. When I couldn’t fall asleep to the TV, when the monsters under the bed and in the closet found their way into my head, I’d crawl out of bed, grab a blanket and my pillow, and lay on my parents’ floor. I don’t remember how old I was when I stopped doing this, but I was too old.

I don’t remember when I stopped using a night light either. Maybe I had convinced myself I was too old for one. Maybe I really did sleep better without it.

But right now, the dark is suffocating. It’s February, so it’s cold, and I’m wearing a hoodie. But I claw it away from my throat. It feels like everything is choking me.

I’m having a panic attack. It’s not my first one. My first one was in December, on my way to a final. I think I had a 100% in the course going into that final, but I was still terrified. Of failing, maybe. Or of succeeding. Of being good at school, but bad at life.

But needless to say, this is all still pretty new to me. I tell myself it will pass. I tell myself to breathe. I think about how I have to be up for work early. I feel suffocated. I feel terrified. I feel desperate.

My mind shifts.

There’s an opportunity for relief nearby.

I don’t have to do this anymore.

I can escape this hell that my mind has become.

I can escape the me that is gay and feels worthless and feels like I will never be enough, will never be loved.

I am stiff in bed, still panicking. But my mind imagines crawling out of bed. My mind imagines unlocking the safe in the corner of the room. My mind imagines pulling out the gun, loading the chamber, placing the muzzle to my temple. I can almost feel the cool kiss of metal there already. My mind imagines pulling the trigger, if I would feel it, what I would feel, what it would be like to be dead. My mind imagines my parents finding me. My mom’s grief. Everything they didn’t know. I know, if I did this, my mom would want to be dead too.

It feels like I am in a trance thinking about these things. Like something outside of me is forcing these thoughts into my head. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to kill myself. I want to live, and be alive, and find love, and be everything I was meant to be.

I don’t know how long I lay there, fighting between these thoughts, thinking about actually doing it, pulling myself back into my right mind. But finally, I get up. I go to the bathroom. I am shaking.

I notice my sister’s bedroom light is still on. It’s weird. She has to be up for work early too. And it’s almost midnight. Any other night, it seems, she would’ve been asleep. But tonight, she’s not.

I knock on her door.

I don’t tell her what’s going on. But I ask if I can sleep on her floor.

She says ok.

I grab a pillow and a blanket from my room and hurry back to my sister’s. My room feels like it’s full of demons tonight. The gun still calls to me.

Eventually, I fall asleep in her room.

I wake up. I go to work at 6:45. I feel on edge the entire day. When I get off, I tell my manager I need to talk to her about something. And I tell her about my depression and anxiety. I don’t tell her I’m gay. That’s not really the main concern right now. Even if it is a factor.

My manager helps me set up my first therapy appointment.

I go home. I tell my mom what happened. What has been happening. I don’t tell her I’m gay.

I lay on the floor with my dog. I try to fall asleep. I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to be.

The next few days, I suffer from nearly unending panic attacks. Shaking. Disturbed thinking. I can barely eat anything. The only solace I find is watching Three’s Company and drinking coffee.

Luckily, I am not scheduled at work. But I do have an exam. I miss it.

I care, but not enough.

This is when my mom takes me to the local medical supply store and gets me a therapy light.

This is when I also find out that I am Vitamin D deficient.

This is when I tell my mom I need to take the gun out of my room.

It’s the perfect storm, triggering what I have been through.

Within a few days, I come back to myself a bit. I think about Job, from the Bible. He lost everything. God let Satan do it. But God was still there. I think about Job, and I think about me. And I think about God. I believe He is still with me. Maybe He let this happen to me for a reason. If for nothing else, to prove He’s still here.

In the coming days and weeks, I don’t experience another situation as intense as the night of the 15^th and the subsequent couple of days, but I am still shaken. I still feel like something is not right and will not be right unless I make a change.

I really like the girl at work still. In another time, I would’ve just asked her out. But I’m nowhere near there yet. I’m not even sure I can stand this part of myself. But after what I’ve just been through, I realize that this is a big part of the problem. If I can’t learn to accept myself, if I can’t reconcile this part of me with my faith, then I am headed towards destruction. I am headed towards another dark night.

It is a journey. A journey that takes nearly 22 years. But on April 16^th, 2015, I sit alone in the living room, and I write:

This isn’t a story for my enemies, nor for anyone who wishes to see me fall. This is a story for those who love me, for those who want me to love myself, for once and for all.

This is the story of an unending conversation with God. It is a story of my deepest, darkest secret. Even now, I feel like I shouldn’t be writing this here, now, in my living room at 12:30 in the afternoon. Instead, I should be writing under the cover of darkness, alone in my room and boxed in by my four walls.

It is the seed of the hate that I have for myself.

And that is why it is the story that must be told. It is what I am coming to accept about myself every day. It is what I am coming to respect, and, yes, even love about myself every day. Because though people of my religion say that it is a choice, and that I can change, and that I should beg God for His awesome power to change me, I’m the one who knows what it’s like to be like this.

And why should God spend His awesome power changing my sexuality? We have far more to be worried about.

I never had a “eureka” moment in this; I’ve known it, I’ve tried to hide it, for as long as I can remember. It is the seed of my shame. It is a contributor to my depression and anxiety. It freezes me in fear. “I wonder if they know? I wonder if they suspect?” my mind questions over and over. Maybe it’s time to add another question to the mix: I wonder if they care?

And here I am, near 300 words into this piece, and I still haven’t said outright what I’ve come here to say. That same fear is back, squeezing into my chest and shutting me down. No more.

For as long as I can remember, this is my understanding: I am a homosexual; I am a lesbian.

There it is. Do with that bit of information what you will. Because for me to confess it, it is life altering. That is the first time I have ever typed those words. And this is the story that I have hidden away in my mind and my soul.

Finally, after nearly 22 years, I come out to myself.